Global Warming Science: www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming
The Billionaires’ Club – A Case Study: Jay Inslee and Washington State
[last update: 2014/08/05]
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Senate Minority Report Exposes Billionaires Club Funding CO2 Propaganda
From the report:
“In reality, an elite group of left wing millionaires and billionaires, which this report refers to as the “Billionaire’s Club,” who directs and controls the far-left environmental movement, which in turn controls major policy decisions and lobbies on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Even more unsettling, a dominant organization in this movement is Sea Change Foundation, a private California foundation, which relies on funding from a foreign company with undisclosed donors. In turn, Sea Change funnels tens of millions of dollars to other large but discreet foundations and prominent environmental activists who strive to control both policy and politics.”
“the Billionaire’s Club gains access to a close knit network of likeminded funders, environmental activists, and government bureaucrats who specialize in manufacturing phony “grassroots” movements and in promoting bogus propaganda disguised as science and news to spread an anti-fossil energy message to the unknowing public.”
“The Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, League of Conservation Voters, Center for Biological Diversity, National Wildlife Federation, World Wildlife Fund, and other environmental activist organizations serve as the face of the movement and provide cover for where the secretive foundations direct their resources.”
“Klein Ltd., a foreign corporation, has risen to prominence in the far-left environmental community – doling out tens of millions to favored charities via Sea Change Foundation. In fact, none of this foreign corporation’s funding is disclosed in any way. This is clearly a deceitful way to hide the source of millions of dollars that are active in our system, attempting to effect political change.”
“Numerous examples raise questions as to whether the charitable donations are indirectly supporting political activity. For example, in many cases they fund a 501(c)(3), like the Energy Foundation or the League of Conservation Voters, which then transfers large sums to an affiliated 501(c)(4), which can engage in political activity.”
“CAP [Center for American Progress] is an organization dedicated to increasing government control. It was co-founded by John Podesta, the current senior climate advisor to President Obama and former President Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff, along with Herbert Sandler, who recently contributed $1 million to Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action Committee.”
Note: the League of Conservation Voters and NextGen Climate Action referred to in the Senate report above are also referred to in the Inslee / Steyer case study described below.
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Washington State Governor Jay Inslee and His Billionaire Campaign
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/us/as-oysters-die-climate-policy-goes-on-stump.html?_r=0
From the NY Times article:
“The Democratic governor, aided by what is expected to be millions of dollars from his billionaire friend Tom Steyer, is using the story of Washington’s oysters — scientists say a rise in carbon levels has spiked the acidity of the Pacific and is killing off shellfish — to make the case for passing the most far-reaching climate change policies in the nation. Mr. Inslee, who is campaigning for his agenda across the state this summer with oyster farmers in tow, is trying to position himself as America’s leading governor in the climate change fight. But Mr. Inslee does not have the support of the majority of the Washington State Senate, particularly those conservative lawmakers from the rural inland, so Mr. Steyer’s advocacy group, NextGen Climate, is working with the Washington League of Conservation Voters to handpick Democratic, pro-climate policy candidates across the state.
Mr. Steyer’s strategy is to spend heavily this fall to help defeat sitting lawmakers who oppose Mr. Inslee’s agenda and pave the way for the governor to move his policies through next year — an example, his critics say, of the insidious influence of big money from outsiders that makes local elections less local.
“We’re working to give Jay the Legislature that he needs,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the national League of Conservation Voters. “The state senators are the obstacles.” Mr. Inslee discussed the strategy over lunch at the governor’s mansion in May with Mr. Steyer, a retired California hedge-fund manager who has pledged to spend $100 million on climate issues in elections across the country this year. Mr. Inslee makes no apologies for Mr. Steyer’s efforts on his behalf.”
“Mr. Steyer has not said what he will spend in the districts, but his previous pattern indicates it will be hundreds of thousands of dollars for each candidate — a huge amount for a Washington State race. In 2013, Mr. Steyer’s group spent $275,000 in Washington to help ensure the election of four pro-environment candidates to the local council in Whatcom County, where candidates normally spend less than $25,000 for a single race. As a result, prospects are now dim for council approval of a proposed $600 million port in Whatcom near the border with British Columbia, which, if constructed, would facilitate the shipment of 48 million tons of coal annually to Asia from Montana and Wyoming.”
Others are equally outraged. “It’s ridiculous that money coming from outside the state is trying to influence our votes,” said Rick Tjoelker, an auto mechanic in Lynden, Wash., who bristled at Mr. Inslee’s climate campaign. Mr. Inslee said that views like Mr. Tjoelker’s have convinced him that he has to use the dying oysters — and the threat to a $270 million Pacific Northwest shellfish industry — to sound alarms about climate change for people who ordinarily might not listen. Ocean acidification, he said, “has the same cause as climate change, but it has been unsullied with the political controversy of climate change.”
“Beginning in 2008, hatcheries have experienced a sharp increase in oyster larvae mortality. …Taylor Shellfish Farms [Inslee’s buddy in the photo above] has struggled with oyster larvae die-offs at its hatchery on Puget Sound's Dabob Bay”
So the storyline is: human “fossil fuel” CO2 emissions cause ocean acidification, causing oyster larvae to die. And Inslee vows to use the Billionaires’ Club to buy elections.
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Acidification in Puget Sound
Inslee claims it is due to anthropogenic “fossil fuel” based CO2 emissions and we need to eliminate coal, oil and gas.
But a 2010 NY Times article in essence contradicts this: “The ocean averages a pH of 8.1 … But in Puget Sound's Hood Canal, Feely and his colleagues sampled water with a pH of just 7.4 in summer 2008. Water in the sound's main basin carried a pH of 7.7 … In Puget Sound, nutrient runoff also plays a role in shifting water chemistry. It encourages growth of phytoplankton and zooplankton that add to the sound's acid burden when they die and sink into the water column, where they decompose -- releasing CO2. … He and his colleagues estimate that CO2 emissions have caused 24 to 29 percent of the pH drop in Hood Canal, compared to the preindustrial level.”
So here we have it: at most 24-29 percent of the pH drop in Hood Canal – which has a lower pH than either the rest of Puget Sound or the ocean in general – can be attributed to CO2 emissions. That leaves about three quarters of the reduced pH attributed to natural causes – or at least, not due to human CO2 emissions. (Dabob Bay, mentioned previously is on Hood Canal.)
Apparently the pH can fluctuate quite a bit on a daily basis:
http://whatcomwin.org/presentations/OceanAcidificationShellfish.pdf
“September 2006 marked the discovery of the largest dead zone in the history of Hood Canal. The dead zone may have been caused by low oxygen levels due to algal blooms. Algal blooms occur in part because of warm weather and the slow turnover of water in the southern end of the canal, causing the build-up of nutrients from fertilizers and leaky septic systems. … The fish kill may also be part of a natural 50-year cycle of oxygen levels in the canal, which has merely been influenced (but not controlled) by anthropogenic activity.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Canal
The following figure shows the pH along a transect from the coast into Hood Canal in August 2008 (report published 2010:
It is clear from the following that the pH is highly correlated to the oxygen: lower dissolved oxygen, lower pH.
http://faculty.wwu.edu/~shulld/ESCI%20432/Feely2010.pdf
From the above report: “Since there are no high-quality, long-term, carbon times-series measurements in Puget Sound, it is not possible to directly determine the increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the region”
The above report concludes: “The patterns of low pH and aragonite saturation states observed in the Puget Sound estuary complex are largely the result of natural mixing, circulation, and biological processes at the present time. … Further study of ocean acidification in estuaries is thus warranted because natural factors including acidic river inputs and restricted circulation can predispose these ecologically and economically important habitats toward corrosive, hypoxic conditions, and anthropogenic stressors such as nutrient enrichment may compound them.”
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Shellfish Problems in Puget Sound
A 2012 study sates: “The shellfish industry in the United States is largely dependant on hatchery and nursery production of high quality, disease free larvae and juvenile bivalves mollusks (e.g. oysters, clams, mussels). Loss of seed in marine hatcheries to widespread disease-causing bacteria, such as Vibrio tubiashii and its relatives, causes severe economic loss. … In 2007, the re-emergence of V. tubiashii closed one key shellfish hatchery in Oregon and markedly reduced production (estimated decrease of 59%) at nursery and various growout sites in the Pacific Northwest of the US.
Vibrio tubiashii is a recently re-emerging pathogen of larval and juvenile bivalve mollusks, causing a disease called bacillary necrosis. In spite of the economic importance of V. tubiashii in the cultivation of larval and juvenile bivalves in shellfish hatcheries, little is known about the virulence mechanisms employed by this organism.
Detailed research to date shows that the impact of vibriosis on marine hatcheries can be prevented in many cases and greatly reduced in nearly all cases if early detection is possible. Thus, the primary impediment today for marine hatcheries to make effective management decisions is the lack of diagnostic method for the early detection of pathogenic Vibrio bacteria. We have developed a quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay for the detection of the V. tubiashii metalloprotease gene and are currently developing specific antibody-based detection methods usable on-site in hatcheries. This technology can be expected to markedly advance the productivity and efficiency of marine hatcheries. ” http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/events/virulence-shellfish-vibrio-tubiashii
A 2008 article blamed the problem on Vibrio tubiashii: “West Coast shellfish biologists are engaged in a war against a species of bacteria that has been killing oyster larvae and threatening to cripple the $111 million-a-year shellfish industry. Experts say the explosive growth of the bacteria may be related to unusual conditions in the Pacific Ocean -- including a "dead zone" of low oxygen plus warmer temperatures that spring up unexpectedly. Last fall, the Vibrio tubiashii bacteria forced the closure of Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery near Tillamook, Ore., a major producer of oyster larvae. The hatchery reopened after construction of a $200,000 water-treatment system. … Elston said he has been studying the bacteria intensively since 1998, when Oregon hatcheries first experienced a major die-off of oyster larvae.” http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080620/NEWS03/286424555
A 2012 study reported: “Over the last four years, some oyster hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest region have experienced mass mortalities of oyster larvae in association with a combination of circumstances including unusually saline surface waters and the upwelling of cold CO2- and nutrient-rich waters, which contained high concentrations of the pathogenic bacteria, Vibrio tubiashii.” http://faculty.wwu.edu/~shulld/ESCI%20432/Feely2010.pdf
“Scientists are studying ways to filter out the harmful bacteria for aquaculture tanks. They’re also working to develop varieties of oysters that are bacteria-resistant.” http://www.opb.org/news/article/bacteria-cause-decline-northwest-oysters/
The following figures are from this source: http://www.psmfc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/PSMFC_Annual_Meeting_2011_dewey.pdf Hood Canal does not meet clean water standards for dissolved oxygen.
2010 was a record year for Taylor oyster hatchery production.
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Conclusion
Puget sound has areas of low oxygen. Nutrients and river inputs increase plankton / algal blooms, then die and decompose on the bottom of the sound. Upwelling of this decreases pH locally. Periodic warm temperatures increase Vibrio tubiashii causing die off of the oyster larvae.
Washington State Governor Inslee is using the typical environmentalist false blame of the whole oyster situation on “fossil fuel” CO2. Together with using the environmentalist Billionaire’s Club to buy elections in Washington State, he will force the “green” agenda onto all Washington residents.
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