Dangerous Hot Air
Wednesday, December 6th, 2006Veiled threats against speech that those in power do not approve of. Just another run-of-the-mill day in Washington. It’s all in a letter Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe sent to Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson.
Their letter reads in part: “We would recommend that Exxon Mobil publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it.”
As a Wall Street Journal editorial puts it, “The Senators’ letter is far more serious because they have enormous power to punish Exxon if it doesn’t kowtow to them.”
Exxon has funded research by “skeptics” (as the Senators call them), skeptics of the new secular religion of greedy-human-caused global warming.
The Senators want to cut off funding to silence groups like the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Again, the Journal nails it, writing “if the Senators are so afraid that a handful of policy wonks at a single small think tank are in danger of winning this debate, they must not have much confidence in the merits of their own case.”
Carbon emitter: the new epithet of choice?
And isn’t there a small connection between Rockefeller’s wealth and Standard Oil? And doesn’t he represent coal-producing West Virginia? Sounds like the carbon pot calling the carbon kettle black.
Oh, these politicians are emitters, too. They emit something dark and foul. But no, it’s not carbon.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
