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“Green” Brought to you by GE

April 28, 2008 at 11:22 am · Filed under Environment, Propoer Role of Gov't, Regulation, Global Warming, Special Interest

Mention the word ExxonMobile and global warming and the response is pretty predictable. “Oh those guys that are making billions and funding all the global warming deniers.” The fact is that statement is pretty true. Exxon has made billions and they have spent several million over the past 15 years making research grants to a few (but hardly all) university professors and think tanks. Problem is they may have been wasting their money. Maybe they should change their strategy and just copy “green” GE.

The WSJ recently released a list of top spenders in Washington DC, and right behind the US Chamber of Commerce and the American Medical Association (makes you wonder about why we are having problems refoming the medical system) was not ExxonMobile but eco-friendly GE rounding out the top 3. From 1998-2007 GE spent in excess of $160 million in lobbying efforts. Exxon didn’t even make the top 10.

Why would GE spend so much money? Answer: they are heavily invested in green technology (wind, solar, and those nice expensive light bulbs that are now mandated by the federal government in 2012). GE isn’t the only one benefitting from green policy, but they sure haven’t taken any chances on not cashing in on their green investment.

So maybe Exxon should stop trying to fund science and just go straight for the golden goose: the beltway goose that is. GE is green alright (just check out their website: www.ge.com) but the green might not have anything to do with the environment.

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5 Comments »

jasonthe said,

April 28, 2008 @ 12:00 pm

With your newfound distaste for lobbying efforts pushing specific agendas irregardless of sound science (something I applaud), I assume we can expect a much more representative field of speakers at next year’s “Earth” Week then?
Jesse Harris said,

April 28, 2008 @ 12:07 pm

FDR was far too prescient when he claimed that nothing in politics happens by accident.
Davis Didjeridu said,

April 28, 2008 @ 1:43 pm

I think it is more likely that GE spends a lot of lobbying cash so it can keep up it’s massive defense department contracts instead of any green agenda.
Ken said,

April 28, 2008 @ 8:52 pm

Freon got so cheap that there wasn’t much money in it anymore so the company that made it created something far less efficient but more expensive. To make people pay more for a new lower quality product they floated the idea that freon contributed to global warming and sent their minions along with environmentalists to lobby congress to ban it. Now we no longer have freon and are left with a product that costs more, is very corrosive and may even be worse on the environment than freon, not to mention the fact that NASA uses the new stuff to make the infamous foam that resulted in the deaths of the astronauts aboard the space shuttle Columbia. When they used freon there was never any issue with the foam.

Incandescent light bulbs are so cheap that GE makes very little profit from them. So following the lead of freon they came up with a more expensive alternative and they lobbied congress along with environmentalists to ban incandescent light bulbs in favor of more expensive ones that do not last as long as advertised and when broken produce a toxic cloud of mercury.

Corporations have jumped on the global warming bandwagon because they see lots of money in it. They can use the hysteria caused by it to get even more money out of us and they can use environmentalists as stooges to do their bidding. Isn’t that convenient?
Frank Staheli said,

April 29, 2008 @ 2:10 pm

Karl Marx made some very accurate observations about Capitalists. When it suits their short-sighted purposes, they can be very dominating, vindictive, and generally destructive of an economy. Ken makes a great example of freon. My pharmaceutical vendor made a slight change to one of my prescriptions, so it is no longer part of my formulary, so it now costs an arm and a leg more than it used to. These are examples of capitalism run amok.

Yes, GE lobbies because there’s great money to be made in defense, but they also lobby because there’s great money to be made in “green”.

The problem with Marx is that his “solutions” to the problems he saw were all wrong. They involved elite governmental decision makers determining what should be safe, what should be produced, and what should be allowed or prohibited. Sadly, we are much closer to Marx’s ideology today when it comes to defense, energy, AND global warming. The GE’s, the Lockheeds, and the Pfizers have become part of the elite that Marx (and Plato) envisioned.

P.S. I wasn’t able to attend the Sutherland Earth Week events (so I don’t know…), but I do tend to agree with Jason–if advocates from the various perspectives are not being invited, they should be.

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“Green” Brought to you by GE

5 Comments »

jasonthe said,

Jesse Harris said,

Davis Didjeridu said,

Ken said,

Frank Staheli said,

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