because we fuck up the future, one ratepayer at a time
"Our motto: Deceit now for stupidity tomorrow."
Via ABC News:
One Colorado electric cooperative has openly admitted that it has paid $100,000 to a university academic who prides himself on being a global warming skeptic.
Intermountain Rural Electric Association is heavily invested in power plants that burn coal, one of the chief sources of greenhouse gasses that scientists agree is quickly pushing earth's average temperature to dangerous levels.
Scientists and consumer advocates say the co-op is trying to confuse its clients about the virtually total scientific consensus on the causes of global warming.
ABC News has obtained a copy of a nine-page document that IREA general manager Stanley Lewandowski Jr. addressed to the more than 900 fellow members of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
The document is a wide-ranging condemnation of carbon taxes and mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions that Lewandowski writes would threaten to "erode most, if not all, the benefits of coal-fired generation."
The letter also says that in February of this year, IREA contributed $100,000 to Patrick Michaels, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia.
Michaels is one of about a dozen academics who for years have cast doubt on the science surrounding global warming while downplaying the scientifically accepted idea that humans are causing it.
"We have had many apocalypses through the ages that haven't shown up, and this is likely to be another one," Michaels said on CNN earlier this year.
Consumer advocates say it's not surprising a utility that relies on burning coal to produce electricity would oppose regulation calling for mandatory caps on carbon dioxide emissions -- caps that Lewandowski says would mean expensive investments in new technologies and higher rates for customers.
What is an unusual breach of trust, the advocates say, is that a relatively small company like IREA has given such a substantial sum to Michaels without telling customers.
"It's outrageous. It's an abuse of authority," said Ron Binz, a public utility consultant who was Colorado's state utility consumer advocate from 1984 to 1995.
"Intermountain is a rural electric cooperative," Binz said. "The customers are member-owners. Stan Lewandowski is basically spending other people's money."
Lewandowski is unapologetic about the contents of the document and for donating the money to Michaels, who did not immediately return calls and e-mails seeking comment.
"I think what we need to talk about is how much can be done, and at what cost," Lewandowski said to ABC News. "My intent is to get the issue out there and say, 'This is important.' I'm trying to keep the low rates for our customers. And I'll do anything in my power to try and do that."
Lewandowski says the IREA board of directors legally and unanimously approved hiring Michaels -- who he says has "significant credentials" -- though he says that IREA's 133,000 customers were not notified first.
Binz says that Lewandowski is "absolutely committed to fossil fuels going forward. He's free to do that, I guess. But I think his member-owners should seriously question whether he's acting in their best interest. He's shooting first and asking questions later."
Lewandowski is also under fire from scientists for grossly misrepresenting the scientific evidence of global warming in a six-page "fact sheet" that accompanied the letter, blaming global warming on natural cycles and "the influences of plate tectonics."
Scientists say he is simply wrong and attempting to cloud sound science now agreed on after decades of debate.
"There is clearly a well-organized and well-funded effort to undermine the science and cause confusion in the minds of the public," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "And several contrarians have benefited solely to carry this disinformation campaign out."
Lewandowski said: "I'm not trying to twist the science. I didn't dream any of this stuff up. I picked this up here and there. I didn't mean to mislead anybody, and that's not my intent."
See? He just picked it up, here and there. Plates, you know, and natural cycles of plates. And then he blew a hundred grand of someone else's money on, you know, what he picked up here and there.
Plates and things, see.
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