What's the panic?
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http://news.trust.org/item/20181107183142-c0yti/
<p class=”tr-story-p1″>Voters in Colorado, Arizona and Washington states rejected ballot initiatives that sought to curb fossil fuels use by restricting drilling, putting a fee on carbon emissions and mandating the wider use of renewable energy.</p>
In Colorado, an initiative to limit new drilling near populated or vulnerable areas, which would have heavily curtailed the industry, received 43 percent of the vote, less than the majority required to pass. Shares in oil producers operating in Colorado rallied after the state’s proposed drilling restrictions failed. Aadarko Petroleum Corp gained 6 percent and Noble Energy Inc jumped 5 percent.The Washington state measure, meanwhile, which would have imposed the nation’s first fee on carbon emissions – mostly at the expense of the state’s oil refiners – garnered only 44 percent of the vote.
In Arizona, voters defeated a proposal backed that would have required electricity providers to use renewable energy for half of their needs by 2030, up from the current 15 percent. The measure was opposed by Arizona Public Service Co, the state’s largest utility, which argued it would be forced to shut coal and nuclear plants, and pass along those costs to customers.
The outcomes showed “voters reject policies that would make energy more expensive,” said Thomas J. Pyle, president of free-market advocacy group American Energy Alliance.
Groups defending the oil industry spent a combined $66 million to defeat the Colorado and Washington measures, with much of the contributions coming from large energy companies
What was also shown is that the capitalist class is deeply divided with some billionaires supporting green legislation against vested interests.
But more importantly, that our fellow-workers do not consider the situation as a serious one and are happy to agree with the status quo rather than make changes that may cost them $, a strategy being used by the fossil fuels passing the burden on to the workers.
Maybe. Or maybe the case for the ecological policies didn’t have the same financial backing oil did? I think in the states that have the most to lose with climate change, say Florida, votes like this may go differently. Most people do not act to change anything from huge global issues, down to the closure of their local shop until the dire consequences become real and everyday for them.
That is what one billionaire green said, Sussex an pointed to the success of Nevada passing mitigation legislation. But here is another story of complacency.
The ban of diesel cars by 2040 sounds good for environmentalists, but such a decision needs to be urgent as explained by Gareth Redmond-King, head of climate and energy policy at environment group WWF.
‘‘The government’s been failing to comply with this law for seven years and then it is setting itself a target so far in the future.’’
Implementation is coming too late to fully combat the issue.
In my dictionary it is called: Sold to the ruling class. There was a measure in the State of California for rent control and it was rejected by the majority of the peoples, and the opposition was made by the landlords, landowners and real estate billionaires. The USA ruling class is divided, but the workers are more divided than the rulers
I would say that some of those voting against limitations on drilling for oil or gas will have done so to keep or get a job (no doubt exaggerated by the propaganda of those capitalists against the limits on their profit-making). In a way that would be understandable as workers need a job, or rather the wage that goes with it, today. That will naturally have priority in their minds over something that might or might not happen in 10 or 12 years time. Can we really condemn them for that? It’s not their fault that they live in a society where economic necessity compels them (us) to find and keep a job as a source of income.
What about all those cotton mill workers in England who refused to support the Confederacy during the American Civil War even though the blockade jeopardised their jobs, ALB.
Or those who refused to support racism or anti-immigrationism because it was alleged that white or native-born jobs were at risk.
We may understand the motives for self-interest and sectionalism but that doesn’t mean we condone it and yes, in certain case, we condemn it when wider considerations are due.
I recall way back when i first read of Dave Douglass and carbon capture coal policies, he was performing as a trade unionist fighting for his members jobs when there were coal miners jobs to fight for and a NUM to represent them.
but little different from the Trump supporters in the coal mines of West Virginia believing Trump was promising to save their jobs and not the investments an interests of the mine-owners.
i have been in arguments with those who were losing ship-yard jobs when they didn’t get orders from the Royal Navy for war-ships. Isn’t Trump and May using the same arguments that contracts with the Saudis and the jobs that go along with them are more important than human lives in Yemen.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair
It has been proven that solar power manufacturers, installers and maintenance provide more jobs than petroleum and gas. Some peoples voted for the coal industry based on family traditions because his/her grandfather was a coal miner and they must follow the tradition, despite the fact that coal is one most polluter source of energy and it produce lung cancer to most of the workers. Everything is based on the propaganda made by the ruling class and national pride, and nationalist sentiments, by the meantime. the capitalist class is making billions of dollars in profits, and they are living in poverty. The pipelines they only employ a few peoples but many peoples voted in favor of the installations of oil pipeline which might destroy rivers and lands because the country must not depend on foreign oil, and the price of gasoline will decrease
One at least of the voters’ initiatives (referendums initiated by a minimum number of electors) had a positive result. People in Florida voted to potentially increase the electorate there by 1.4 million or 10%:
https://www.wral.com/florida-passes-amendment-to-restore-felons-voting-rights/17978574/
In many countries prisoners are allowed to vote,( but police and military are not allowed to vote ) and death penalty have been eliminated, and many countries have habeas corpus, and the only requirement for a political party to participate in the electoral process is to file an application with the pictures of their candidates, and more than two political parties participate in the election. Socialists and communist are interviewed in the television and the radio program , voting date is a holiday, or it takes place during a weekend which allow all peoples to vote, vote counting is not done with machinery, votes are manually counted and delegates of every political parties must certify the count, the winner is the candidate which obtain more votes, it is not a vestige of slavery which will prevail, or a minority electing a president, and most ministers, and senator are elected every four or six years, they are not kept for 20 or 30 years in the same post.( the maximum is two terms ) Most of those countries are called shitholes by the US president, but a small country known as Costa Rica has a more democratic electoral process than the US, and they do not have an standing army, and most elected presidents are right wingers
Florida is a place where several presidents, and government ministers have been elected due to electoral frauds and voters suppression. Many peoples defend the idea that the so called framers of the US constitution or so called founder fathers did not want a democracy, they want a Republic, or a plutocracy, which means that a minority of peoples are allowed to become presidents or senators. and then, they talk about democracy. It is a pure contradiction, In reality in the USA the so called Independence Day is false, because the colonized ones were not allowed to obtain independence, on the contrary, it was a fight of colonizers against others colonizers. and the colonized ones never obtained their freedom Haiti which will be called a shit hole had a real anti-colonization struggle, and black slaves from the US used to escape to Haiti in order to obtain legal protection, and Mexico after they obtained their independence, slavery was completely eliminated, that is another country which would be called a shit hole. The Democratic Party is accusing the Russians for collusion with the US election, but the US has participated in the election fraud of more than 81 countries, and they have overthrown elected presidents, and they have forced several elected presidents to resign and to leave the country, the US ambassador would become the president
Top oil and gas companies jointly spent around 1 percent of their 2018 budgets on clean energy.
According to CDP, a climate-focused research provider that works with major institutional investors with $87 trillion in assets.
“With less domestic pressure to diversify, U.S. companies have not embraced renewables in the same way as their European peers,” CDP said in a report.
As a whole the world’s top 24 publicly-listed companies spent 1.3 percent of total budgets of $260 billion on low carbon energy in 2018. That is still nearly double the 0.68 percent of investments the group had made in the period between 2010 and 2017.
“This 1 percent figure pales in comparison with the amount of money Big Oil spends blocking climate initiatives and regulations, and invests in fossil fuel projects that have no place in a well-below 2 degree Celsius world,” said Jeanne Martin of campaign group ShareAction. “Investors need to step up their engagement and tell fossil fuel companies to align their business models with the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Martin said.
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