Sometimes, the watchdog needs to be watched. And that is just what Media Matters, a non-profit that monitors conservative media for biased reporting, did with recent coverage by the Orange County Register in regards to California Clean Energy Initiatives.
The piece itself, posted Monday afternoon, is very detailed and lengthy. But from the site, this summary:
Over the last year, the Orange County Register has published numerous editorials that falsely portray California’s pollution reduction program as costly, ineffective and arbitrarily imposed by state regulators. In fact, the program — which incorporates a cap-and-trade program — is part of a bipartisan law expected to benefit the state’s economy
MediaMatters then offers snippets of the Register’s coverage versus non-partisan, independent fact checking.
One shouldn’t be surprised at the Register’s coverage. After all, if it’s a government program, it must be bad, lead to higher taxes or kills jobs even if the facts don’t always bear this out to be true.
For those of us who do see clean energy, green energy sources and renewable energy as the solution to breaking the stranglehold big oil have over our economy, conservatives love to throw “Solyndra” in our face (neglecting to mention the loans the company pursued were begun under a program from the lame duck Bush administration. The simple response for anyone using “Solyndra” as a taunt is “Enron.”
Cap & Trade is not Green
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/05/guest-post-cap-and-trade-is-a-gigantic-scam.html
Cap & Trade = Wall Street’s next derivatives bubble.
http://www.robertlautenforussenate2012.com/Reinstate_Glass-Steagall_Act/cap-and-trade-derivatives-bubble.html
Enron: Finances groups pushing Cap & Trade legislation
http://theforgottenstreet.com/Enron-The-Godfather-of-Kyoto.html
Why would anyone be surprised about this fact? The OC Register has become a joke. My high school newspaper had more and better content than the current production.
Maybe the new owner will bring about some positive changes.
Spain’s Clean Energy Initiatives Failures = Obama’s Green Agenda
“Pajamas Media has received a leaked internal assessment produced by Spain’s Zapatero administration. The assessment confirms the key charges previously made by non-governmental Spanish experts in a damning report exposing the catastrophic economic failure of Spain’s “green economy” initiatives.”
From the “damning report”
http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf
Executive Summary: Lessons From The Spanish Renewables Bubble (24 findings, – from page 8)
“10. Each “green” megawatt installed destroys 5.28 jobs on average elsewhere in the economy: 8.99 by photovoltaics, 4.27 by wind energy, 5.05 by mini-hydro.
11. These costs do not appear to be unique to Spain’s approach but instead are largely inherent in schemes to promote renewable energy sources. “
http://pjmedia.com/blog/spains-green-policies-an-economic-disaster/