Category Archives: Oil

Americans overwhelmingly want clean energy and environmental protection —Pew

Climate Progress points out that a new Pew poll, “Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology”, shows that Public support for alternative energy transcends political barriers:
71% of Americans believe “This country should do whatever it takes to protect the environment.” And 59% believe that “strongly.”
Quoting from Pew’s summary:
In light of this diversity it is interesting to note a couple of areas where almost all of these groups agree. The first is on support for alternative energy. Overall, the public prioritizes developing alternative energy over expanding oil, coal, and natural gas by a 63-29 margin. And, as shown in the chart below, seven of Pew’s eight active typology groups support this position, including a whopping 40-point margin among the Main Street Republican group. Only the staunch conservatives (9 percent of the public) dissent from the rest. Conservatives usually act like progressive ideas have no purchase in “their” part of the political spectrum. These data suggest otherwise.
And no, conservatives are not the political type the south has the most disproportional percentage of: those would be Hard-Pressed Democrats and Disaffecteds.

And no, by “alternative energy” people don’t mean polluting biomass: 63% of Americans say “EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect the air and water”. What Americans want is clean renewable energy: solar, wind, and hydrogen.

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Conversation for jobs —Cristobal Serran-Pagan @ VCC 7 April 2011

Dr. Serran-Pagan suggests we have a conversation among all types of people and do the math. Let’s put the money where it will produce jobs. Solar, wind, why haven’t we been doing it? Real clean renewable sources of energy. He brings up the water the biomass plant would use.
Water is precious. Air is precious. Oil, coal, is not precious. Biomass is not precious. We have plenty of good clean, renewable sources of energy. Let’s do that…. and get rid of old models, and let’s try to do what is right for community, for our economy, and for public interest.

Here’s the video:


Conversation for jobs —Cristobal Serran-Pagan @ VCC 7 April 2011
Regular monthly meeting of the Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 April 2011,
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

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Big oil tax subsidies: $9 billion / year —API

After last night’s Valdosta City Council meeting, someone told me he thought all renewable energy sources required subsidies, and that was the problem. Well, I think the real problem is the much larger subsidies to big oil.

Dan Froomkin wrote in huffpo How The Oil Lobby Greases Washington’s Wheels:

Despite astronomical profits during what have been lean years for most everyone else, the oil and gas industry continues to benefit from massive, multi-billion dollar taxpayer subsidies. Opinion polling shows the American public overwhelmingly wants those subsidies eliminated.
That’s at least $4 billion a year to big oil while Congress debates cutting Social Security and Medicare and maybe shutting down the government. According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), Continue reading →