Joseph J. Romm's Blog, page 1225

Irony-gate: Signs at BP stations tell customers they are "responsible for any spills."

TP's Amanda Terkel reports, "As BP tries to shirk responsibility for the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, people around the country are spotting some ironic signs at BP gas stations":

If you can snap similar pics in your neighborhood, send 'em in.

McKibben: Mr. President, lead now on fossil fuels

Bill McKibben — counder of 350.org, long-time guest blogger, and the author most recently of the must-read book Eaarth — has an op-ed in the LA Times on the spill-to-bill pivot:

Here's the president on March 31, announcing his plan to lift a longstanding moratorium on offshore drilling: "Given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth and produce jobs and keep our businesses competitive, we are going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of...

White House smacks down Jindal and other Big Oil shills like Barbour who demand a premature end to the moratorium on deepwater drilling

When we last left Bobby Jindal, oil-addicted governor of BP-ravaged Louisiana, he was demanding more deepwater drilling ASAP. Former dirty energy lobbyist Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MI) also demanded renewed drilling before the cause of disaster was found.

The White House has now responded, as HuffPost reports:

The 6-month moratorium on deepwater drilling was instituted for a clear reason: the President believes we must ensure that the BP Deepwater Horizon spill is never repeated. This will...

Massive flow of BS continues to gush from BP

LONDON—As the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico entered its eighth week Wednesday, fears continued to grow that the massive flow of bullshit still gushing from the headquarters of oil giant BP could prove catastrophic if nothing is done to contain it.

The toxic bullshit, which began to spew from the mouths of BP executives shortly after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April, has completely devastated the Gulf region, delaying cleanup efforts, affecting thousands of jobs...

Expert on crisis PR: What Obama is doing wrong - Who do you think Obama should put in charge of the response? I vote for Bill Clinton.

Mother Jones has a good interview with Chris Lehane, an expert in crisis communication.

They lead with the BP communications screw up, but I actually think what he has to say about what team Obama is doing wrong is much more important:

MJ: What do you think about Obama's response?

CL: I'm empathetic in the first couple of weeks, the White House not necessarily fully engaging because this was a private-sector entity that was representing that it had the situation under control. I think after...

Monckton tries to incite academic hearing against author of devastating science-based evisceration of his disinformation

In the ongoing saga of The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley vs. reality, TVMOB tosses up an air ball in response to Prof. John Abraham's evisceration of his standard talk.  Maybe the better analogy is one of bad sportsmanship, a basketball thrown directly at the head of Abraham.

TVMOB is, of course, a shameless purveyor of hate speech and anti-science disinformation (see TVMOB hate speech shocker: Lord Monckton repeats and expands on his charge that those who embrace climate science...

Clean air Lisa vs. dirty air Lisa - EPA's Jackson says Sen. Murkowski's Amendment would "allow big oil companies, big refineries and others to continue to pollute without any oversight or consequence" and "increase our dependence on oil ... by billions of

It looks like the Senate is going to vote this week on the pro-pollution amendment of the 'dirty air' Lisa — see Polluters work with Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) on amendment to thwart EPA GHG regulations that might help save her state.

The dirty air Lisa most certainly knows that unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions could devastate Alaska (see "Lisa Murkowski proposes to fiddle while Nome burns").  As she said in a 2006 speech:

Warmer, drier air, has allowed the voracious spruce bark beetle to...

Clean air Lisa vs. dirty air Lisa - EPA's Jackson says Sen. Murkowski's Amendment would "allow big oil companies, big refineries and others to continue to pollute without any oversight or consequence" and "increase our dependence on oil ... by billions of

It looks like the Senate is going to vote this week on the pro-pollution amendment of the 'dirty air' Lisa — see Polluters work with Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) on amendment to thwart EPA GHG regulations that might help save her state.

The dirty air Lisa most certainly knows that unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions could devastate Alaska (see "Lisa Murkowski proposes to fiddle while Nome burns").  As she said in a 2006 speech:

Warmer, drier air, has allowed the voracious spruce bark beetle to...

Clean air Lisa vs. dirty air Lisa - EPA's Jackson says Sen. Murkowski's Amendment would "allow big oil companies, big refineries and others to continue to pollute without any oversight or consequence" and "increase our dependence on oil ... by billions of

It looks like the Senate is going to vote this week on the pro-pollution amendment of the 'dirty air' Lisa — see Polluters work with Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) on amendment to thwart EPA GHG regulations that might help save her state.

The dirty air Lisa most certainly knows that unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions could devastate Alaska (see "Lisa Murkowski proposes to fiddle while Nome burns").  As she said in a 2006 speech:

Warmer, drier air, has allowed the voracious spruce bark beetle to...

Clean air Lisa vs. dirty air Lisa - EPA's Jackson says Sen. Murkowski's Amendment would "allow big oil companies, big refineries and others to continue to pollute without any oversight or consequence" and "increase our dependence on oil ... by billions of

It looks like the Senate is going to vote this week on the pro-pollution amendment of the 'dirty air' Lisa — see Polluters work with Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) on amendment to thwart EPA GHG regulations that might help save her state.

The dirty air Lisa most certainly knows that unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions could devastate Alaska (see "Lisa Murkowski proposes to fiddle while Nome burns").  As she said in a 2006 speech:

Warmer, drier air, has allowed the voracious spruce bark beetle to...