Executive Summary: Fill & Download for Free

I admit that I have so far read only the executive summary not the whole paper. Here are my first impressions:The government is suggestingA common rulebook for goods including agri-food, covering only those rules necessary to provide for frictionless trade at the border – meaning that the UK would make an upfront choice to commit by treaty to ongoing harmonisation with the relevant EU rules, with all those rules legislated for by Parliament or the devolved legislatures;... in light of the depth of this partnership, binding provisions that guarantee an open and fair trading environment – committing to apply a common rulebook for state aid, establishing cooperative arrangements between regulators on competition, and agreeing to maintain high standards through non-regression provisions in areas including the environment and employment rules, in keeping with the UK's strong domestic commitments.I take this to mean that we will apply all EU directives and regulations relating to goods including agricultural products. That is to say not just quality standards, but also all legislation on workers rights, workplace health/safety/environment, government support and subsidy, government procurement etc. In order to prevent crossing the UK red line on subservience to EU legislation the government says that these rules will be enacted by UK legislative bodies and not by the EU.There are two contentious issues that I can see with this:It is a major issue for Brexit supporters as in practice it means that we cannot repeal what they see as bureaucratic and stifling legislation (for example the Working Time Regulations) and in particular it would appear to make trade deals with other countries close to impossible. I get the impression that this was the main concern of those cabinet members who have resigned.I think that the EU will object to the UK cherry picking the 'relevant' EU rules. They will feel that we are trying to stay in the single market for goods without complying with all the requirements, and as we will see later without complying with the four freedoms.Next the government are suggesting:"…participation by the UK in those EU agencies that provide authorisations for goods in highly regulated sectors – a namely the European Chemicals Agency, the European Aviation Safety Agency, and the European Medicines Agency – accepting the rules of these agencies and contributing to their costs, under new arrangements that recognise the UK will not be a Member State;"Does this mean we are not going to have our own Medicines Agency etc? I'm not clear from this statement. If so the EU has not permitted third countries such as Switzerland this arrangement so I'm not sure that they will do it for us.Next:"…the phased introduction of a new Facilitated Customs Arrangement that would remove the need for customs checks and controls between the UK and the EU as if they were a combined customs territory, which would enable the UK to control its own tariffs for trade with the rest of the world and ensure businesses paid the right or no tariff, becoming operational in stages as both sides complete the necessary preparations; in combination with no tariffs on any goods, these arrangements would avoid any new friction at the border, and protect the integrated supply chains that span the UK and the EU, safeguarding the jobs and livelihoods they support;"This looks like the suggestion that the EU has already rejected as unworkable. It is another serious issue for Brexit supporters as the only way to make it workable would seem be complete harmonisation with EU tariffs.Next:"• new arrangements on services and digital, providing regulatory freedom where it matters most for the UK's services-based economy, and so ensuring the UK is best placed to capitalise on the industries of the future in line with the modern Industrial Strategy, while recognising that the UK and the EU will not have current levels of access to each other's markets;• new economic and regulatory arrangements for financial services, preserving the mutual benefits of integrated markets and protecting financial stability while respecting the right of the UK and the EU to control access to their own markets – noting that these arrangements will not replicate the EU's passporting regimes;"This looks like excessively vague 'new arrangements' which falls short of a single market in services and finance and ends passporting rights. It looks like it might affect the service industry adversely unless it can find a way to adapt - and remember this is now by far and away the most important part of the UK economy. The EU countries are desperate to get their hands on this business so expect some hard bargaining on how the new arrangements work.Next:"a new framework that respects the UK's control of its borders and enables UK and EU citizens to continue to travel to each other's countries, and businesses and professionals to provide services – in line with the arrangements that the UK might want to offer to other close trading partners in the future;"So an end to freedom of movement - one of the principle four freedoms of the EU. What it precisely means for UK citizens wanting to live and work in Europe is unclear, but what seems clear to me is that freedom of movement is fundamental to the EU and they will not agree to single market access for goods without it.So make of it what you will. It is an attempt to try and please everyone that will please no one, but faced with the situation the government has its probably the best they can do. It looks at first sight impossible to get both parliament and the EU to agree to it, but given Mrs May's extraordinary ability to soldier on through a hail of brickbats that would down a lesser person, don't write it off yet!

The only ones who flipped was republicans in the US. Why?Because the Kochs flooded them with fossil fuels money.Climate change was a bipartisan issue until fossil fuel money started to flood the republican party.Roger Fjellstad Olsen's answer to What effect does lobbying have on climate change issues being addressed in the US?In the US, at least 180 congressional members and senators are declared climate deniers. They’ve received more than US$82 million in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry and its partners.The Kochs are probably the main founders of the american denial machine. Their agenda is to undermine all science which comes into “conflict” with their self interests. They are mega big polluters. And they have paid politicians to “do nothing about global warming”. (Watch the video)Most republican politicians are puppets for the Kochs.What is the current state of affairs after 70 years of this climate denial machine? In the US, at least 180 congressional members and senators are declared climate deniers. They’ve received more than US$82 million in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry and its partners.Q: How much money bribe from oil and gas industry does it take to claim that “climate scientists are in it for the money”?A: $763,331Climate scientists slam Rick Santorum's "conspiracy theory" that they're in it for the moneyWhen you have received $763,331 from oil and gas companies, I guess its mandatory to claim that "climate scientists are in it for the money" right?LOLOil & Gas: Money to CongressOr this:A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that over the last 20 years, private funding has had an important influence on the overall polarization of climate change as a topic in the United States.Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate changeTruth is these interests are spending billions on lobbying officials:"Lobbying is conducted away from the public eye," explained Brulle. "There is no open debate or refutation of viewpoints offered by professional lobbyists meeting in private with government officials. Control over the nature and flow of information to government decision-makers can be significantly altered by the lobbying process and creates a situation of systematically distorted communication. This process may limit the communication of accurate scientific information in the decision-making process."As the study concludes, “the environmental organization and the renewable energy sectors were outspent by the corporate sectors involved in the production or use of fossil fuels by a ratio of approximately 10 to 1.”How lobbyists buy climate change legislationhttp://www.drexel.edu/~/media/Fi...About $2 billion USD was spent between 2000 and 2016 by a variety of fossil-fuel related actors on US lobbying alone to confuse the issue on climate change, deny the science and prevent action. This is according to a peer-reviewed study published in the Springer journal Climatic Change, a long-lasting interdisciplinary journal with a solid impact factor of 3.537. The study is The climate lobby: a sectoral analysis of lobbying spending on climate change in the USA, 2000 to 2016 by Robert Brulle of Drexel University.As Brulle points out in his abstract,Major sectors involved in lobbying were fossil fuel and transportation corporations, utilities, and affiliated trade associations. Expenditures by these sectors dwarf those of environmental organizations and renewable energy corporations.https://phys.org/news/2013-12-ko...https://cleantechnica.com/2016/0...Exclusive: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science’CONCLUSION:Climate deniers have no reason to say climate science is politicized. They have themselves made it political.Libertarian and free-market ideology has traditionally had difficulty dealing with negative externalities, as detailed in the non-libertarian FAQ; denial allows a person to simply ignore the limitations of their ideology.American conservatives in particular tend to distrust government, dislike regulations and hate taxes, so that any problem whose solution is a tax or a regulation naturally attracts distrust.The Denial for profit movement has, naturally, exploited these conservative values. Most of the propaganda they create is simply pandering to their tribe.We also live in a time when many people feel they dont have to be objectively wrong anymore. Lobbyists create tribal food, pulp fiction, which can be used to fill the holes and flaws in deniers ideology. To justify their denial.Americans want a clean environment, widespread good health, high standards of living, security, freedom, peace, and opportunity for both themselves and others. This posed a problem, given that the polluters industries and their network opposed environmental regulation and government action on global warming, and supported privatizing Social Security and health care.So the Denial for profit polluters knew they had to hide their self interests into “something”.If your dog needs a pill, which he hates, what do you do to make the dog swallow it? Yes, you hide the pill in its food.“They connected their audience’s underlying ideologies to climate change: Because cutting GHG emissions requires intervention regulation or increased taxation of carbon emissions—that curtail free market economics, people whose identity and worldview centers around free markets became particularly likely to reject the findings from climate science when the logic was laid bare.”An environmental law might sound perfectly OK for conservatives, but when the Denial machine is renaming said laws for “tax scams” and “socialism”, this triggers their already dislike for governments and their built-in fear of communism, and will feel like honey being inserted into their ears.Just like tobacco industry, fossil fuels made it into a lifestyle issue. An ideological issue. For generations, the Tobacco industry has tried to convince millions of people that smoking is cool, sexy and completely harmless. Its become tribal. Black and white. Climate denial has become mandatory for the american right. If you dont hate the government, you’re a socialist.Smearing scientists and undermining "unwanted" science which comes into conflict with self interests and ideology, is all part of the denial propaganda machine:"Cynicism about the motives of public servants, including government-backed climate scientists, can be traced to a group of neoliberals and their ‘toxic’ ideas".“Back in the late 1980s, when it became pretty clear that there was no persistent Soviet threat, conservatives needed a new bogeyman, and they found it in the environmental movement. “Green is the new Red.[…] Cries for environmental regulation were twisted into calls for socialism and the end of economic progress.”Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial PersonalityHow Is Climate Change Denial Still a Thing?The irony of this thinking is hilarious;While the scientific work of agencies like NOAA and NASA is higly respected and acknowledged world wide, in america, they are hated by the denial movement, and in such way, if this was the 50s, climate deniers would been locked away for anti american behaviour by the McCarthy process.50 YEARS OF US SCIENCE AND GOVERNMENTS AND PRESIDENTS COMES TO THE SAME CONCLUSION ON AGW:PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON’S 1965 “Restoring the Quality of our Environment report”.Fifty years ago: The White House knew all about climate changeOn November 5, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s White House released “Restoring the Quality of our Environment”, a report that described the impacts of climate change, and foretold dramatic Antarctic ice sheet loss, sea level rise, and ocean acidification.That 1965 White House report stated:“Carbon dioxide is being added to the earth’s atmosphere by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas at the rate of 6 billion tons a year. By the year 2000 there will be about 25 percent more CO2 in our atmosphere than present. This will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate, not controllable through local or even national efforts, could occur.”On the 50th anniversary of the White House report, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are indeed at 399 ppm: 25 percent over 1965 levels, exactly as predicted 50 years ago.http://ourchildrenstrust.org/sit...Ronald Reagan’s 1989 EPA REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGEPage 28: http://bit.ly/2w8YMuV1970: Nixon founded the Environmental Protection Agency.1987: Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol (to ban ozone-depleting pollutants),In 1989 Pres. Ronald Reagan proposed creation of the U.S. Climate Change Research Program (USGCRP) to coordinate the research, monitoring, and assessment activities of more than a dozen federal government agencies an Departments. Pres. George H.W. Bush signed enabling legislation two years later. Trump and his Administration and Republicans in Congress are ignoring and denigrating three decades of scientific research and monitoring and systematically dismantling and bastardizing the USGCRP.George H W Bush introduce cap-and-trade (to deal with the acid rain problem).The Political History of Cap and TradeAnd what about George W Bush?Well Dubbya of course ran against the single politician--Al Gore--who is most closely associated with the cause of climate action in modern U.S. history.So I suppose it isn't too surprising that we heard lines like this spoken on the campaign trail:“As we promote electricity and renewable energy, we will work to make our air cleaner. With the help of Congress, environmental groups and industry, we will require all power plants to meet clean air standards in order to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide within a reasonable period of time. And we will provide market-based incentives, such as emissions trading, to help industry achieve the required reductions.”What might be surprising for you to learn, however, is that it wasn't Al Gore--but George W Bush--who made that statement in the run-up to the election. It was Bush who had committed to combat climate change through the regulation of carbon emissions.http://michaelmann.net/content/v...George W. Bush administration 2001 National Academies report:Committee on the Science of Climate ChangeDivision on Earth and Life StudiesNational Research Council“Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.[…] Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century[….] The predicted warming of 3°C (5.4°F) by the end of the 21st century is consistent with the assumptions about how clouds and atmospheric relative humidity will react to global warming.The National Academies PressTrump's 2018 National Climate Assessment. ️Based on extensive evidence … it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,”For the warming over the last century,“there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”Climate Science Special Report: Executive Summary

LOL.Oddly, the only people who seem to have noticed this "hoax" are fossil fuel and libertarian lobbyists and their spokespeople, plus a bunch of ideological and political hacks and denier conspiracy blogs and wingnut conservative propaganda blogs poorly drag queened as “newspapers” and their creationist Ship of fools friends who can't seem to understand even the most basic science.There is a dangerous and shameful anti science idiot wind blowing in the US right now. All the extremists have united in a devastating attack on science.No, this is not the Dark ages, this is the (former) science nation USA in 2019!! The Anti science league are still around like a pest. Like a second black death plague:Thats why we see creationists fighting to get creationism into schools,Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District - Wikipediaand attacking science:that’s why we also see anti vaxxers attacking science,Vaccine opponents attack U.S. science panelthat’s why we see mighty polluters industries fighting the science just like tobacco industry did.https://www.washingtonpost.com/n..."As early as the 1950s, the groups shared scientists and publicists to downplay dangers of smoking and climate change".https://www.scientificamerican.c...DENIERS FAVOURITE DENIER THINK TANK THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE ARE STILL TALKING DOWN THE HAZARDS OF TOBACCO SMOKING USING THE VERY SAME ARGUMENTS.You got to see this to believe it:Anthony Watts - SourceWatchDeniers favorite fossil fuel think tank front group, the Heartland Institutes view on tobacco and tobacco smoking. Now where have we heard these arguments before?This is chilling:Heartland Institute 2019:"The public health community's campaign to demonize smokers and all forms of tobacco is based on junk science"."The anti-smoking movement is hardly a grassroots phenomenon: It is largely funded by taxpayers and a few major foundations with left-liberal agendas."Smoker's Lounge | Heartland InstituteTHE WORLD WIDE CONSPIRACY - DENIERS WET DREAMThis is how deniers wet dream of a world wide conspiracy looks like. I just had to write it out for them:climate scientists from all over the world- have for about the last 150 years - contrived the world into believing that people are contributing to climate change by putting plant food into the atmosphere. All the world's governments have paid trillions and trillions of dollars (add as many zeroes you like) to these scientists for this hoaxy conclusion so that these authorities and governments can impose all kinds of taxes and regulations on their citizens and impose further restrictions and obstacles in the way of the fossil fuel industry. (Like they did to the innocent, cool and clean tobacco industry).A secret green industry is very soon ready to get mega rich by doing a global wealth redistribution and turning the world into a large wind farm park where there are all sorts of socialist welfare like silly free health care and education etc, but first, the oil and coal industry and all the kind free marked fundamentalists - who innocently sits in their garden coaches (and blames everything wrong in this world on “poor people and immigrants”) - must be stopped and placed on a remote island north of Greenland.Naturally, it’s the communists in the United Nations Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that manage all this through their headmaster Al Gore and the gay wizard of Dumbledore -all extended through the Illuminati agreement (the Paris agreement).Everything has been kept hidden until now, using the secret PC media (the political cartel), and environmental organizations, which is, of course, governed by the same authorities.but all this is finally exposed by a plucky band ofbloggers, amateur-deniers, boys room conspiracy drivlers, cranks, astroturf front groups, web-trolls, russian troll bots, youtube-videos, denier blog doctored graphs with childish handwritten arrows and comments added, desperate alt-right white supremacy nationalist madcap wingnuts, bible mums, creationists, very old conservative white men, political hacks, conservative propaganda blogs poorly draq queened as “newspapers”, Fox News-hosts, Breitbart blog commentary field readers, corrupt republican politicians, PragerU-sheeples, Ayn Rand-worshippers, government hating free market fundamentalists AND the fossil fuel industry.The leftist alarmist media are naturally pushing the “hoax”:Even without El Nino last year, Earth keeps warmingThe truth;In actuality, the science of AGW is apolitical, being based on credible evidence and physics. The denial of climate science, is based on no credible evidence and no physics, and is all-political.The denial of science is also like a true religion, for its acolytes also deny evidence and physics based on no evidence and no physics.When think tanks and fossil fuel front groups started to lobby for the fossil fuel self interests 75 years ago, the first thing they did was to camouflage those interests as an anti government anti regulation anti tax ideological anti socialist "struggle".“Back in the late 1980s, when it became pretty clear that there was no persistent Soviet threat, conservatives needed a new bogeyman, and they found it in the environmental movement. “Green is the new Red.[…] Cries for environmental regulation were twisted into calls for socialism and the end of economic progress.”The irony of this thinking is hilarious;While the scientific work of agencies like NOAA and NASA is higly respected and acknowledged world wide, in america, they are hated by the denial movement, and in such way, if this was the 50s, climate deniers would been locked away for anti american behaviour by the McCarthy process.Which side has the money?Think about it.Forbes list over richest people of the world shows most of them are from coal and oil industries. Yes, we are talking about one of the wealthiest industries ever.If there ever was such a thing as agovernment conspiracy working globally to turn America into a socialist dictatorship of huge wind mill parks and land of solar panels run by UN leftists:ask yourself these 7 question;1.why then has America and the World been polluted for 120 years with lead, asbestos, DDT, mercury, arsenic, teflon, nicotine and now CO2?Can you spot the “green deal dragon”?Look more like a dirty black deal to me.2. why then is Government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, intended to protect the public from pollution, now being run by former fossil fuel lobbyists of those very polluters and every environmental law demolished?Trump taps former coal lobbyist to lead EPAE.P.A. Plans to Get Thousands of Pollution Deaths Off the Books by Changing Its Math83 Environmental Rules Being Rolled Back Under Trump3. Why then did Senators Not Backing Green New Deal Receive On Average 7 Times As Much Fossil Fuel Cash?Senators Not Backing Green New Deal Received On Average 7 Times As Much Fossil Fuel Cash4. why then are these "green" governments giving out multi billions in socialist subsidies to fossil fuels , not to “green” energy??Green energy feels the heat as subsidies go to fossil fuelsGlobal fossil fuel subsidies totaled $544 billion in 2012, compared to only $101 billion for renewables. The International Monetary Fund estimates fossil fuel subsidies for 2015 to be $5.3 trillion - an amount equal to 6.5% of global GDP. More than 40% of this represents subsidies for coal, the most environmentally damaging of all fossil fuels. Although not good news on its face, the disproportionate funding for fossil fuels represents a tremendous opportunity to shift funding to renewable energy without an overall increase in costs.Global Subsidies - Fossil Fuels vs. Renewables — Environmental Graphiti5. Why are there 180 climate deniers in the Republican party?How US climate machine has left 180 deniers in Congress - Michael West6. Why then is it republicans in 2019 seems to forget or ignore that the 3 main environmental issues in modern times were all initiated and fulfilled by REPUBLICAN presidents?7. Why then did the US say goodbye to the Kyoto and Paris Accord?8. Why dont climate deniers understand that their undermining and smearing of american institutions like NASA, NAS and The Pentagon would had been seen upon as anti-american back in the 50s, and they would had been locked away for being communists?if there is an ongoing “green conspiracy”,Can someone tell me where this “green conspiracy” is?Now ask yourself a new question;Doesn't it look much more like a fossil fuel industry that uses huge sums of money to bribe everyone they can to protect its cash flow?What’s more plausible?A world wide conspiracy involving tens of thousands of scientists and 200 nations over a period of 200 years?Polluters industries are hiding their self interests in ideology and politics to pander their tribe and bribes anyone they can - because they don’t have any science on their side? Just like tobacco did?Lets look closer at the 7 questions:1 AMERICA THE POLLUTED:America the polluted2. WHY ARE THE EPA NOW A JOKE AND EVERY ENVIRONMENTAL LAW DESTROYED BY THEIR FOSSIL FUEL PUPPETS?The EPA was created to protect citizens from pollutions and environmental hazards. But he EPA is now a joke in Trumps America. It’s been hijacked by fossil fuel puppets and climate deniers. FFS, their new chief is a former coal lobbyist.Trump taps former coal lobbyist to lead EPAAnd when fossil fuel interests get bogged down in the candy store alone, this is what happens:Donald Trump has announced a replacement for the Clean Power Plan, one that would create hundreds of millions more tons of carbon pollutionThe Oil Industry’s Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions RulesThe Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the health risks of air pollution, a shift that would make it easier to roll back a key climate change rule because it would result in far fewer predicted deaths from pollution, according to five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans.E.P.A. Plans to Get Thousands of Pollution Deaths Off the Books by Changing Its MathMercury Limits on Coal Plants No Longer ‘Appropriate,’ EPA SaysEPA Says Limiting Mercury Pollution From Power Plants Is No Longer 'Appropriate and Necessary'Trump's New Power Plan Comes With a Deadly Price83 Environmental Rules Being Rolled Back Under TrumpThe Trump Administration’s War on Wildlife Should Be a ScandalNational Parks Getting Trashed During Government ShutdownFlorida Court Orders Oil Drilling In Everglades To Move Aheadhttps://www.facebook.com/yearswa...Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate changePublic Citizen report on Koch-Trump connectionsTrumps America is fossil fuels America. How proud deniers must be. Leat them eat mercury, as they did lead, asbestos, DDT, nicotine and C02, you know, those other "hoaxes" science warned about. And as usual, these environmental laws will be renamed "tax scams" by the fossil fuels front group propaganda machine, to pander their bent over tribe of gullibles who, as usual, will swallow any anti-governmental lie they design, just because they believe being pro-government makes you a socialist.3. Senators Not Backing Green New Deal Received On Average 7 Times As Much Fossil Fuel CashSenators Not Backing Green New Deal Received On Average 7 Times As Much Fossil Fuel Cash4. GLOBAL SUBSIDIES FOR FOSSIL FUELSThe United States has spent more subsidizing fossil fuels in recent years than it has on defense spending, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund.The IMF found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion.Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon SpendingIMF Survey : Counting the Cost of Energy SubsidiesWhy are taxpayers subsidising the oil and gas companies that jeopardise our future?Instead of hoping market forces solve the climate crisis, the government needs to stop giving tax breaks to pollutersWhy are taxpayers subsidising the oil and gas companies that jeopardise our future? | Clive LewisGreen energy feels the heat as subsidies go to fossil fuelsGlobal fossil fuel subsidies totaled $544 billion in 2012, compared to only $101 billion for renewables. The International Monetary Fund estimates fossil fuel subsidies for 2015 to be $5.3 trillion - an amount equal to 6.5% of global GDP. More than 40% of this represents subsidies for coal, the most environmentally damaging of all fossil fuels. Although not good news on its face, the disproportionate funding for fossil fuels represents a tremendous opportunity to shift funding to renewable energy without an overall increase in costs.Global Subsidies - Fossil Fuels vs. Renewables — Environmental GraphitiGlobal fossil fuel subsidies totaled $544 billion in 2012, compared to only $101 billion for renewables. The International Monetary Fund estimates fossil fuel subsidies for 2015 to be $5.3 trillion - an amount equal to 6.5% of global GDP.How Big Oil Clings to Billions in Government Giveawayshttps://www.motherjones.com/poli...Fossil fuel subsidies are a staggering $5 tn per yearA new study finds 6.5% of global GDP goes to subsidizing dirty fossil fuelshttps://www.theguardian.com/envi...https://www.sciencedirect.com/sc...Over the past century, the federal government has pumped more than $470 billion into the oil and gas industry in the form of generous, never-expiring tax breaks. Once intended to jump-start struggling domestic drillers, these incentives have become a tidy bonus for some of the world’s most profitable companies.Taxpayers currently subsidize the oil industry by as much as $4.8 billion a year, with about half of that going to the big five oil companies—ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, and ConocoPhillips—which get an average tax break of $3.34 on every barrel of domestic crude they produce. With Washington looking under the couch cushions for sources of new revenue, oil prices topping $100 a barrel, and the world feeling the heat from its dependence on fossil fuels, there’s been a renewed push to close these decades-old loopholes. But history suggests that Big Oil won’t let go of its perks without a brawl.https://www.sciencedirect.com/sc...A new paper published in Climatic Change estimates that when we account for the pollution costs associated with our energy sources, gasoline costs an extra $3.80 per gallon, diesel an additional $4.80 per gallon, coal a further 24 cents per kilowatt-hour, and natural gas another 11 cents per kilowatt-hour that we don’t see in our fuel or energy bills.https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-ene...5. Most republican politicians are puppets for the fossil fuel interests.In the US, at least 180 congressional members and senators are declared climate deniers. They’ve received more than US$82 million in campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry and its partners.How US climate machine has left 180 deniers in Congress - Michael West6. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTS WERE BEHIND ALL THE MAYOR ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IN MODERN TIMES:The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency.), founded by President Richard Nixon in 1970, was created to protect citizens from pollutions and environmental hazards.1987: Reagan signed the Montreal Protocol (to ban ozone-depleting pollutants), and created a huge climate report in 1989:Ronald Reagan’s 1989 EPA REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGEPage 28: http://bit.ly/2w8YMuVGeorge H W Bush introduce cap-and-trade (to deal with the acid rain problem).The Political History of Cap and TradeAnd what about George W Bush?Well Dubbya of course ran against the single politician--Al Gore--who is most closely associated with the cause of climate action in modern U.S. history.So I suppose it isn't too surprising that we heard lines like this spoken on the campaign trail:“As we promote electricity and renewable energy, we will work to make our air cleaner. With the help of Congress, environmental groups and industry, we will require all power plants to meet clean air standards in order to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide within a reasonable period of time. And we will provide market-based incentives, such as emissions trading, to help industry achieve the required reductions.”What might be surprising for you to learn, however, is that it wasn't Al Gore--but George W Bush--who made that statement in the run-up to the election. It was Bush who had committed to combat climate change through the regulation of carbon emissions.Vice: A Commentary on the Politics of Climate DenialGeorge W. Bush administration 2001 National Academies report:Committee on the Science of Climate ChangeDivision on Earth and Life StudiesNational Research Council“Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.[…] Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century[….] The predicted warming of 3°C (5.4°F) by the end of the 21st century is consistent with the assumptions about how clouds and atmospheric relative humidity will react to global warming.The National Academies PressTRUMP?Trump's 2018 National Climate Assessment. ️Based on extensive evidence … it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,”For the warming over the last century,“there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”Climate Science Special Report: Executive Summary7. If there ever was a “powerful leftist green side” in the USA, why did they not enter the Kyoto and the Paris accord?Senators who urged Trump to leave Paris climate accord took millions from oil companiesThe corruption knows no limits:When Mother Jones first reported in December 2017 that the Environmental Protection Agency had hired a hyper-partisan GOP opposition research firm known for its aggressive tactics to handle the agency’s news-clipping work, the politically appointed flacks in the agency’s press office insisted the decision was about saving money and the hiring had been handled through normal procurement channels. As we reported Thursday, we now know that was not the case. Internal emails obtained by FOIA show that political appointees in the EPA press office demanded career staff push through the hiring of Definers Public Affairs—best known for its work for Republican campaigns and recently for its role as Facebook’s attack dog on Capitol Hill, which included attempts to smear George Soros for his critiques of the social media network.Now, thanks to another batch of internal emails, we have even more evidence that the motivation for hiring Definers came from the top agency political appointees who were ticked off at the old service, because it was collecting too many news clips that portrayed then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt negatively.- Russ Choma & Rebecca Leber, Politics, Mother Jones, Jan 7, 2019The EPA hired GOP oppo firm because it was sick of "fake news"“If the internet had been around in the 60s and 70s, climate deniers would be arguing against the health effects of smoking, and dredging up historical/anecdotal examples to insist that lung cancer was "natural", while warning that smoking cessation efforts were all part of a global conspiracy of taxation and socio-economic control.”"As early as the 1950s, the groups shared scientists and publicists to downplay dangers of smoking and climate change".Tobacco and Oil Industries Used Same Researchers to Sway PublicThe goal of the fossil fuel industry is to keep its profits rolling in without interference by government or by new, competing energy sources. The polluters know they dont have any science to back up their arguments. So instead they use the best defence method they can. Which is to polarize and politicize the science.To keep their money flow going they need the public embroiled in doubt and suspicion; they need to degrade public confidence in science and scientists; they need to harm America’s future—and the world’s future—so that one of the wealthiest industries on Earth can engorge itself in even more wealth.Keep the people dumb and fogged in fear rethoric.College is Bad for America, Say Majority of RepublicansRead more at: College is Bad for America, Say Majority of RepublicansEducation for the masses is bad for the assesEducation leads to socialism and democracy. Socialism and democracy leads to communism.The difference between capitalism and socialism, is equivalent to the difference between freedom for the asses and freedom for the masses.To pander their gullible bent over “people on the streets” its often enough for the polluters to label environmental laws for “tax scams”. This will trigger their tribe into believing its about them and some (imaginary) battle against the “evil” government (who is only out to protect its citizens from environmental hazards).Libertarian and free-market ideology has traditionally had difficulty dealing with negative externalities, as detailed in the non-libertarian FAQ; denial allows a person to simply ignore the limitations of their ideology. American conservatives in particular tend to distrust government, dislike regulations and hate taxes, so that any problem whose solution is a tax or a regulation naturally attracts distrust.When think tanks and fossil fuel front groups started to lobby for the fossil fuel self interests 70 years ago, the first thing they did was to camouflage those interests as an anti government anti regulation anti tax ideological anti socialist "struggle".Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality“They connected their audience’s underlying ideologies to climate change: Because cutting GHG emissions requires intervention regulation or increased taxation of carbon emissions—that curtail free market economics, people whose identity and worldview centers around free markets became particularly likely to reject the findings from climate science when the logic was laid bare.”“Back in the late 1980s, when it became pretty clear that there was no persistent Soviet threat, conservatives needed a new bogeyman, and they found it in the environmental movement. “Green is the new Red,” became a common phrase in the conservative magazines of that era. Rather than suggesting that America strip away protections designed to keep air and water clean, commentators and pols railed against controls on less visible threats, like pesticides, ozone holes, and global warming. Cries for environmental regulation were twisted into calls for socialism and the end of economic progress.”“It’s not surprising that high-profile deniers are almost exclusively conservative white men, since they have most benefited from the industrial capitalist system, and therefore have the most skin in the game when it comes to protecting the powers that be — even if they aren’t those powers."[...] “conservative white males are likely to favour protection of the current industrial capitalist order which has historically served them well”. It added that “heightened emotional and psychic investment in defending in-group claims may translate into misperceived understanding about problems like climate change that threaten the continued order of the system.”Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United StatesClimate change denial strongly linked to right-wing nationalismHow Is Climate Change Denial Still a Thing?LETS LOOK AT THE MONEY SPENT ON LOBBYISM:Increasingly they are using social media to successfully push their agenda to weaken and oppose any meaningful legislation to tackle global warming.In the run-up to the US midterm elections last year (2018) $2m was spent on targeted Facebook and Instagram ads by global oil giants and their industry bodies, promoting the benefits of increased fossil fuel production, according to the report published by InfluenceMap.Top oil firms spending millions lobbying to block climate change policies, says reportA study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that over the last 20 years, private funding has had an important influence on the overall polarization of climate change as a topic in the United States.Corporate funding and ideological polarization about climate changeTruth is these interests are spending billions on lobbying officials:"Lobbying is conducted away from the public eye," explained Brulle. "There is no open debate or refutation of viewpoints offered by professional lobbyists meeting in private with government officials. Control over the nature and flow of information to government decision-makers can be significantly altered by the lobbying process and creates a situation of systematically distorted communication. This process may limit the communication of accurate scientific information in the decision-making process."As the study concludes, “the environmental organization and the renewable energy sectors were outspent by the corporate sectors involved in the production or use of fossil fuels by a ratio of approximately 10 to 1.”How lobbyists buy climate change legislationhttp://www.drexel.edu/~/media/Fi...About $2 billion USD was spent between 2000 and 2016 by a variety of fossil-fuel related actors on US lobbying alone to confuse the issue on climate change, deny the science and prevent action. This is according to a peer-reviewed study published in the Springer journal Climatic Change, a long-lasting interdisciplinary journal with a solid impact factor of 3.537. The study is The climate lobby: a sectoral analysis of lobbying spending on climate change in the USA, 2000 to 2016 by Robert Brulle of Drexel University.As Brulle points out in his abstract,Major sectors involved in lobbying were fossil fuel and transportation corporations, utilities, and affiliated trade associations. Expenditures by these sectors dwarf those of environmental organizations and renewable energy corporations.https://phys.org/news/2013-12-ko...https://cleantechnica.com/2016/0...Exclusive: Billionaires secretly fund attacks on climate science’IT WAS ALL BIPARTISAN UNTIL FOSSIL FUEL MONEY FLOODED THE REPUBLICAN PART CA 20 YEARS AGO.Even the oil giants knew:http://iopscience.iop.org/articl...Exxon Knew about Climate Change Almost 40 Years AgoBonus: Our CO2 IS causing the warming:As confirmed by GOVERNMENT founded scientist and denier darling Roy Spencer:"Greenhouse components in the atmosphere (mostly water vapor, clouds, carbon dioxide, and methane) exert strong controls over how fast the Earth loses IR energy to outer space. Mankind’s burning of fossil fuels creates more atmospheric carbon dioxide. As we add more CO2, more infrared energy is trapped, strengthing the Earth’s greenhouse effect. This causes a warming tendency in the lower atmosphere and at the surface”He even calls out for deniers to stop questioning the GHE because it makes them look like idiots....hilarious:"Please stop the “no greenhouse effect” stuff. It’s making us skeptics look bad. "http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/04/skeptical-arguments-that-dont-hold-water/Roger Fjellstad Olsen's answer to Why is opposition to climate science more common in the United States than other countries?