Date: Thursday, April 9, 2009
Time: 1:15-2:30 pm (4:30pm at Woodbury, MN)
Place: St. Cloud State University
St. Cloud, MN, 56301
Representative Bachmann was barely present at her Cap and Trade event, a lecture from lawyer Chris Horner. No questions were fielded by our representative, whom sat to the side, watching Horner spew lies at her constituents.
Pre-event Media Release:
St. Cloud, MN – This Thursday, over 60 students from St. Cloud State University (SCSU) , College of St. Benedict, and St. John’s University (CSB|SJU) will be attending Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Public Forum on Climate Change and Cap and Trade at SCSU to provide their fellow constituents with an alternative viewpoint from the one presented by speaker Chris Horner, a conservative who has repeatedly referred to global warming as “hype.” The students will share information about the real impact of the climate crisis on Minnesotans, and explain how a cap and trade program would help bring much-needed jobs to the state. Bachmann has been a vocal opponent of the President’s cap and trade proposal: in an op-ed published in the Star Tribune on Tuesday, she referred to cap and trade as “cap-and-tax,” and stated that the economy would “suffer” if such a plan was implemented.
“As one of Rep. Bachmann’s constituents, I am disappointed by how frighteningly out of touch she is when it comes to the realities of the climate crisis,” said Casey Wojtalewicz a student at CSBC|SJU. “Considering her views, it is no surprise that she has invited Chris Horner, a fellow denier of the science behind climate change, to lead her Public Forum. We thought it was important to debunk the ‘facts’ being presented by this Forum, and provide those in attendance with the truth about climate change and the benefits a green economy would have for Minnesotans. Armed with this information, we can work together to create positive change on climate issues that will contribute to the long-term economic stability of our country.”
I will be liveblogging, beginning at 1:15 PM CST.
Liveblog:
Good afternoon! There will no longer be a question and answer session at this event. all questions should be written on a card and passed to an appropriate person (no explanation is given for this). So much for “town-hall forum”.
The crowd of 400 is a cross-section of both students, and non-students and elders of the community. Some in plain clothes, some in suits. The media was circulating and had a strong presence.
An announcement was made: ”All questions are to be directed to Chris Horner” and not Rep. Bachmann.Wait, is he our representative? Why is Rep. Bachmann so scared to field questions from the everyday people she is supposed to represent? No one could tell if the questions came from men, women, elders, students, somalis, or otherwise. The representation was long gone.
“Thank people on all sides of this issue for coming out here today” Bachmann began, with a hint of humanity and bipartisanship which soon faded. ”From research I’ve done, Cap and Trade is a crippling tax”. During her very brief intro she was base and short-sited, avoiding the possibility that someone ought to care for the environment our economy and health grows out of. She remarked that Cap and Trade will harm small farms, businesses (neither of which it will, since neither are major polluters), and not achieve goals it wants to. “Energy tax” will hike up costs an average of $2,500-3,000 per family, affecting everybody and industry, she lied (later this was an admitted “estimate”. The real numbers found in the MIT study? $340/household. Bachman, and the National Republican Congressional Committee multiplied them by 10). There are no products that don’t use energy, so this affects everybody negatively, a short-sighted estimate. There won’t be any food for the humans to eat if droughts crush world agriculture. Of what value will these products then be?
She believes that the Midwest will fair worse than other areas: we get more coal than the Northeast and Northwest. and she made this comment about green jobs: “For every green job that was created, 2.2 other jobs were lost”. She must not have been thinking about the jobs in renewable energies, sustainable development, efficiency products and weatherization of homes (to name but a small few). Decentralizing energy supply = more jobs.
One of the recurring arguments was that China and India will become a more attractive outlet for outsourcing and jobs. Rep. Bachmann continued on, saying that any reductions we achieve will be offset by the increase in emissions of these other countries. This apparently justifies the wasteful practices of other countries, such as ourselves. Which beckons the question of all of us: why would anyone ever choose to sacrifice for their values or for the long-term? Do we really still expect developing nations to make these sacrifices BEFORE we do, here, in the most powerful country on the planet? Get real! I guess the U.S. has become not a world-leader, but a world-follower on this issue.
Chris Horner is here to help get the facts straight, Rep. Bachmann explained. She apparently saw Horner speach in DC. and had to have this rash lawyer speak in her district to educate her constituents.
Horner wasted no time in creating a smoke screen of rambling lawyer-talk describing Cap and Trade (CAT), which, he said “you’re not supposed to know what it means”. He believes It’s an energy tax, much like the carbon tax Al Gore mentioned in the Financial Times a long time ago. Time check? 1 minute and Al Gore was already brought up as an arguing point? Typical Horner.
Horner decided the economic essentials were that: CAT raises costs of fossil fuels, resulting in energy and consumer price rise, while output, employment and wages fall. “CO2 is not a pollutant” he lies.
Throughout the talk, one ridiculous theme was perpetuated: if we want to reduce CO2, we should have a tax. Horner explains that, “CAT is 4-5 times less efficient than a tax, since we have to hide it.” Who’s hiding it? Where are the inefficiencies of market-based initiatives?
Now, for a slide titled “the Reality of CAT” – (we still have not received a clear explanation of how CAT works). His main points include: ”Leakage” of energy-intensive jobs overseas, some businesses have vowed that CAT will force closure, and that we will receive no emissions reductions (shown while students held up signs reading “fact check” and “lies”).
This is about the same time that blood was boiling for many in the audience who realized the brainwashing was strong and frustrating. Students holding signs up saying “lies” and “fact check” are asked to stop. One explained later that he was grabbed. Another got cussed at for expressing an alternative viewpoint.
The benefits of CAT will be felt by some people. Mr Horner acknowledges this by saying that some people are excited to see it coming and will profit from it. But these points are lost thanks to his fog-machine of a powerpoint. ”If we force emission reductions, it would be painfull, so this is why we need (these) schemes” Chris added only a slide later, hypocritically denying that people will benefit.
It came as a surprise, but he had a slide which read “There are alternatives, that encourage economic growth and emission reductions which is very hard.” But these alternatives were never once discussed until the Q&A session below, (he offered 1). Holding moral standards are not for us since, Horner explained, the “only people that have reduced emissions are those that have experienced economic collapse (for example Eastern Europe).”
Recap slide:
- world is staying out of CAT
- 150 countries are saying no
-economic activity will leak
-When EU claimed to act they leaked… here
- China, india etc. will make our effort pointless. All-pain, no-gain.
Not once is the long-term view mentioned in his talk. How will the world look when my grandchildren are born? I daresay it will be much of anything if we continue to mash our democracy with lie-lectures such as this. Not once is it mentioned that we, in following religious/spiritual role models, should feel an obligation to action and to seeking the truth, not settling for the dimly-lit attacks exemplified by Rep. Bachmann and Chris Horner. Horner is condescending to anyone who cares about the environment and spent a large part of this presentation trying to make these people look like fools, sheep. all the while, brainwashing his audience with jargon, monologues and rapid-fire slides. Not once was the audience encouraged to think critically on this issue, but rather to become Horner’s sheep themselves. What a waste of a political district full of brilliant minds, innovative businesses and deep history.
Q/A Session: Notecards sorted and read to Horner.
1. costs and benefits exist to CAT: why are you denying the benfits:
- the net cost/benefit = 0. No detectable change in CO2 will occur (after earlier saying that “any decrease in CO2 will be made up by China and India in 6 years”). “We are talking about man’s contribution to a marginal greenhouse gas” Horner continued. “is it warmer at noon or midnight?” he bothered asking, trying to prove something, anything. He stood by hisargument that CO2 does not drive climate. What are the benefits? you tell me, he concluded.
2. how do you explain the IPCC findings?
- The IPCC is 2,500 leading climate scientists. “We took a look deeper at the IPCC” he claimed, they are “2,500 anthropology TA’s, transport policy teachers, and economists”. “While 2,500 leading scientists are in the IPCC”, he hypocritically explained after saying they weren’t scientists, ”the document was only written by 52 scientists”. He was peaved at the IPCC. I’s obviously very hard to discredit. So, he played off of the fact that they are interpretting research, which doesn’t actually discredit them any. Horner heatedly continued, “IPCC does not site one paper that says that CO2 drives temperature”, “temperatures go up, temperatures go down … that’s what things that are frozen do, they melt, they grow”. He continued to lie, saying ”it cooled under George Bush”, when it is documented that the ten hottest years on record occured during the last 15.
3. All of your calculations have listed the costs of CAT, but not the benefits. why do you avoid the benefits?
- Horner here chooses to stay in his seat. He does not get up. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t want to answer the question. Yelling ensued that people wanted him to answer the question, people want green jobs. “What is a green job?” he prodded. A flurry of responses returned, shouted from the audience “wind and solar”, “efficiencies and weatherization” and “jobs that promote our health”. No answer, Horner and Bachmann are not interested in what the constiuency has to say. “Where in the world wind power can provide energy for schools, hospitals?” Horner attempts. People yell out responses from all around the world, home and abroad. He smirked silently, realizing that people are just so darn cute sometimes when they try and believe in something.
4. Renewable Energy in MN
-He’s unconvinced, apparently he doesn’t know MN is the nation’s 4th largest producer of wind power. A student yells out “do we go to war for wind turbines?” followed by clapping. Horner replies,”If you believe we went to war for oil, then yes , we went to war for windmills” because oil is used to create windmills. And the audience roared with clapping. He’s on point with this issue, but if we reduce our need for oil, deadly coal by installing clean energy, then he’s misinterpreting some of the efforts of wind industry.
- Horner does concede that energy security is a real issue, that’s a safe one. And he wants us to use coal, nuclear and natural gas, simply because we have so much of it. Abundance = safe and clean eh? “39 people killed by windmills, 0 by nuclear power” Horner followed-up. But, he failed to mention the numbers killed by coal mining, sludge floods and poisoning. He continued to lie and distort saying climate change is not a matter of security because “glaciers have retreated, not since the SUV, but since the Little Ice Age”
On stage, they were sorting through the cards with questions on them. someone calls it out as “cherry-picking”. Rightly so. were this an open forum, encouraging our developing of real arguments, we would have included 2 things: mention of reflecting on the issue to develop our own opinions, and a platform for her district to speak, in real life, to her. None of this happened or was mentioned.
5. How will CAT affect my heating bill next winter?
- The real pain wouldn’t be felt until the people in office are out of office, Horner lied. 2020 is the year when you’d feel it. Then, just to prove himself contradictory he added “We don’t know precicely how it will work out, because we haven’t tried it”. He then tried to claim that CAT is a “falling out” between environmentalists who will make money and those who won’t. With so much left unspecified in the bill, we are only estimating, he added. Estimates rank between $2,500 and over $3,500, (a lie, the numbers being multiplied by 10, as explained by an MIT researcher who was a part of the study.)
6. I’ve heard the EPA is considering taxing farm animals’ methane. is that in C’n't and will it affect farming?
- We have to do something. In the Waxmann-Markey bill, so much is left unspoken, He said. Proving that, rather than simply throwing it out, Rep. Bachmann should spend her time shaping it into an acceptable piece.
7. Why has there not been a nationally broadcast debate on GW? Was the world’s temp indeed gone down since 1998?
- There has been no broadcast on GW, even though many have asked, an older gentleman, the question moderator, responded. “Simply because believers in GW have not accepted the challenge”.
8. If CAT is not the solution, what is?
-what about Cap and Rebate? return taxes to taxpayer. the problem then is that this will “redistribute the wealth” Horner speculates.
Then, the event abruptly ended, with no closing remarks from Rep. Bachmann. She bothered to organize the event, but had not a second to address her constituency. It’s all been simply impolite and crooked.
Media hits:
Response Videos:
Residual Forces “Cap and Trade Townhall at SCSU”
Discussion forums:
For more info, email: j.marlay.smith@gmail.com ~ I will be updating as other media is uploaded. Last update: Friday 2:12 PM CST.
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crazy people. Gladly there were tons of students there countering the disinformation.
Awesome–thanks so much for standing up to Bachmann and for live-blogging!