A news blurb from the NY Times: “The Democratic governor, aided by what is expected to be millions of dollars from his billionaire friend Tom Steyer...so Mr. Steyer’s advocacy group, NextGen Climate, is working with the Washington League of Conservation Voters to handpick Democratic, pro-climate policy candidates across the state."
Hey, Democrats just love crony-capitalism, for a lot of spendable green reasons.
And Democrat Governor Jay Inslee is no different. He wants the crony-capitalist, corporate welfare "Billionaires Club" to buy the voters in an upcoming election. His tactic is to use anti-science rhetoric based on fear-mongering - namely, human CO2 emissions are "acidifying" the sea waters of the local oyster environment, thus supposedly harming the valuable shellfish harvest.
Big problem, though. The main culprit for the oyster mortality is due to a combination of natural processes, agricultural chemical runoff, low oxygen and a nasty shellfish-maurading bacteria more than the changing pH of sea water.
In fact, the daily natural pH levels change dramatically in local waters without any consequences to oysters, yet Democrat politicians and billionaires plan to totally mislead the state's voting public with false political advertising.
The science of "ocean acidification" from human CO2 is strictly hysterical conjecture - so much so that even the Obama EPA admits there is no basis from the empirical evidence.
"The EPA’s response is that there is insufficient evidence to support an endangerment finding...“There were no in situ field studies documenting adverse effects on the health of aquatic life populations in either state,” the EPA’s motion says. “Nor was there any other information documenting effects on indigenous populations of aquatic life in state waters indicating stressors attributable to ocean acidification"..."
So, since there is absolutely no real science to support the CO2-kills-oysters claims of the Democrat governor, he thus turns to an out-of-state billionaire buddy in hopes of just buying the election.
""Mr. Steyer’s strategy is to spend heavily this fall to help defeat sitting lawmakers who oppose Mr. Inslee’s agenda and pave the way for the governor to move his policies through next year — an example, his critics say, of the insidious influence of big money from outsiders that makes local elections less local...“Mr. Steyer has not said what he will spend in the districts, but his previous pattern indicates it will be hundreds of thousands of dollars for each candidate — a huge amount for a Washington State race.""
And why do out-of-state billionaires want to do this? Well, for sure, their current living styles, nor their past endeavors to create billion-dollar portfolios, indicates they give a flying f*^k about the climate.
Instead...ahem...maybe it's about more money. A lot more money, flowing from the political favors of tax-payer subsidized renewable energy into the pockets of billionaires, plus getting politicians to impose new environmental rules on fossil fuels and nuclear to make them wildly more expensive and billionaire renewable interests more competitive.
For their renewable investments to make a lot of money, the billionaires have to think big and especially rely on election-buying crony capitalism to achieve their goals it would appear - goals that immensely hurt the wallets of the other 99%.
"Climate-policy advocates and solar investors, including hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, called for renewable energy financing to double by 2020 in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent. They also said the world should obtain at least 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, and that renewable energy investment should double again, to $1 trillion, by 2030."
Update: Fact-checkers reveal Steyer's climate claims not the real deal.
Previous ocean-acidification articles