Obama Turns to Browner to get Greener
Obama has named Carol Browner to be his White House coordinator of energy and climate policy (“Energy Czar”). Who is she? “Browner is a major proponent of cap and trade programs, and had called on Mr. Obama to instruct EPA on his first day to start rulemaking on carbon regulation. She has called global warming the “greatest challenge ever faced.” [http://www.pa-erg.com/pdfs/aer_121508.pdf]
Browner is a commission member of the “Socialist International - Commission for a Sustainable World Society”. From their website [http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=1947&&ModuleID=34]:
From their statement on climate change: “Global governance is no longer a concept but an urgent necessity. … Reiterating its firm conviction that the international agenda for climate change has to be linked to eradicating poverty, the Commission underlined that any global economic reforms had to ensure that development was not only greener, but also more just and sustainable, and that national and international development policies must include climate concerns. Stepping up efforts with regard to canceling the debt of poorer countries is needed and providing these countries with unrestricted market access, so lessening inequality among nations.” [http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticlePageID=1230]
“The Socialist International believes that there is a great potential in the effective use of appropriate market mechanisms, such as carbon trading. Nevertheless, we are aware of the fact that climate change is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure the world has ever seen and that market solutions alone are insufficient and will not provide the financial support and resources necessary to achieve the required combination of deep emission reduction, adaptation to already changing climate conditions, energy security and equitable and environmentally sound economic development. … Commitments by individual nations should be based on past, present and future level of emissions and the country’s economic capacity to reduce them, under the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. The wealthiest nations with the greatest volume of emissions should reduce their emissions first and the most.” [http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticlePageID=1264]
Browner is also on the Board of Directors of the Alliance for Climate Protection. What is the Alliance for Climate Protection? “it is Al Gore, substantially ... He is the chairman of the board, and the organization can be thought of as a vast extension of Al Gore's now-famous slide show depicted in An Inconvenient Truth. It's received many of the proceeds of the film, and the Live Earth concert.” [http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/7808] “Our mission is to persuade the American people—and people elsewhere in the world—of the importance and urgency of adopting and implementing effective and comprehensive solutions for the climate crisis. The Alliance for Climate Protection is undertaking an unprecedented mass persuasion exercise” [www.climateprotect.org/about/alliance]
They also run the “We Can Solve It” campaign: “Climate change is real. And it’s happening much faster than was predicted just a few years ago.” They also run the “Repower America” campaign. USA Today reports that the Alliance for Climate Protection is spending $300 million over the next three years as part of their persuasion campaign. Their persuasion methods include: “early evidence suggests that many people will change if: … They think their children will be harmed by global warming, or children encourage the family to lead a greener life.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/2008-03-23-green-behavior_N.htm
So what is Browner’s background? “in the mid-1980’s Browner was associate director of Citizen Action, founded by Ralph Nader” [http://www.richardminiter.com/pdf/articles/19930208-art-insight.pdf] She was one of Gore’s aides when he was a Senator from Tennessee and was his legislative director from '88-'91. When Gore became VP, Browner was installed as head of the EPA [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-roberts/browners-second-chance-ob_b_150360.html]
As the EPA director under Clinton from 1993 to 2001: “In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that, in collaboration with the EPA, it planned to ban the inhalers that 30 million Americans rely on to protect their daily breath. The EPA was concerned that, because the inhalers contained trace amounts of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), they contributed to greenhouse gas emissions.” The EPA “announced plans to impose entirely new standards for ozone and fine-particulate emissions Browner promised that the new rules would cost less than $10 billion a year. … George Mason University’s Center for the Study of Public Choice estimated that compliance with the new regs could cost $380 billion per year. … the new regs were expected — even by EPA’s own Clean Air Science Advisory Committee — to have little or no health benefit…In May 1999, a federal appeals court struck down EPA’s new regulations as “an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power.... What EPA lacks is any determinate criterion for drawing lines.” [http://www.fff.org/freedom/0501d.asp]
She was unusual in another way: “she refused to use e-mail when she served as President Clinton's Environmental Protection Agency chief in the 1990s for fear of leaving a digital trail. She also ordered her government computer hard drive wiped clean of records just before leaving office. "It was a conscious decision not to use a piece of equipment or to learn how to use a piece of equipment because I didn't want to be in a situation similar to what I had been in Florida," "This is why I made this decision not to use my computer," she said. "I was very careful."
[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/24/climate-czar-left-no-electronic-trail/]
After the Clinton EPA, Browner was a founding partner of the Albright Group (along with Madeleine Albright – Clinton’s Secretary of State). In 2006 she was involved with supporting the Dubai Ports World in the controversial takeover deal of an American company responsible for several ports [http://spectator.org/archives/2006/04/05/take-the-money-and-run].
Browner is on the Board of Directors of the Center for American Progress (started by John Podesta, Clinton’s final Chief of Staff) – where the stand on energy is “to reduce the world’s reliance on dirty, carbon-based energy” [http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/energy]. This organization doesn’t look at science, only “the pressing voices of climate change refugees, in the poorest countries, who are already bearing the brunt of global warming.”
Like Al Gore, who has major investments in carbon credit trading via Generation Investment Management (see www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/CarbonMonetization.htm), Browner also has a similar conflict of interest. She is on the Board of Directors of APX Inc. APX is a “technology and service provider for environmental and energy markets, including renewable energy, energy efficiency and carbon emissions.” [http://www.technologypartners.com/press/CarolBrownerJoinsAPXBoardofDirectors.pdf] She said: “The explosive growth in environmental commodities trading will result in a greater need for market oversight. ... APX is a world-class environmental infrastructure company with a long history of public-private partnerships, and I look forward to helping them capitalize on the full potential of these markets.” She is not the only Clinton EPA person at APX -- Gary Guzy, the EPA General Counsel under Clinton is now General Counsel at APX. At the EPA he was involved with authoring “climate change provisions that were later ratified by the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark 2007 decision finding that greenhouse gases are pollutants under federal law.” He said: “Emissions credit and allowance trading is a critical part of the solution for climate change” [http://www.tradevibes.com/company/profile/apx/key_people].
An example of her “science”: In a speech to the Stanford MBA students, she came “armed with data and statistics to illustrate the rapid warming of the earth's atmosphere … Browner said that some 36 cubic miles of Antarctic ice were melting into the sea each year” [http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/2006vongugelberg.shtml]. Either she isn’t aware that ice melts in summer and grows back in winter, or she is just trying to mislead people, since the Antarctic ice has actually been slightly increasing over the years:
Seasonal Extent:
From http://www.nsidc.org/sotc/sea_ice.html
From http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
Extent Anomalies:
From http://www.nsidc.org/sotc/sea_ice.html (graph has Arctic trend removed)
From http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/