John Upton at Grist writes of how
Oil companies try to weasel out of California’s cap-and-trade program:
Like climate change, California’s cap-and-trade program is an evolving and growing beast. Since its official launch last year, power plants, cement producers, glass manufacturers, and some other heavy industries operating in the Golden State have been required to reduce carbon emissions and pay for the privilege of polluting the atmosphere with heat-trapping gases. In January of 2015, the program is due to expand to affect suppliers of natural gas andmotor fuels, helping to further slow global warming and raise billions more dollars for climate and environmental programs.
But, whoa, hold up there, you crazy Left Coasters. Including gasoline in the program would slightly raise gas prices and provide financial support for alternatives, such as electric-vehicle charging stations and solar panels. And that’s the last thing Big Oil and its pals want.
ClimateWire reports that oil companies and big business groups have been pushing state lawmakers to exempt gasoline from the cap-and-trade program, pointing out that Californian motorists would be burdened with increased prices at gas pumps. And it seems that some lawmakers have been listening carefully. Last week, Assemblymember Henry Perea (D) amended legislation in such a way as to exempt motor fuels from the program for an additional three years.
“The cap-and-trade system should not be used to raise billions of dollars in new state funds at the expense of consumers who are struggling to get back on their feet after the recession,” Perea said in a press release.
Environmentalists and other lawmakers quickly cried foul over the climate-fouling maneuver. […]
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—Our Good Friend:
How do you mark the beginning of Islamic extremism?
There are any number of denominational schisms, publications, and incidents that might be pointed out. However, if you read the works of Iranian Nobel Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, she frequently points to Operation Ajax as the event that boosted the fundamentalists from a laughable sideshow, into a viable and rapidly growing faction.
Though it's oddly missing from US history books, Operation Ajax was the successful CIA-supported overthrow of the popular, Prime Minister of Iran and his replacement by the Shah.
Iranians were hired to protest Mossadegh and fight pro-Mossadegh demonstrators. Anti- and pro-monarchy protesters violently clashed in the streets, leaving almost three hundred dead. The operation was successful in triggering a coup, and within days, pro-Shah tanks stormed the capital and bombarded the Prime Minister's residence. |
The US wanted the Shah in power because they feared Iran might "go communist," and they saw the Shaw as more reliably "pro-Western." The UK wanted the prime minister replaced because they wanted back into the Iranian oil fields. The code word to start the operation was broadcast on the BBC. The Shah was Our Good Friend. |
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