I have demonstrated the dangers we face from global climate change and its causal links to atmospheric CO2 dozens of times here on these pages. While we still have a long way to go, before we can end our dependence on fossil fuels, the real progress we are making in that direction is being obstructed, because someone is Koch sucking the kilowatts. I bet you can guess who!
At long last, the Koch brothers and their conservative allies in state government have found a new tax they can support. Naturally it’s a tax on something the country needs: solar energy panels.
For the last few months, the Kochs and other big polluters have been spending heavily to fight incentives for renewable energy, which have been adopted by most states. They particularly dislike state laws that allow homeowners with solar panels to sell power they don’t need back to electric utilities. So they’ve been pushing legislatures to impose a surtax on this increasingly popular practice, hoping to make installing solar panels on houses less attractive.
Oklahoma lawmakers recently approved such a surcharge at the behest of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the conservative group that often dictates bills to Republican statehouses and receives financing from the utility industry and fossil-fuel producers, including the Kochs. As The Los Angeles Times reported recently, the Kochs and ALEC have made similar efforts in other states, though they were beaten back by solar advocates in Kansas and the surtax was reduced to $5 a month in Arizona.
But the Big Carbon advocates aren’t giving up. The same group is trying to repeal or freeze Ohio’s requirement that 12.5 percent of the state’s electric power come from renewable sources like solar and wind by 2025. Twenty-nine states have established similar standards that call for 10 percent or more in renewable power. These states can now anticipate well-financed campaigns to eliminate these targets or scale them back.
The coal producers’ motivation is clear: They see solar and wind energy as a long-term threat to their businesses. That might seem distant at the moment, when nearly 40 percent of the nation’s electricity is still generated by coal, and when less than 1 percent of power customers have solar arrays. (It is slightly higher in California and Hawaii.) But given new regulations on power-plant emissions of mercury and other pollutants, and the urgent need to reduce global warming emissions, the future clearly lies with renewable energy. In 2013, 29 percent of newly installed generation capacity came from solar, compared with 10 percent in 2012…
Inserted from <NY Times>
Photo credit: Source Watch
The Koch Brothers, their corporate criminal cronies, their ALEC shysters, and the Republican lackeys who gobble up the legislation ALEC writes for them to parrot as their own don’t care how much they harm YOUR earth and YOUR health in their underhanded quest for dictatorial power and dirty profits. YOU are the ones that have to stop them.
7 Responses to “Koch Sucking the Kilowatts”
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There is nothing they will not do to increase their stranglehold of power on people the world over – we must constantly strive to oppose them in every peaceful way possible – starting with signing everything we can to do with Green power and joining as many organisations to do with it as possible.
I once had a discussion with a Right Winger who said Global Warming and sea level rise didn't bother him – he lived 200 feet up from the coast! I replied that he should think about the fact that a large proportion of the world's population lives near sea level – and that sea level land which is so vulnerable to sea level rise includes prime agricultural land which we rely on to provide food. Also to take just one example of Bangladesh, its population was then around 135 million – around 90% of whom live already within inches of sealevel and are vulnerable to ordinary flooding – what did he think they were going to do if sea levels rose – just tell their families to breathe in the water? Or would they do what anyone in that position would do – move to try and get food and shelter elsewhere – hundreds of millions of people from dozens of different countries would be trying to find food and refuge somewhere and with nothing to support them – it would be chaos and would most definitely affect him!
(NB the Bangladesh population at the last census in 2011 was approximately 153 million… there are hundreds of millions more in other countries who live near sea level – including most of the world's capital cities!).
Isn't it amazing, Pat, how some people can only see two inches in front of them? Rising sea levels will affect us all in one way or another- duh
These people can't see their hands in front of their faces even if someone else points it out to them. They are not going to change and that is why the Kochs court them.
I feel for those here, and everywhere, who have children and grandchildren. If I live long enough to even see the sea level rises that are predicted, I expect the toxins in the air and water to get me soon after. But our kids are going to have to live with this.
The Kochs and their lackeys feel they will be exempt from the damage done by fossil fuels because they can afford to relocate to better places. The rest of us will be stuck dealing with it. As long as the majority of our congress is owned by these two, we will all have to keep fighting.
Amen and thanks to all!
Just in case some one does not know, you can watch the "Years of Living Dangerously" on you tube and you should be, this is no time to be uninformed.
Oklahoma is considered the most conservative state with not one county that is not bright RED. That the governor would follow this whistle by ALEC is no surprise. There are still climate deniers, or those that know better but try the justification of the earth is always changing. That is true as far as it goes, the earth changes are incredibly slow in human terms we would have no idea that changes are happening. The changes science has offered are within a measurable 30-40 years of changes. That is not the planet, but to some degree that is the stupidity of humans. Maybe Oklahoma does deserve all the derisive jokes.
Thanks TC.