14 ms·

Scientist exposes anti-wind groups as oil-funded, now they want to silence him

• jmyeet 1y ago
  Surprised Pikachu face. There is an entire well-funded ecosystem of "academic" research, think tanks, policy groups and so on that exist solely to propagandize the status quo. It goes well beyond that though. I always like to tell the story of Steven Donziger to show just how corrupt this system is. Ecuador of course has less regulation than the US and oil company went down there and made a total mess. Steven Donziger, an American lawyer, went down there and helped the people and the governemnt sue Chevron and won a $9.5 billion judgement in 2011 to clean this up. Chevron didn't like this, withdrew their assets from Ecuador and went back to the US and sued Donziger in federal court. The judgement was deemed to be fraudulent (based pretty much on a video tape where Donziger and a minister were at the same event years earlier). But it didn't end there. Donziger was disbarred for this. Chevron made a complaint to the Department of Justice to criminally prosecute Donziger. The DoJ declined. But it didn't end there. The federal judge appointed a private law firm that served Chevron to criminally prosecute Donziger for not turning over a computer and other work products that were absolutely covered by attorney-client privilege. This is a little-known and little-used law for private prosecution. Donziger was placed on house arrest with an $800,000 bail for years for contempt of court. Donziger claims Chevron has spent in excess of $2 billion in legal fees on all this. Don't doubt for a second that the courts don't work directly for the interests of corporations and capital owners. In fact, this is about the best way to determine how the Supreme Court will rule on key matters: what benefits the wealthy. It's not strictly true. There are exceptions but it's amazing how often it's correct. The courts have now been packed with Christian Nationalists who will absolutely weaponize the bench in future years against climate activists and probably get them declared terrorist organizations. That's just the reality we live in now.
• jeffwass 1y ago
  Obligatory Simpsons clip from 32 years ago : https://youtu.be/7D_eAtU4_DA?si=Ynafg1d_G-GRo5vM https://youtu.be/7D_eAtU4_DA?si=Ynafg1d_G-GRo5vM
• curtisszmania 1y ago
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• triceratops 1y ago
  As I'm fond of saying, if you want to find True Bird Lovers, try constructing some windmills. They stay silent for oil spills and habitat destruction for fossil fuel exploration but they come out of the woodwork the minute they sense a wind turbine.
• thewileyone 1y ago
  No shit Sherlock. As in everything, just follow the money to find the true villains.
• EasyMark 1y ago
  I think capitalism will win out on this one too. Trump won't be President forever. "Windmills" will continue to truck along with a few "wins" for Trump to bandy about while other projects in wind-friendly states stay the course. The red states who hate "windmills" will get left in the dust.
• husamia 1y ago
  it's not about energy, it's about the USD monetary system relying on oil to back it up
• e40 1y ago
  The disgust this article invokes is overwhelming. I n my ideal world these people would be prosecuted.
  • usrnm 1y ago
    But we live in their ideal world, not yours
  • oulipo2 1y ago
    So let's vote them out
    • xyzal 1y ago
      I would love to obtain a handbook on how to convince moronic far-right leaning neighbors to change or at least soften their stance. I usually just tell them to fuck off, which apparently is not that much effective.
      • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > love to obtain a handbook on how to convince moronic far-right leaning neighbors to change or at least soften their stance Real answer? Pick a battle and commit to it. That means allying with folks who agree with you—or have an incentive to agree—on your one issue with whom you may strongly disagree on other policy or even moral positions. This doesn’t need to be a permanent alliance, after all, just a transactional one to achieve a goal.
        • RHSeeger 1y ago
          Just be careful not to turn into a 1-issue voter. There's a lot of people out there that vote for the candidate that agrees with them on the one issue they consider the most important... and they ignore the substantial amount of evil that candidate does that's _not_ that one issue.
        • ceejayoz 1y ago
          This can be… risky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National_Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National...
• nicolailolansen 1y ago
  Anti-wind groups are oil-funded? Surprised Pikachu.
  • dzhiurgis 1y ago
    Why tho? Oil money should be funding renewables so they continue making money.
    • chii 1y ago
      > Oil money should be funding renewables not while there's still oil to be extracted. Rigs (esp. offshore ones) take a lot of initial investment, and takes several decades to fully pay out. It's not hard to imagine that those investments hadn't fully matured and so they'd want the demand for oil to continue.
      • consp 1y ago
        The demand for oil as hydrogen base, plastic and other derivatives will keep those platforms profitable for a long time. Maybe not as massively profitable as now but more than a reasonable ROI. Oh wait, more profits above everything no matter what because the plebs are the only ones affected by it so they don't care.
        • matthewdgreen 1y ago
          My very limited understanding is that many of those assets require a certain timeline and rate of oil consumption for the investment to make sense financially. If global oil consumption goes down by say 50%, lots of assets just become worthless (even if someday we use them.)
      • kergonath 1y ago
        Even when going full renewable and nuclear, demand for existing infrastructure is unlikely to make these rigs unprofitable over the long term. Moving all the economy will take time.
      • 1y ago
• tovej 1y ago
  Astroturfing has been the favorite MO of harmful industries like tobacco, oil, and defense for a long time now. It's sad that this has become so normal, and that they can pressure opponents into silence. I'm wondering if we'll ever get rid of this.
  • fp64 1y ago
    Remove defense from that list, they are the good guys now. I see you already omitted pharmaceutical industry so you're at least almost up to date
    • tovej 1y ago
      Yeah, thought of pharma afterwards. But defense is most definitely on the list, even though the astroturfing looks more like manufacturing consent.
• Tade0 1y ago
  A major reason I don't treat conspiracy theorists seriously is that with all their paranoia they have a huge blind spot for the Captain-Planet-cartoon-villainy the oil industry is engaging in. Just the stuff the Heartland Institute does is enough to write a book about and still not a peep from the usual crowd.
  • MomsAVoxell 1y ago
    If you don't treat conspiracy theorists seriously, how would you know if the conspiracy theory scene has already addressed oil industry corruption? The War-for-Oil conspiracy theories are proven correct. The suppression of 'free energy' is discussed widely as being a result of oil-industry repression. And on and on.
    • yyyk 1y ago
      >The War-for-Oil conspiracy theories are proven correct. Almost all of the post-Iraq oil contracts went for Chinese companies. The US made very little of it.
    • Dylan16807 1y ago
      You can learn about a scene without thinking they're competent. It doesn't really prove war for oil, war tends to mess up production and also we have a huge amount of domestic production. But that depends on what exactly the claims are. "Free energy" doesn't exist so that just goes back to them barking up the wrong tree. It's taking a real villain and blaming them for nonsense instead of something they actually do.
    • Tade0 1y ago
      > how would you know if the conspiracy theory scene has already addressed oil industry corruption? Because it hasn't. The "free energy" stuff is way off the mark and pales in comparison to absolute kookery of weather machines being responsible for things climate change is actually doing. They don't have a solid grasp of reality and it shows in how they're unaware about the specific things the oil industry is doing. Much of their rhetoric is big oil propaganda being repeated anyway. War for oil isn't a conspiracy - it's such obvious public knowledge that there are memes about it. Yes, the country that is a major oil producer and in the currency of which most if not all oil transactions are done uses its military might to preserve the status quo - that's hardly a secret.
• yahoozoo 1y ago
  Next you’ll tell me anti-oil groups are wind-funded.
  • lstodd 1y ago
    Anti-oil groups are oil funded so that the oil can show they are "responsible" to their boards. edit: apart from that, no one is willing to pay for a realistic substitute for the fuel oil (marine) or diesel, so the question is actually moot.
• wiradikusuma 1y ago
  I read the article but it's still unclear what argument the anti-wind groups use to say _why_ "wind is bad for environment/our children/the economy/greater good"?
  • sligor 1y ago
    Who needs argument in 2025 ? Just say it is "woke".
  • defrost 1y ago
    One version, frequently bandied about, is the excerpt from Landman, a recent fictional TV drama (5 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmbZwxEnAFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmbZwxEnAFc There is, of course, a debunking video response (14 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKVNFqqzvP4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKVNFqqzvP4 NIMBYism (destroying the beautiful views from my golf course) and "Think of the birds" also feature high on the list.
  • decimalenough 1y ago
    Ruins the view, kills birds, noisy is the usual trifecta. Or to quote one site I won't deign to link to, "Protecting the marine environment and ecosystems from the industrialisation of our oceans." Of course, the same folks have no objections whatsoever to offshore drilling.
    • EasyMark 1y ago
      Or just dumping heavy metals into the water table or various other industrial waste.
    • thaumasiotes 1y ago
      > Of course, the same folks have no objections whatsoever to offshore drilling. Well, if they were entirely sincere in their concern for the view, the birds, and the noise, only one of those concerns would apply to offshore drilling. Considering "preventing industrialization" to be an end in itself is something different, usually associated with being pro-wind-power.
    • 1y ago
• whatever1 1y ago
  I don’t think big oil feels particularly threatened by renewables. They are definitely scared of nuclear and car batteries.
  • viridian 1y ago
    In my opinion, all energy industries should and probably do feel threatened by solar. Since 2022 or so, all metrics I have seen put its cost per kwh ahead of natural gas, and thus, significantly ahead of every other energy source. It's also incredibly decentralized and flexible, I don't see a way that it doesn't become dominant in the next decade. It's performance is actually a huge risk point as well, since it's so periodic.
  • michaelbuckbee 1y ago
    Anthropomorphizing big industries is always fraught, but looking at their actions, I'd concede it means something that the American Gas Association is doing things like hiring influencers to promote gas cooking over induction ranges. https://www.treehugger.com/the-marketing-of-gas-stoves-never-stops-5069578 https://www.treehugger.com/the-marketing-of-gas-stoves-never...
    • ozgrakkurt 1y ago
      Unrelated but gas stoves are really better imo. Heats faster, doesn’t crack etc.
      • IX-103 1y ago
        With induction, heating faster is just a matter of getting a high enough wattage stovetop. So maybe don't compare a low-end induction stove to a gas one? Low-end gas stoves have different problems (reliability, ease of cleaning, etc). With gas you also have to worry about proper ventilation, and most homes don't actually have that. Not to mention that gas leaks are a risk as well.
• qcnguy 1y ago
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  • tonyedgecombe 1y ago
    Who funds you?
    • qcnguy 1y ago
      Nobody, of course. It would be nice if oil, gas, electricity and auto companies did in fact fund people like me to point out all the things climate activists say that aren't true. Pointing out misinformation is valuable on its own, and getting paid to do it would be a double benefit - getting paid to make the world better! I would thus accept that money happily. Unfortunately they don't. Only the left do that. So people who investigate and reveal climate lobbying misinformation tend to be retirees. They can afford the time to do it as a form of charity work.
      • brazzy 1y ago
        So you are spreading all this misinformation and lies, and are not even getting paid for it? Kinda pathetic...
        • qcnguy 1y ago
          What misinformation and lies? I made one factual claim above and linked to the AP themselves apologising for what they're doing as proof. I don't spread misinformation nor lies. Just truths that the climate lobby don't want people to know about.
  • dvrj101 1y ago
    > someone working for an oil company donated to some think tank, which in turn was represented by a lawyer, who in turn represented plaintiffs in a wind project. that's literally how lobbying works and same is being applied to spread misinformation against renewable energy projects.
• focusgroup0 1y ago
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  • kanapala 1y ago
    This article maybe? https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/ESUS07/ESUS07016FU1.pdf https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/ESUS07/ESUS0... * (net embedded energy is offset in 12 monthes)
  • Rygian 1y ago
    It would be interesting to compare the net energy requirements of different electricity production means, in such a way that, for every kWh provided to the grid by each source, we could somehow quantify: - How many kWh the grid has to provide in exchange. - How many kWh are obtained from other sources in order for this kWh to have been produced. - How much CO₂ will be released for that kWh, considering the entire lifecycle of the source. So that we can identify which other electricity production means would have been preferable (both in terms of total energy expenditure, and total CO₂ released). At the moment, "net negative energy involved" seems like a proxy metric to me, and I don't know a proxy for what precisely.
  • SvenL 1y ago
    Really, you take posts from x and YouTube for correct information? The x posts is just referencing other x posts and YouTube. Your YouTube link has 3 references in the description, the last two are 404 which means they probably got retracted. Those mediums let arbitrary people post arbitrary non sense. Show me scientific studies, peer reviewed and published. And yes, even those can be bad, but at least I can read about their methodology how they conducted their study, the way they analyzed it, and then I can judge if it’s a good study. Those links are borderline flat earth material.
  • timlod 1y ago
    So, I checked, and this life cycle assessment (first link I could find, seems very comprehensive) states a 27x return on energy: https://www.vestas.com/en/sustainability/environment/lifecycle-assessments https://www.vestas.com/en/sustainability/environment/lifecyc... This as opposed to a tweet about someone who 'read a life cycle analysis article in some engineering journal like 10 years ago'. Please don't spread misinformation.
• testhest 1y ago
  Wind is only useful up to a point, once it gets above 20% of generation capacity ensuing grid stability becomes expensive either through huge price swings or grid level energy storage.
  • scott_s 1y ago
    That's true of all renewable energy sources. So we should take advantage of all of them, as much as is feasible.
  • dhx 1y ago
    Not true. 100% variable renewable energy (VRE) grids are found to be economically viable almost anywhere on the planet.[1] These are grids which don't require any fossil fuel "firming". From the IEA report: "Substantiated by in-depth case studies, this report infers that, almost anywhere on the planet, nearly 100% VRE power grids firmly supplying clean power and meeting demand 24/365 are not only possible but would be economically viable, provided that VRE resources are optimally transformed from unconstrained run-of-the weather generation into firm generation."[1] However, propagandists routinely spread misinformation on firming. For example, they might cite the absolutely absurd LFSCOE which is funded by the energy sector's equivalent of the Center for Indoor Air Research[2][3][4]. [1] https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/firm-power-generation/ https://iea-pvps.org/key-topics/firm-power-generation/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Bank_of_America_(2023) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#... [3] https://www.desmog.com/2016/01/10/rice-university-s-baker-institute-and-academic-cover-it-provides-fossil-fuel-interests/ https://www.desmog.com/2016/01/10/rice-university-s-baker-in... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Indoor_Air_Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Indoor_Air_Research
  • ceejayoz 1y ago
    This talking point is years out of date. We’re doing grid-level energy storage already. Expect more. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-06/what-australia-can-learn-from-californias-big-battery-boom/104137012 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-08-06/what-australia-can-le... > For the first time ever, California's batteries took over gas as the primary source for supplying evening power demand in April, providing "akin to the output from seven large nuclear reactors" one evening, according to the New York Times.
• narrator 1y ago
  Yup, and George Soros does actually funds pro-wind groups. Open Society Foundation gives $400 million over 8 years to green economic development. That said, I think that's a bullshit argument for not supporting wind, and I'd much rather have an argument with data about the long-term economics.
  • EasyMark 1y ago
    If I was a billionaire with tons of money and maybe 10 years of life left, I'd be dumping millions all over care free to counteract some of this MAGA nonsense that's trying to turn us into a country of conspiracies, "faith" in invisible sky daddies, and luddites.
  • Fraterkes 1y ago
    You’ll notice these are not at all comparable because Soros does not have an obvious financial interest in wind supplanting oil
    • salynchnew 1y ago
      This is important. There's a difference between charitable donations that are actually for the public interest vs. shadow lobbying by oil companies.
• flanked-evergl 1y ago
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  • imglorp 1y ago
    We can have plenty of both.
    • flanked-evergl 1y ago
      We don't need both. We actually just need nuclear, and no amount of throwing away my tax money on wind boondoggles will change that. The Norwegian Labour Party royally screwed the Norwegians with wind, they had to make all other energy much more expensive to make wind feasible, and wind is still not feasible, everything else is just ungodly expensive with 5% monthly inflation on food.
      • imglorp 1y ago
        That sounds like a political problem in one country, not a wind problem. Wind works well, especially offshore: there are 1133 GW of installed wind capacity globally in 2024, so it seems to be working for somebody. This is compared to 377 GW of nuclear globally.
      • zekrioca 1y ago
        Your arguments are not coming from evidence, but from emotions. You clearly want politics as usual, with investments in a very expensive theoretical “one size fits all”, or all eggs in one nest types of solutions. You don’t even list the pros and cons of your statements. This is really bad advising.
      • svantana 1y ago
        Norway has all the power it needs from hydro. But exporting electricity is good, since it will help europeans get off fossil fuels. And the north sea is pretty windy, so it's a good place for windmills [1]. Nuclear would also be good, but unfortunately it's extremely expensive, a lot more expensive than the windmills you seem to hate. 1. https://globalwindatlas.info/en/ https://globalwindatlas.info/en/
• qwertox 1y ago
  A country can commit to 300 years of wind energy, temporarily harming a bit of nature. Once a better solution has been found, the land can be freed for the nature to take over again. We have no issues with stealing a couple of square miles of nature in order to pave it for our cities or to use it for farming. Once you remove the wind turbines, the harm you've done to the nature was minimal: production of the turbines, used area and generated noise, minimal pollution of the area, the troubles of recycling them. That's mostly it. You don't have this with oil, nor with current-age nuclear. Also, we've already accepted the noise of cars, trucks, motorcycles and planes. So I really don't get what they are protesting about, specially in Germany.
  • ajb 1y ago
    It's a self fulfilling prophecy - they listen to propaganda saying that the value of houses near wind farms drops, that itself causes the price to drop.
    • immibis 1y ago
      Price of houses dropping is a good thing, anyway, makes it easier to get one.
  • raffael_de 1y ago
    > Once a better solution has been found, the land can be freed for the nature to take over again. Deconstructing a wind turbine is far from simple and cheap.
    • immibis 1y ago
      What happens if you chop it down like a tree, assuming there's nothing underneath?
  • belorn 1y ago
    The opposition to the construction of wind farms are mostly silly except in a very specific situation. We should not construct those in nature reservation. If a place is worth designating as a nature reserve then we have decided that such place is worth protecting even if the area could be later freed (common reason is keeping certain species from going extinct, which makes the threat nontemporarily). Ocean based wind farms has a tendency to want to be built in the shallows, which happens to correlate where we tend to designate as nature reservations. Wind power is however not comparable to fossil fuels or nuclear power. Denmark is a prime example of a country that did commit fully to wind power in a very strong and consistent way, and do produce more total energy through wind that they consume. That energy however is not produced when people want to consume it, so as a practical matter, they import around 50% of their energy that they do consume, energy which is not wind since when the wind blow they export the excess energy. They could produce 500% or even 1000% more wind energy, and they would still need to import a large portion of their consumption from non-wind power. Producing that much excess power would mostly just effect exports and not in a good way for the producers since overproduction mostly just lead to lower prices. 50% consumption seems to be around the maximum of what you can do with wind (for now), and when the wind do not blow you still need 100% of the capacity from other sources in order to fill in the gap. Overproduction of nuclear or thermal energy does not have this issue, but rather carries completely different problems.
• whatsupdog 1y ago
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• throw0101c 1y ago
  Always reminded of the Tom Toro (2012) New Yorker cartoon: > Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders. * https://www.instagram.com/tbtoro/p/B_SdEVThgCr/ https://www.instagram.com/tbtoro/p/B_SdEVThgCr/ * https://www.insidehook.com/culture/story-tom-toro-new-yorker-climate-cartoon https://www.insidehook.com/culture/story-tom-toro-new-yorker...
  • latexr 1y ago
    I too think of that cartoon regularly. Direct link on The New Yorker website: https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 I recommend you put that one on your list instead because Instagram is very hostile to people trying to see anything without an account. The one on The New Yorker website is open to all and on the Internet Archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20250808141700/https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://web.archive.org/web/20250808141700/https://www.newyo... Thank you for sharing the interview. I hadn’t come across it before. The cartoon is more popular than I realised, which makes me glad.
    • justin66 1y ago
      The Instagram one is entirely a single image so people will find it easier to share via social media.
      • jbstack 1y ago
        I (and I assume I'm not alone in this) rarely even bother clicking on Instagram or "X" posts because I can't be bothered with all the hassle when all I want to do is quickly view the content, and I'm not willing to gamble on whether or not it's going to work.
        • deleted 1y ago
          [deleted]
        • reactordev 1y ago
• hopelite 1y ago
  How and why would “Scientists” be doing any kind of “exposing” in the first place (“scientists” are now some kind of detectives?) and why all the biased language; “anti-wind”, “oil-funded”? Also why does this feel like cult-like conditioning of, “we the righteous ones against the evil anti-us false opposition”? It is “they hate you, but I love you, and they want to use the state to take your babies away from you so you better come live in my compound” vibes. That’s propaganda and abuse, especially when “scientists” is used like some kind of omnipotent deity. “The great and wonderful scientists have revealed the truth to us!” If they are supporting “anti-wind”, who wouldn’t expect oil companies to support opposition? Are people not allowed to oppose your thing? It’s being treated like some kind of heresy against the corrupt church, and only if you support the subsidized, corrupt wind turbine industry that has politicians on the payroll to push selling wind turbines at public expense, are you righteous believers. The problem is that all industries and all of our governments are massively corrupted and rotten, and everyone wants to get the other-peoples-money the corrupt politicians have to hand out like the despotic kings or lords they effectively have become. “Oh yes, lord, you are the most gracious lord of all lords for bestowing upon me the lands and peasants that work them” In the case of America, where do you think much of that $32 Trillion dollars in national debt deficit spending went in the last 25 years?? If you spend any time in the circles of the 0.1% it will become apparent where that money went, even if you can’t understand that it also went into your 1% pockets. If you’re having a hard time or will never get access to the top 0.1%, reference the graph of the wealth of the richest people. In the case of Europe and Germany especially now, they’ve been trying to get at the national “savings” of the German people for decades now, and it seems that BlackRock Merz has finally cracked the vault and he’s going to let the thieves plunder Germany and Europe, as he commits $9 billion annually to the Ukraine for absolutely no rational reason and funding the whole EU project to plunder the German savings, while he tells German pensioners that they can’t get what they worked for all their lives because foreigners that have invaded their country need to be prioritized. I know regular, grounded people who are in “anti wind” groups they themselves founded, who are clearly not “oil funded” and simply oppose “wind” in their local community because they have heard from others about the impacts. They just don’t like deforesting tracts of woodland and natural habitat, putting in massive concrete foundations, digging up orchards, killing thousands of birds, the noise pollution of the turbines son at all, and the massive corruption due to kickbacks, subsidies, and political aspirations; to build wind turbines where there is basically no wind at all and the turbines won’t pay for themselves even with massive price distorting subsidies. They’re not opposed to “wind” in general, just not the corrupted kind that makes no ecological or business sense, to enrich individuals at the public expense. I personally think the best solution to these things is that supporters not only get signed up to pay for what they support, but they also get bonded to the projects doing what they promised they would do. You support “wind”; ok, great, you get taxed another 10% to pay for the cost and compensation to anyone affected, and if the turbines don’t produce what you said they would, then you pay for full removal, ecologically sound disposal, and ecological restoration. But it’s always so allowing to be con artists to trick others out of their money instead.
• Havoc 1y ago
  The sudden US pivot towards actively suppressing wind energy is absolutely wild. There are farms that are nearing completion and now are just in limbo. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/26/business/wind-project-cancel-trump-jobs https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/26/business/wind-project-can...
  • piltdownman 1y ago
    It's a tenet of MAGA membership, culturally reinforced by the likes of Taylor Sheridan productions like 'Landman' - conservative machismo power-fantasies where the environmental strawmen are setup to be 'destroyed' by Billy Bob Thornton in a snappy youtube-shorts length monologue. Unfortunately, similar to 'Yellowstone', much of the rabid viewing audience take this conservative land-right pornography at face-value as a source of truth for the state of the nation.
    • LatteLazy 1y ago
      Weird: My YouTube feed is suddenly (as of last night) full of “Landman” shorts and I was trying to work out wtf it even is? This makes a lot more sense now, thanks.
    • chneu 1y ago
      Conservatives did something kind of incredible. I'm in the PNW so I'll use timber and logging as my example but one can find similar stories in coal and oil. Conservatives used environmental causes as a means to distract workers. What do I mean? Back in the 70s and 80s loggers were looking to unionize and get more pay. So what happened? The spotted owl, land rights, environmentalists, etc. Now we have campaigns like Timber Unity which resulted in more gates on lands, less loggers in general(automation) and lower pay/benefits for those workers. Now, rural Americans fly banners of campaigns that have stripped them of money. They eagerly proclaim their timber unity while they lose their jobs, acting as if they're battling this environmentalist boogieman. While the low paid workers hit their chests and declare unity against environmentalists, their employers lower their pay, cut benefits, etc while blaming an owl. It's mind boggling how hoodwinked they let them selves be. You can see this repeated in other industries that use environmentalists as scapegoats.
• Ginden 1y ago
  > given support to these fake public interest groups in attempts to sue wind projects out of existence. Remember - that's the core issue. Development of housing or green energy projects or industries with low externalities should be by-right.
  • ACCount37 1y ago
    "Weaponized activists" was an instrument of non-market competition for a long while now. It's kind of a more modern, more legal take on "send some mobsters to mess them up". You find (or make) an activist group opposing a certain development - and then covertly funnel funding and support to them so that they can do as much damage as possible and stall your competition for as long as possible.
• tpoacher 1y ago
  Not saying this isn't a real issue, but the degree of bias in this reporting (and indeed in the original article) is not the most comfortable here either. I mean, is it really surprising that a law company with expertise in the energy sector would handle energy clients? And is it really surprising that a publication with clear bias harming the reputation of its clients would elicit a legal response? How did the publication even get through peer review in the first place without a reviewer requesting the equivalent links for other energy sources to ensure this wasn't effectively p-hacking?