Lisa Nelson, the new CEO of the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, doesn’t know her organization’s position on climate change.
In a segment on WAMU’s Diane Rehm Show, ALEC’s Lisa Nelson claimed to not understand the science of climate change, and said, “We as an organization, specifically do not comment on climate change.”
Funny enough, just a week before, ALEC posted its “Position Statement on Renewables and Climate Change,” in response to heightened attention to its role in denying climate change.
The surge of attention is due to recent and very public departures by Google, Facebook, Yelp, Yahoo and even Occidental Petroleum, specifically citing ALEC’s backwards work on climate change.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said people working for ALEC are “literally lying” about global warming, announcing that Google’s staff didn’t wish to continue supporting such work (after Google’s failed attempts to get ALEC to support clean energy).
October 4, 2014 at 8:31 am
An excellent post, full of damning info about ALEC (entertaining too—the “translation” is great). I have had a visceral dislike for ALEC for many years because of the evil they do, and it makes me feel good to see that they are finally starting to get their just desserts. All those phone calls and emails and petitions to ALEC sponsors seem to be paying off. I would urge all who get such requests to act on them and pass them on.—-apparently, when the numbers rise into the 100’s of thousands, companies listen.
And not to be too vulgar, but the new CEO is just another lying POS that has floated to the top of the toilet bowl that is ALEC and needs to be flushed. Actually, ALEC has perhaps done more damage at the state legislature level on issues like voting rights, education, and gerrymandering than on climate change—-we will need to keep flushing there for many years.
October 4, 2014 at 10:08 am
To show the idiocy of teaching creation as alternative for evolution, people invented the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
If ALEC continues pushing the teaching of climate change denial, maybe we should make up some funny theory about climate change and demand that that will be given equal weight in schools.
October 4, 2014 at 10:18 am
Ahhh,but you must realize the difference is that christians pushing creationism actually want you to believe in creationism,whereas ALEC would actually welcome ANY competing theories to the consensus,even if it contradicts everything that they claim is true.
The endgame is doubt and confusion,not edification.
October 4, 2014 at 10:49 am
I am seriously thinking of converting to Pastafarianism. I am getting tired of covering my headgear with tinfoil, and just wearing a colander seems much easier. Long live the FSM!
October 4, 2014 at 12:13 pm
Ramen to that!
Actually, TCoTFSM was formed to highlight the relationship of climate change to the global decrease in pirates.
I remember when Pastafarianism (which didn’t have that name yet) hit Slashdot. It fit right in and took off like a rocket.
October 4, 2014 at 2:42 pm
It’s natural that the Planet will warm as the Universe expands.
Pirates get waay too much credit for everything anyway.
October 4, 2014 at 12:00 pm
You wonder how stupid the Koch Bros. actually are (at least when it comes to issues outside of their narrow base of work). This is what happens when you surround yourself with “yes” people who tell you how great your ideas are, and you live in your own echo chamber.
Maybe this is a good thing. If they suddenly got smart, they could be a lot more dangerous. Now they can become the faces of evil.
October 4, 2014 at 12:18 pm
Stupid is as stupid does, said Forrest Gump. With the Kochs, it’s also “Money is as money does”, and they’ve gotten a lot for their money so far. Whats half a billion when you’ve got nearly a hundred billion to throw around?
As it becomes more apparent to all that they are in fact the faces of evil and are dangerous, they will have to spend more to stay even. If we can overturn Citizens United and McCutcheon, we can make it hard for them to buy the politicians that are part of their echo chamber.
October 4, 2014 at 12:30 pm
Google isn’t clean as a whistle regarding climate change denial yet:
http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/10/02/disrupt-denial-after-leaving-alec-google-still-funding-evil
October 4, 2014 at 1:11 pm
There are on-line campaigns starting (petitions and emails) to put the same kind of pressure on the same companies as was done with ALEC. Daily KOS, Sumofus, Forecastthefacts-Disrupt Denial, and others.
The thrust is to get the companies to stop supporting climate deniers in Congress. Some petitions have 10’s of thousands of signatures already. We shall see if this works as well as the ALEC campaign. I suspect not as well or as fast, because it’s a different ball game.
October 4, 2014 at 6:00 pm
I’ve been following this issue for years now, and think I can say something useful here…
Microsoft kept out of politics until the 2000 election, when it donated heavily to the campaign of George Bush. And after he was elected, the antitrust lawsuit of the Clinton years magically went away. Ever since then, they never looked back – Microsoft has been a major funder of the Republican Party.
Microsoft has been at war with Google for a decade, because Google has been a big financial supporter of Linux (Google’s servers all run on it). Apple jumped into the battle a little later, after they realized that Android OS was a serious competitor to iOS (Android is a customized version of Linux).
It’s crystal clear why Google funded ALEC and other right-wing nutter groups in the first place: because Microsoft (and to a lesser extent, Apple) contributed to the campaigns of right-wing House & Senate politicians to persuade them to launch “investigations” into “Google’s monopoly.” Lots of anti-trust rules were being drawn up against Google as a result – it all magically went away when Google paid the bribe money (also known as “campaign contributions”) to Republicans.
America has the best politicians that money can buy.
October 4, 2014 at 4:06 pm
[…] I'm in a generous mood, and giving her benefit of the doubt. Going with "clueless tool". More evidence that being a climate denier is rapidly becoming socially icky in the class of spousal abuse, k… […]
October 4, 2014 at 5:20 pm
I see nothing… I know nothing..