Billionaire Pledges to Spend His Fortune To Fight Climate Change Deniers.
It's an interesting post-Citizens United world. Yesterday, billionaire Tom Steyer pledged to "destroy" climate change denial:
A California billionaire is pledging to spend as much of his fortune as necessary to make climate change “the defining issue of our generation.”
Tom Steyer, who made his riches as a hedge fund manager, told The Hill on Tuesday that he wants to make climate change a campaign issue for years to come and Democratic support for environmental protections as widespread as support for gay marriage and immigration reform.
“The goal here is not to win. The goal here is to destroy these people. We want a smashing victory,” Steyer said of candidates he judges to be on the wrong side of the climate change debate.
“Really, what we’re trying to do is to make a point that people who make good decisions on this should be rewarded, and people should be aware that if they do the wrong thing, the American voters are watching and they will be punished.”
Steyer, whose wealth is estimated at $1.4 billion, last year quit the hedge fund he founded to devote his energy and resources to environmental causes. He has contributed millions to charitable organizations that work on climate change issues, and is a big financial supporter for Greener Capital, a venture firm that invests in renewable energy endeavors.
The Hill: Greens get billionaire ally, money
More on Steyer:
In August 2010, Steyer and his wife joined Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and 37 other American billionaires in pledging to give away at least half their fortunes to worthwhile causes.
snip
Steyer is a leading Democratic activist and fundraiser. In 1983, he worked on the Walter Mondale for President campaign.[31] He raised money for Bill Bradley in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004. An early supporter of Hillary Clinton for President, Steyer became one of Barack Obama’s most prolific fundraisers. Steyer served as a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 2004 and 2008.
wikepedia
Looks like a lifetime Democrat who became wealthy.
Steyer also was a host of the fundraiser yesterday for the DCCC at which President Obama spoke:
Tom Steyer, a hedge fund billionaire and philanthropist, hosted a fundraiser Wednesday night for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Obama made an appearance, according to the White House press pool report.
Daily Mail OnLine
And the fundraiser was successful:
President Obama's Wednesday night fundraisers in San Francisco brought in more than $3.2 million for House Democrats.
The pair of fundraising events, one for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and another for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), brought in about half as much as the committee raises most months.
The Hill: Obama Fundraiser Brings In $3.2M For House Democrats
Coincidently, no doubt, the President's speech was about climate change:
“Despite a very aggressive agenda on the other side to block action, we’ve been able to double fuel efficiency standards on cars. We’ve been able to take mercury out of our air. We have been able to reduce carbon emissions in this country and have made not only this a healthier place to live, but have also begun to address in a serious way one of the biggest challenges of our time, and that is the challenge of climate change,” the president said at the first of two San Francisco fundraisers Wednesday night.
“We’ve got more work to do in terms of dealing with climate change and making sure that we’ve got an economy that is energy-efficient, that is productive, that is cutting-edge, and thinks about not just the energy sources of the past, but also the energy promise of the future,” he added.
snip
One hundred people paid between $5,000 and $34,200 a head to attend the first fundraiser, a cocktail reception at the home of hedge fund billionaire and environmentalist Tom Steyer, an ardent opponent of the Keystone pipeline, and his wife Kat Taylor.
abcnews: Obama Talks Climate Change at Calif. Fundraisers
On climate change, we all really are in it together because there is only one planet. Perhaps he can bring some balance to the public discussion and change the media narrative. Sort of an Anti-Koch Brothers Billionaire.
America's oil industry is terribly misunderstood. When a lot of people hear "364 pipeline spills in 2012" they think it's a big mess, like a nearly realized advent calendar of crap. What they fail to see is a revolutionary energy distribution system about to achieve NATIONWIDE COVERAGE.
And remember, that's not just gas or oil flowing through the streets of Arkansas--it's dilbit, the thick toxic hydrocarbon stew produced by tarsands. So roam wherever, and take your energy source with you! That s--t is sticky as hell, it's not like you're going to be able to get it off.
It was Good Friday, 50 years ago on March 27, 1964, that according to seismologists, the snow peaks of Prince William Sound jumped 33 feet into the air and fell back down. Emergency warnings about an earthquake-spurred tsunami went out to towns from Valdez, Alaska, to Malibu, Calif., but no one thought to send a message to the Chugach Natives in Chenega, Alaska.
Chenega chief Nikolas Kompkoff watched the mountains leap and the waters around his island disappear over the horizon.
Knowing the water would return with a vengeance, he ran his four daughters up a hill toward high ground. But the nine-story-tall tsunami was moving too fast for their little legs. Kompkoff made a decision: He grabbed the two girls closest to him, tucked them under his arms and ran up the slope, leaving the other two to be seized by the wave.
Days later, a postal pilot on his weekly mail drop could not find Chenega because every single house—and a third of the residents—had been washed out to sea.
When he circled back to the site he saw the village’s church on the hill with survivors waving.
Kompkoff found the body of his youngest daughter stuck in the high branches of a pine tree. He buried her, then left to join the survivors, all refugees scattered throughout Alaska. The government told the village of seal hunters they could never return. No longer able to hunt, Kompkoff became an Orthodox priest—and a notorious drunk.
On Good Friday each year, Father Nikolas would return to his island with the remainder of his flock to place a cross among the broken sticks of the old village. Each year he swore they would rebuild.
The years passed, and the oath to rebuild seemed increasingly ludicrous. After a decade of helplessness, Father Nikolas put a gun under his chin and pulled the trigger. The bullet passed through his jaw. Embarrassed church bishops defrocked him in response.
***
On Good Friday, 1989, the 25th anniversary of the earthquake, Kompkoff led his congregation (they still considered him “Father” Nick) in a commemoration of the tsunami’s dead at the church they built at New Chenega. The village had been resurrected stick by stick by Kompkoff’s nephew Larry Evanoff after Evanoff returned wounded from Vietnam.
What the celebrants did not know was that that very night another tsunami would head toward them, a wave of oil from the Exxon Valdez.
As the oil slick spread from the grounded tanker through Chugach waters, Exxon made the Old Chenega area what the industry calls a “sacrifice zone.” The company’s executives allowed it to be slathered by tons of crude.
***
Weeks after the spill, the president of Exxon stopped by New Chenega for a “we care” television photo-op. Village patriarch Paul Kompkoff, Nikolas’ brother, asked him, “Are my parents’ bones covered with oil?”
The official answer was that the bones were undisturbed. In fact, as I reported in my book “Vultures’ Picnic,” both the oil and bones were being scooped up by Exxon bulldozers at that very moment.
The Chugach hired me to investigate .. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/25_years_after_exxon_valdez_the_hidden_culprit_was_bp_20140323 .. the spill’s true cause and true culprits. Paul Kompkoff asked me to arrange a secret meeting with Exxon in hopes of getting a few dollars so the new village could survive. In particular, the Chenegans wanted Exxon to hire them to clean up the beaches and fishing grounds still contaminated with Exxon’s gunk.
With Chenega leader Gail Evanoff, Kompkoff and I flew from Alaska to San Diego to corner Exxon USA General Manager Otto Harrison. It was now three years after the spill and still no money had been forthcoming. The Exxon honcho, an enormous Texan, took us to a corporate meeting room, and from across the giant conference table looked down at the diminutive Evanoff and said, “Now, Gail, ah cayn’t be payin’ a bunch o’ Natives to go ’round picking up oil that ain’t there, can I?”
***
In 2010, I returned to Prince William Sound for British television. On the Chugach’s islands, I picked up gobs of the “oil that ain’t there” in my (carefully gloved) hand. It was more than two decades after the Exxon Valdez spill.
Then I flew down to the Gulf of Mexico where I collected giant hunks of Deepwater Horizon oil nearly a year after the spill—more “oil that ain’t there ..
,” at least according to our government and BP television ads.
***
In 2011, 22 years after the Alaska spill, Exxon paid for the damage—but only after the Supreme Court cut the payout by 90 percent. Part of Chenega’s money was meant for a new fishing boat for Paul Kompkoff. But he was long dead by then, as were a third of my Native clients.
***
I was in Chenega on the second anniversary of the Exxon spill. Paul Kompkoff and I snacked on dried salmon while we watched the first Gulf War on CNN. The U.S. Air Force was bombing the bejesus out of Baghdad.
The old man watched a long while in silence, then said, in his slow, quiet voice, “I guess we’re all some kind of Native now.”
Greg Palast’s investigations, from Alaska to the Amazon, are contained in his new film, “Vultures and Vote Rustlers,” available in a special pre-release edition only from his not-for-profit foundation.
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