XPost EE: Right wing stepping up attacks on renewable energy

[kristopher]

Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy strategy
Confidential memo seen by Guardian calls for climate change sceptics to turn American public against solar and wind power



The proposals suggest setting up 'dummy businesses' to buy anti-wind billboards, and creating a 'counter-intelligence branch' to track the wind energy industry. Photograph: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty


A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to turn the American public against wind farms and Barack Obama's energy agenda.

A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which also has financial links to the Kochs, has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy.

Now a confidential strategy memo seen by the Guardian advises using "subversion" to build a national movement of wind farm protesters.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112714465

The extensive and detailed memo is reproduced in post #12

[Igel]

1. Droz is annoying.

Mostly an irritant. He's been on an anti-wind jag, for undetermined reasons, for years. No obvious financial motives for him.

The memo sat around for 8 months until he picked it up. The memo was written by an anti-wind attorney in Illinois. Obvious financial motives for him.

Not a lot of connections between either and the groups the memo says they want to enlist. Actually, if they want to enlist them it rather argues that as of 1/12 there was no real alliance between Droz (doesn't his name mean "thrush" in Polish?) and these groups.

[kristopher]

2. Could you provide your source of information?

You're clearly going beyond what the OP offers, and I'm not sure what your point is.

...But conservative activists describe the ramp-up as critical to the effort to defeat Obama in the elections. "It's absolutely a campaign issue and it's a big one," said Dave Schwartz, who heads the Maryland chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a tea party group with Koch funds. "It absolutely is a contentious issue," he said.

Kert Davies, Greenpeace research director, agrees. "They are going back to the states to create the space for an anti-Obama, anti-green energy thing. It is really a political attack," he said. " What the right wing wants to perpetuate is that this is a type of energy that never works and requires massive government handouts."

More than 30 local wind farm opponents, all selected by Droz, came to Washington at his invitation. Participants included members of conservative groups such as Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and Tea Party Patriots.

[kristopher]

3. American Tradition Institute's fight against 'environmental junk science'

American Tradition Institute's fight against 'environmental junk science'
ATI is one of several groups ramping up an offensive to turn the American public against President Obama's energy policy

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 May 2012 12.49 EDT


American Tradition Institute is a relative newcomer to the network of ultra-conservative thinktank and activist groups with a core mission of discrediting climate science and dismantling environmental regulations – including those intended to avoid catastrophic climate change.

But it has grabbed headlines over the last two years by filing law suits demanding access to the entire document and email record of prominent climate scientists, including Michael Mann, James Hansen, and Katharine Hayhoe.

The thinktank claims it is looking for evidence of fraud. But the rash of law suits have been condemned by the main academic teaching body and scientific organisations as an assault on academic freedom. They also accuse ATI of deliberating filing nuisance suits to disrupt important academic research.

Until now, its campaign against wind power has been relegated to the sidelines. But that has been a core mission. The thinktank was first registered, though under a different name, in Colorado in 2008 by a Republican operative who later pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining federal government grants to develop alternative fuels....

More at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/09/climate-change-american-tradition-insitute?intcmp=239