From Koch Industriesโ roots as โthe biggest company youโve never heard ofโ, David and Charles Koch haveย become household names for funding climate change denial and efforts to steer the United States away from a clean energy future. ย They suffered a little hiccup whenย California voters failed to buy the arguments of the dirty oil interests bankrollingย Prop 23. ย Then, when David Koch was booed at the Nutcracker ballet just before Christmas, it started to look like the tides were shifting on public opinion around the billionaire brothers.ย
Despite the headway made in holding the Koch Brothers to account, theyโve creeped their way intoย Canada.ย
Well, let me be clear. ย Itโs not as though Koch Industries is a totally foreign force in Canada. Koch and its subsidiaries currently operate in seven Canadian provinces, andย according to aย Greenpeace report, Koch has held multiple leases in Albertaโs tar sands, and since the 1990s theย Koch Pipeline Companyย has operated the pipelines that carry tar sands crude from Canada into Minnesota and Wisconsin where Kochโs Flint Hill Resources owns oil refineries.
On the policy development front, theyโve busily bankrolled Canadaโs Fraser Institute to the tune of $175,000 between 2005 and 2008 to ensure Canada remains in the Stone Ages when it comes to environmental policy.ย ย
This time though, itโs gotten political. ย According toย Chris Genovaliโs piece in the Huffington Post,ย renewable energyย in Ontario is under attack by the Kochtopus.
Theย Ontario Green Energy Actย has been heralded byย Al Gore himself as the โsingle best green energy program on the North American continent.โ ย Environmental Defence touts it as a monumental success,ย demonstrating that one year in, the law is steering the province into a prominent position as a global leader of economic and environmental renewal, on par with Europeanย standards.ย ย
After all the jobs the Green Energy Act has created and accolades it has received, it is curious thatย Tim Hudak,ย leader of Ontarioโs Conservative party, would try to scuttleย it.ย
To make matters even worse, Hudak is confusing the public by using phoney astroturf research. ย His fake green turf of choice is the nowย well-debunked โSpanish study on renewable energy jobsโ. ย Theย 2009 study, the โStudy of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources,โ by Gabriel Calzada Alvarez, an economics professor at King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, wasย funded by the American Energy Alliance, a โfree-market think tankโ funded by the Kochtopus andย ExxonMobil.ย
According to Dr. Alvarezโs ginned-up study,ย Spainโs policy on renewable energy caused the country to lose jobs. ย It erroneously implies that the cost of creating a renewable energy job is higher than the average cost of creating a job in Spain, and outrageously claims that Spainโs policy commitments to renewable energy development actually cost Spain 2.2 jobs lost for each clean energy job created. ย The study has made its rounds through the echo chamber, and was used toย fight the Obama Administrationโs 2010 budget proposal to create tax incentives for clean energy programs, and to oppose efforts to promote growth in the renewable energyย industry.
Though a favourite of renewable energy detractors, the study has been thoroughly debunked by theย Spanish government,ย U.S. Department of Energy,ย and numerous othersย (though apparentlyย theย Toronto Sunย didnโt get the memo). ย And theย American Wind Energy Associationย notes thatย โThe Spanish Ministry of Labor has found thatโฆ renewable energy industries have created 175,000 jobs and the European Commission found that aggressive renewable policy would create a net increase of over 400,000 in the European Union by 2020, giving a โsignificant boost to the economy and the number of jobs in the EU.โโย
While many Americans have by now heard of the misleading study, many Canadians probably have not, and Hudak has taken full advantage ofย that.
Knowing Hudakโs stance on other clean energy issues, his stance on renewable energy is perhaps not a stretch. ย He is already an outspokenย opponent to a plan to create 17,000 renewable energy jobs in the province, and remains a vocal proponent of nuclear energy, despite the Liberalsโ commitments to eliminate coal as a fuel by 2014.ย
Now Hudak is promoting energy policies that are moving Ontario backwards instead of forwards on energy, using a dirty industry-funded study to scare voters into believing that proven green job creation efforts are somehow killing jobs. ย That has no basis in fact, and is totallyย inexcusable.ย
Hide your kids, hide your wife, the Kochtopus and Tim Hudak are working in concert to kill Canada and Ontarioโs clean energyย future.ย
Nip on over toย Chris Genovaliโs blog to read more on thisย story.ย
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