Facebook’s global expansion has been linked to political turmoil overseas, so maybe their ads should focus less on how they “connect the world” and more on why connecting people isn’t always the best idea.

The interior secretary’s latest gaffe was a pledge of allegiance to fossil fuels.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke let the mask slip this week, turning the subtext of his term in office into the headline as he spoke to a friendly audience.

On Tuesday, Zinke gave the keynote address at the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association’s fall meeting in Lafayette, Louisiana. He told the conference over lunch “our government should work for you,” according to organizers:

https://twitter.com/LaOilGasAssoc/status/1042111137603567616

You can debate what Zinke meant by “work for you,” but many heard it as a pledge of allegiance to the industry.

And according to the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, the industry members in the room were thrilled with the pledge, giving Zinke a standing ovation. (An organizer told me none of the speeches at the event were recorded.)

However, environmental activists and some lawmakers were appalled by the statement.

https://twitter.com/RepDonBeyer/status/1042824459202248705

Read more: https://www.vox.com/2018/9/21/17886538/ryan-zinke-interior-oil-gas-industry-environment

Newly found documents from the 1980s show that fossil fuel companies privately predicted the global damage that would be caused by their products.

<snip>

America’s amoral military planning during the Cold War echoes the hubris exhibited by another cast of characters gambling with the fate of humanity. Recently, secret documents have been unearthed detailing what the energy industry knew about the links between their products and global warming. But, unlike the government’s nuclear plans, what the industry detailed was put into action.

In the 1980s, oil companies like Exxon and Shell carried out internal assessments of the carbon dioxide released by fossil fuels, and forecast the planetary consequences of these emissions. In 1982, for example, Exxon predicted that by about 2060, CO2 levels would reach around 560 parts per million – double the preindustrial level – and that this would push the planet’s average temperatures up by about 2°C over then-current levels (and even more compared to pre-industrial levels).

Later that decade, in 1988, an internal report by Shell projected similar effects but also found that CO2 could double even earlier, by 2030. Privately, these companies did not dispute the links between their products, global warming, and ecological calamity. On the contrary, their research confirmed the connections.

Shell’s assessment foresaw a one-meter sea-level rise, and noted that warming could also fuel disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, resulting in a worldwide rise in sea level of “five to six meters.” That would be enough to inundate entire low-lying countries.

Shell’s analysts also warned of the “disappearance of specific ecosystems or habitat destruction,” predicted an increase in “runoff, destructive floods, and inundation of low-lying farmland,” and said that “new sources of freshwater would be required” to compensate for changes in precipitation. Global changes in air temperature would also “drastically change the way people live and work.” All told, Shell concluded, “the changes may be the greatest in recorded history.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings

Former Secretary of State and 'What Happened' author Hillary Clinton says that, unlike the author of the anonymous NYT op-ed, she never had to steal a treaty from President Obama's desk.




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Trump has perverted the process and undermined U.S. credibility.

By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist

In normal times, Donald Trump’s announcement of tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, bringing us closer to an all-out trade war, would have dominated headlines for days. Things being as they are, it was a below-the-fold story, drowned out by all the other scandals underway.

Yet Trump’s tariffs really are a big, bad deal. Their direct economic impact will be modest, although hardly trivial. But the numbers aren’t the whole story. Trumpian trade policy has, almost casually, torn up rules America itself created more than 80 years ago — rules intended to ensure that tariffs reflected national priorities, not the power of special interests.

You could say that Trump is making tariffs corrupt again. And the damage will be lasting.

Until the 1930s, U.S. trade policy was both dirty and dysfunctional. It wasn’t just that overall tariffs were high; who got how much tariff protection was determined through a free-for-all of horse-trading among special interests.

The costs of this free-for-all went beyond economics: They undermined U.S. influence and damaged the world as a whole. Most notably, in the years after World War I, America demanded that European nations repay their war debts, which meant that they had to earn dollars through exports — and at the same time America imposed high tariffs to block those necessary exports.



Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/opinion/tariffs-trump-corrupt.html

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