Koch Brothers – 350orbust

Canadian Oil Waste Blackens Detroit

May 23, 2013 by Christine

detroit carbon waste — graphic: I Heart Climate Scientists

The Koch brothers are about their usual dirty business, this time in Detroit:

WINDSOR, Ontario — Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.

Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom. Read the full story on NYTimes.com

More links:

Petroleum Coke Piles On Detroit River Should Be Investigated, Urges Congressman Gary Peters

Koch Carbon piling up mountains of potentially toxic petroleum coke on banks of the Detroit River

Climate Change: Lines of Evidence

July 31, 2012 by Christine

The National Academies, America’s preeminent independent scientific advisory body, has produced a series of videos about the science of climate change. This one,the second in the series, explains how scientists have arrived at the current state of knowledge about recent climate change and its causes.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IuVzcp39rs&list=PL38EB9C0BC54A9EE2&index=2&feature=plpp_video]

National Academies.org

Climate Change Study Forces Skeptical Scientists To Change Minds

We’re All Climate Change Idiots

Chris Hedges: At This Moment In History, Either You Are A Rebel Or A Slave

October 11, 2011 by CPP

Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent and author, had this to say about the “Occupy Wall Street” movement last week:

“The only word that these corporations know is ‘more’…There is no way within the American system to vote against Goldman Sachs...Speculation in the 17th century was a crime. Speculators were hanged. Today they run the state and the financial markets… And of course the working class and the poor, and increasingly the middle class, have to pay the price.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz5RxhahHK0&feature=player_embedded]

On September 29th, Hedges also wrote on Truthdig.org:

There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.

...The only word these corporations know is more. They are disemboweling every last social service program funded by the taxpayers, from education to Social Security, because they want that money themselves. Let the sick die. Let the poor go hungry. Let families be tossed in the street. Let the unemployed rot. Let children in the inner city or rural wastelands learn nothing and live in misery and fear. Let the students finish school with no jobs and no prospects of jobs. Let the prison system, the largest in the industrial world, expand to swallow up all potential dissenters. Let torture continue. Let teachers, police, firefighters, postal employees and social workers join the ranks of the unemployed. Let the roads, bridges, dams, levees, power grids, rail lines, subways, bus services, schools and libraries crumble or close. Let the rising temperatures of the planet, the freak weather patterns, the hurricanes, the droughts, the flooding, the tornadoes, the melting polar ice caps, the poisoned water systems, the polluted air increase until the species dies.

Who the hell cares? If the stocks of ExxonMobil or the coal industry or Goldman Sachs are high, life is good. Profit. Profit. Profit. That is what they chant behind those metal barricades. Read full article, The Best Among Us, at Truthdig.org.

700 pilots join #OWS — 700 United & Continental Pilots Joined Occupy Wall Street on September 28th

More links:

Occupy Together.org

Chris Hedges.net

OccupyWallStreet.org

Koch Industries: The Dirty Business Of Climate Denial

July 5, 2011 by CPP

A short animation by by Australian filmmaker Taki Oldham which details the efforts of billionaire oil barons Charles & David Koch to undermine belief in climate change and prevent legislation that threatens their profits. By pouring money into bogus scientific studies and funding third parties such as Think Tanks and Front Groups (posing as everything from Seniors groups to Women’s groups), the public is led to believe a genuine scientific debate is raging. In truth, as one climate denier candidly admits, those doubting the science are just a small, if brilliantly coordinated, minority.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaKm89eVhoE&feature=player_embedded]

Oldham incorporates footage from his 55 min. documentary The Billionaires’ Tea Party (2011).

More links:

The Billionaire’s Tea Party

Koch Industries: Still Fueling Climate Denial

Quarantine the Kochs: Billionaire Brothers Associated With One Political Scandal After Another Now Infecting Canada

March 29, 2011 by CPP

Rachel Maddow on the Koch brothers, the U.S. billionaires who are using their money to oppose action on climate change, clean energy, and environmental regulation:

“[The Koch brothers] names pop up in every scummy political scandal, one after another. From the wisconsin union busting and the phony astroturf bus tours to the questionable partiality of the American Supreme Court Justices. It feels like every time a really gross new political scandal erupts, big or small, there’s the Koch brothers, with a chair pulled up to the table….every time you turn over a political rock, there they are…“

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71SWF3FvEQM]

The campaign to boycott these toxic brothers is growing. For more information, go to the “Boycott and Defeat Koch Industries” page on Facebook, or to go How You Can Boycott the Kochs on alternet.org

Need any more reasons to boycott the Kochs? Here’s U.S. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) thanking David Koch for supporting his election in 2010 and making a plea for help in his re-election campaign next year.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnkipn-gJK4]

And now, the Koch brothers are infecting Canada, in (where else?) the Alberta tar sands. Check out Koch Brothers Set Up Shop In Tar Sands Territory. But that’s not all – their oily tentacles have reached my home province, Ontario, as well: Koch Brothers Continue Their Canadian Takeover

More links:

‘War on Science’: Committee From Koch Votes To Deny Climate Change

Waxman: All That Seems to Matter is What Koch Industries Think

The Koch Brothers Exposed: It’s Time To Quarantine Their Corporate Sickness That’s Infecting Democracy

March 22, 2011 by CPP

The Koch brothers have contributed nearly $50 million to organizations that deny climate change. In total, they have spent over $324 million dollars for political gain. They are undermining democracy, and the fight to establish a sustainable world for our children and grandchildren, with their dirty money.

Common Cause, which is leading the campaign to unmask the secretive brothers and their war against democracy, put it this way:

“Our take is that Americans are suffering. They’re out of jobs, losing their homes, unable to afford health care and worried about the future. Meanwhile, an elite few like the Kochs are taking tighter control of our government by tapping vast corporate profits to influence public policy…This infection of the body politic is driven by a handful of big corporations and greedy billionaires like the Koch brothers.

Be part of the cure! Help us quarantine this corporate sickness and stop it from spreading further and deeper into our democracy.“

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g78ZKT-uMs]

How do you and I boycott the Koch brothers, to hit them where it hurts them the most, in their pocket books? While their major holdings are difficult to boycott, other than promotion of clean energy and environmental laws (which is why they have been using their money to fund politicians and astroturf groups that oppose these common-sense proposals), here is a list of products that you should never buy again:

Angel Soft toilet paper

Brawny paper towels

Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups

Mardi Gras napkins and towels

Quilted Northern toilet paper

Soft ‘n Gentle toilet paper

Sparkle napkins

Vanity fair napkins

Zee napkins

Georgia-Pacific paper products and envelopes

All Georgia-Pacific lumber and building products, including:

Dense Armor Drywall and Decking

ToughArmor Gypsum board

Georgia pacific Plytanium Plywood

Flexrock

Densglass sheathing

G/P Industrial plasters (some products used by a lot of crafters)

FibreStrong Rim board

G/P Lam board

Blue Ribbon OSB Rated Sheathing

Blue Ribbon Sub-floor

DryGuard Enhanced OSB

Nautilus Wall Sheathing

Thermostat OSB Radiant Barrier Sheathing

Broadspan Engineered Wood Products

XJ 85 I-Joists

FireDefender Banded Cores

FireDefender FS

FireDefender Mineral Core

Hardboard and Thin MDF including Auto Hardboard

Perforated Hardboard and Thin MDF

Wood Fiberboard
Commercial Roof Fiberboard
Hushboard Sound Deadening Board
Regular Fiberboard Sheathing
Structural Fiberboard Sheathing

INVISTA Products:

COMFOREL® fiberfill
COOLMAX® fabric
CORDURA® fabric
DACRON® fiber
POLYSHIELD® resin
SOLARMAX® fabric
SOMERELLE® bedding products
STAINMASTER® carpet
SUPPLEX® fabric
TACTEL® fiber
TACTESSE® carpet fiber
TERATE® polyols
TERATHANE® polyether glycol
THERMOLITE® fabric
PHENREZ® resin
POLARGUARD® fiber and
LYCRA® fiber

For more information, go to How You Can Boycott the Kochs or find the “Boycott and Defeat the Kochs” page on Facebook – it now has nearly 18,000 members.

More links:

Go to Kochbrothersexposed.com to learn more about the Brave New Foundation’s campaign, and to become a producer by donating $25 or more.

Money in Politics: About the Koch Brothers

Koch Brothers Feel the Heat in D.C., as Broad Coalition Readies Creative Action To Quarantine the Billionaires Gathering in California Desert

Senator Scott Brown begs David Koch for Money

Les Miz Echoes Through The Wisconsin Rotunda

March 4, 2011 by CPP

Les Mis in the Rotunda of the Wisconsin capital:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVEMZSP8Ypk&feature=player_embedded]

Here are the words, slightly adjusted for the situation:

Do you hear the people sing,
singing the songs of working men?
It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again.
When the beating of your heart
echoes the beating of the drums,
there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes.

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the mass parade, is there a world you long to see? Then join in the fight that will give you the right to be free.

Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!

Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!
When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

Will you dedicate your all so that our freedom may advance?
Some will stand and some will fall.
Will you stand up and take your chance?
Let’s fill the Rotunda
’til everyone joins in the chants.

The Koch brothers, notorious fossil fuel billionaires who have actively worked to undermine democracy in general and action on climate change specifically, are big supporters of Governor Walker of Wisconsin, who is attempting to push through a union-busting bill using the excuse of a budget emergency. The fight in Wisconsin is shining more light on these nefarious brothers and their money.