Tall Tales from Spain
OPS_admin | May 10, 2009 | Comments 0
Tall Tales from Spain
Conservatives turn to Spanish study to misinform Americans and Congress about clean-energy independence and new clean-energy jobs, write James Heintz and Andrew Light.
Spain, over the past several years, has pursued an ambitious renewable energy program designed to turn it around from dependence on foreign sources of energy. The country is now lauded as a global leader in alternative energy technologies such as wind, biogas, and, more recently, concentrated solar thermal. But you wouldn’t know any of this if you listened to conservatives in the United States who have latched onto a paper by a team of Spanish researchers.
The paper, by Professor Gabríel Calzada Álvarez and colleagues, was featured this past Monday at an event at the Heritage Foundation. It inaccurately claims there were job losses in Spain due to government investments in clean-energy solutions and then doubles down by mistakenly claiming that subsidizing renewable energy investments led to higher energy prices in the country. Both assertions are based on flawed analysis, yet once again conservatives took this message to Congress to make these misleading points, this time led by Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources.
Filed Under: Environment
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If we don't change our ways soon...
A new report by the Royal Society, chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston warns that world population must be stabilized and consumption in wealthy nations must be reduced or the entire planet is in big trouble. As the report reads: "The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are unprecedented and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We can choose to rebalance the use of resources to a more egalitarian pattern of consumption... or we can choose to do nothing and to drift into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills leading to a more unequal and inhospitable future."This is the same warning that President Jimmy Carter gave Americans back in the 1970's - but it was ignored when Ronald Reagan came to power with a "more positive" message basically telling Americans we can do whatever we want. And then after 9/11 - Bush told us all we should go shopping and consume ever more.And now with corporations calling the shots in Washington - long-term sustainability of the planet takes a back seat to short-term profits. If we don't change our ways soon - and embrace clean, alternative energy and educate women around the plant - then we all could be headed for a rough century.-Thom(Is there any chance we will learn in time? Tell us here.) -
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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. 
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