Mrs. Snowe, Who Wrote This Letter?

James Taranto has an editorial in today’s WSJ which links to the text of a letter from Senators Rockefeller and Snowe to Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil. The letter is remarkable for several reasons. First, it is obvious that neither of the two signees actually wrote the letter. It was written by a global warming activist, who revels in the Gaiaist Apocalyptic Syndrome (GAS) known as Global Climate Change. GAS was formerly known as Global Warming, but that was officially changed last week by John F. Kerry, on any of several cable interviews: this from Rita Cosby’s interview,

“What I am concerned about is dealing with global climate change, dealing with major issues of the economy that we face and I think the American people voted overwhelmingly in November…”

The major issues of the economy? Global Climate Change? This is what the American People voted about overwhelmingly in November?

The GAS activist letter writer accuses Exxon Mobil of preventing the United States from “demonstrating moral clarity it needs across all facets of its diplomacy.” In addition, Exxon Mobil should cease and desist providing funding and support for any GAS “deniers” , and includes, by name, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years.

Taranto sums it up very nicely:

Let’s compare the balance of forces: on one side, CEI; on the other, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, the U.N. and EU, Hollywood, Al Gore, and every politically correct journalist in the country. We’ll grant that’s a fair intellectual fight. But 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.

The letter is so over-the-top that we also wonder if Mr. Rockefeller in particular has even read it. (He and Ms. Snowe didn’t return our call.) The Senator hails from coal-producing West Virginia, where people know something about carbon emissions. Come to think of it, Mr. Rockefeller owes his own vast wealth to something other than non-carbon energy. But perhaps it’s easier to be carbon free when your fortune comes from a trust fund.”


12 Responses

  1. When I get the time, I’m going to do some checking on the names that got copies of the original letter. None of them ring a bell, and I suspect they must be some of the GAS crowd, needing proof of a return on their investment in the Senators.

  2. I like that. GAS crowd, heh

  3. Henh.
    The GAS crowd needs to be purged.
    /henh

  4. Need to shut it down.
    Here’s some excellent Austin City Limits for ya’.
    Cliffs of Dover.

  5. nite (posted to NowPublic)

  6. It is a beautiful crisp morning with a brilliant moon and dark shadows. Sorry y’all had to miss it. If I didn’t have to start working again in a few hours, I believe I’d go to the beach and enjoy a moonlit ocean in solitude.

  7. Isn’t there a word for people that are making an implied threat of reprisals if a business does not cease and desist something? Clearly an abuse of power, if nothing else, but I’m thinking of an uglier word. However, I will have to read the entire article in depth instead of skimming, and my eyes are just too tired right now.

  8. In November economist and former British Lord Chancellor Nigel Lawson in Maggie Thatcher’s government rose to give an address at the Centre for Policy Studies in London. What his audience were privileged to experience was nothing less than a rare phenomenon: sheer force of reason in public debate. I adjure anyone concerned about the lack of emphasis on reason in current public debate to read the text of Lawson’s address: The Economics and Politics of Climate Change: An Appeal to Reason in full here. However, for those who struggle to read even eighteen reason-injecting pages….

    Lawson’s paper addresses the key scientific, economic, political and social issues surrounding climate change – a tall order within the ambit of a single address. First he deals with the “consensus” that persists in claiming that the climate science is “settled”. And, adding his voice to others debunking the recent “scaremongering” Stern Report, Lawson cites the ultimate “uncertainty” inherent in our understanding of the “relatively new” and “highly complex science of climatology”. For all its great size, says Lawson, the report “adds disappointingly little”…”apart from a battery of essentially spurious statistics based on theoretic models and conjectural worst cases.”

    Thatcher economist de-hypes climate debate
    I wonder if Mr. Lawson has received his extortion letter yet, from those who wish to control the debate world.

  9. Yep, extortion. That was the ugly word I’m thinking of. Whyizzit that it’s illegal if I do it?

  10. [...] After we we speculated last night as to the identity of the true author of the Rockefeller-Snowe letter to ExxonMobil, I happened to look at the site-tracking meter which tells me a little bit about who happens drops by NN&V. [...]

  11. [...] Original post by nuke Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]

  12. [...] we we speculated Monday night as to the identity of the true author of the Rockefeller-Snowe letter to ExxonMobil, I [...]

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