Emails Show Koch Industries Backed Effort to Undermine Renewable Energy in Kansas

"andyt" said
How can this be? I thought it was the greenies that were funded by sinister organizations trying to destroy the carbon energy industry. The Kock brothers are the good guys, aren't they?

The global climate change industry is worth an annual $1.5 trillion, according to Climate Change Business Journal. That�s the equivalent of $4 billion a day spent on vital stuff like carbon trading, biofuels, and wind turbines. Or � as Jo Nova notes � it�s the same amount the world spends every year on online shopping.

But there�s a subtle difference between these two industries � the global warming one and the online shopping one. Can you guess what it is?

Well, it�s like this. When you go to, say, Charles Tyrwhitt to buy a nice, smart shirt, or Amazon to buy the box set of Game of Thrones, or Krazykrazysextoy.com to replace your girlfriend�s worn out rabbit, no one is holding a gun to your head. You are buying these things of your own free volition either for yourself or for someone you love. You have paid for them, out of your own money, because you have made the calculation that they will make your life that little bit better. Better than it would, say, if you�d kept the money in your bank account or spent it on something less desirable � a novelty dog poo ornament, say, or a handknitted sweater with Jimmy Savile�s face on it and �I HEART paedos� picked out in gold lam� lettering.

When, on the other hand, you buy stuff from the climate change industry, you have no choice in the matter whatsoever. It�s already priced into your taxes, your electricity bills, the cost of your petrol, the cost of your airfare, the cost of every product you buy and every service you use. It is utterly inescapable, this expenditure. Yet unlike your online shopping � which, remember, costs roughly the same as you spend each year on the climate change industry � you get precisely nothing in return.