Kicking the Koch Habit

This is the flyer I prepared and had printed to distribute today - at a rally in front of the White House for climate action sponsored by the Global Warming Education Network and 350.org.   Here's what it says on the back:

Climate Zombies Bought Your Vote!

Corporate money is polluting our legislature and government agencies just as their products are polluting our air and water. Billionaires like the coal-­rich Koch brothers are financing a well-­orchestrated campaign of lies to confuse the American public -­ exactly like the tobacco companies waged a marketing war to keep consumers addicted to cigarettes for decades.

Find out more about these criminals and what you can do to stop them from destroying our country at http://witsendnj.blogspot.com

This blog, Wit's End, is mostly about trees - and how they are dying from ozone.  Tropospheric ozone is derived from fuel combustion emissions that also produce CO2 - which is the most ubiquitous greenhouse gas causing our climate to dangerously destabilize.  But for today the focus will be on the Koch Brothers, and later I will post pictures from the rally, and the climate zombies holding aloft a banner that proclaims "KOCH KILLS."

It's crazy for delphinium to be blooming in October in New Jersey!

The dying of trees (and all other vegetation) poses an existential threat that is even more urgent than climate change from CO2 - dangerous as that is - because it poses an immediate threat to our food supply, not to mention every other species that rely on plants for food.  It's critical for people to understand that climate criminals like the Koch brothers are spending enormous sums of money to bury the facts and confuse the science.  Right-wing ideologues own the the mainstream media, and anyone who relies on American television and radio for full and accurate information is being deluded.

The delphinium leaves reveal a trend - lower older leaves are shriveled and black from  a longer period of  ozone exposure...unrelated to temperature or precipitation.

We must convert to clean energy - on an emergency basis! - to prevent the worst consequences of climate change that will continue to worsen into the foreseeable future.  An even greater imperative, is that we must stop burning fuel now to rescue plants, which are the base of the food chain...or mass starvation will ensue.

This hydrangea exhibits the same impact - the newer flower is green, but the older lower layer is fried from the inexorably rising levels of background tropospheric ozone.

Why target the Koch brothers?  Well, they're loathsome assholes, that's why.  And collossal hypocrites....and contemptible social climbers - using not talent or wit or knowledge or value to ingratiate themslves to high society, instead they buy their way onto the boards of prestigious institutions like the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Opera with the most blatantly crass method - money.  What's more revolting than that?   Oh...maybe the craven jerks that accept and reward them, when they should be shunned by anyone with a conscience!

These leaves exhibit classic symptoms of ozone damage, stippling from  injured stomates.

There are so many references to be found that reveal the machinations of the Koch brothers - following is a somewhat random if incoherent sample.  Enjoy! and for anyone new from the 350.org rally, please visit older posts for photographs documenting the impacts of ozone on vegetation...the Basic Premise page, linked at the top of the blog, has a list of published scientific research on this topic.

Eventually the foliage is consumed.  This does not bode well for  crops!

Jane Mayer's article in the New Yorker, "Covert Operations:  The billionaire brothers who are waging a war Against Obama." has the most vivid and complete investigation into the Crimes of Koch.  I won't even post a a single excerpt because the entire thing is a must-read, an amazing expose of the way things really work in America, where corporations now have the same rights as humans, and none of the responsibilities.

This article explains how minions such as Paul Singer, who are paid by the likes of the Koch brothers, spread their vile lies.

Just as occurred last year, leaves are falling off early, without ever turning their brilliant colors.

Even more insidious is the influence of operatives such as the fellow known as Lefohn, whose nefarious psuedo-science I reported on in this post, along with the activities of the "Air and Waste Management Association" - folks who are too smart to deny climate change, but rather, their intent is to squeeze more obscene profits from cleaning up the messes they have made, as mandated by the government they control - all funded by you and me!

This RealClimate post examines Cucinelli's despicable attempts to harrass climate scientist Michael Mann; and this search details how Koch Industries funded his campaign for Virginia Attorney General.

This post in the Climate Progress blog is titled "Koch-funded Prop 23 Study Draws Oily Conclusions."

Another Climate Progress post has this chart:



In yet another CP post, Koch is exposed as funding a book that argues against mine safety while this one skewers their manipulative, many-strings-attached, so-called philanthropy.

A column by Frank Rich investigated the connections between Koch money and Tea Party candidates like Christine O'Donnell:

"In fact, local chapters of Tea Party Patriots routinely received early training and support from FreedomWorks, the moneyed libertarian outfit run by the former Republican House majority leader and corporate lobbyist Dick Armey. FreedomWorks is itself a spinoff from Citizens for a Sound Economy, a pseudo-grassroots group whose links to the billionaire Koch brothers were traced by Jane Mayer in her blockbuster August exposé in The New Yorker. Last week the same Tea Party Patriots leader who bragged to the National Journal about all those small donations announced a $1 million gift from a man she would identify only as an entrepreneur. The donor’s hidden identity speaks even louder than the size of the check. As long as we don’t know who he is, we won’t know what orders he’s giving either."

It is just crazy for roses to be blooming in October in New Jersey1

What follows is the Koch brothers section from Rolling Stone's article (which they since pulled off the web!) The Climate Killers

The Tea Partiers

Charles and David Koch

CEO and Executive Vice President, Koch Industries
"The multibillionaire brothers not only run the nation's largest private energy company, they rival Exxon in funding the front groups that spread disinformation about the dangers of climate change. Over the years, the Kochs and their foundations have lavished millions on climate deniers at the Heritage Foundation, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute, which Charles founded in 1977. Cato, in turn, supports the work of Patrick Michaels, a leading climate denier who attempts to discredit the international scientific consensus on global warming while accepting money from coal companies. As author Thomas Frank observes in What's the Matter With Kansas?, "Koch money subsidizes the mass production of bad ideas."

One major recipient of Koch cash is Americans for Prosperity, where David chairs the foundation's board. In addition to fomenting last summer's town-hall brawls over health care reform, AFP sponsored a "Hot Air Tour" on climate change, deploying a manned balloon at 75 events for the purpose of "Exposing the Ballooning Costs of Global Warming Hysteria." At the events, the group's president, Tim Phillips, grossly exaggerated the costs of climate legislation, calling it a trillion-dollar tax on American families.

Last October, at an AFP summit attended by David Koch, the assembled Tea Partiers screened a climate-denial film that accused advocates like Al Gore of wanting to take civilization "back to the Dark Ages and the Black Plague." Such events, Koch proclaimed, "bring to reality the vision" of "fighting for the economic freedoms that made our nation the most prosperous society in history." Last year, seeking to defend its own prosperity against a carbon-capped future, Koch Industries spent more than $8.5 million on lobbying."

This was once an active Christmas tree farm.  Much of it now is just meadow, being colonized by invasive Russian Olive.  Off in the distance is a huge old tupelo tree. 

Here is a rare intelligent NYT Op-Ed:  "The Brothers Koch and AB32."

The pines that remain are losing needles.

A review of the Mayer piece in the New Yorker with fresh analysis and more links, is titled "It's the Real Thing:  The Power of Koch."

These evergreen conifers should be a solid green, but unfortunately, they are transparent.

Koch-Funded Organizations Launch New Campaign To Protect Big Oil Profits Even the grass displays the pattern of decay - the lower level is dead and brown, while the newer sprouts on top, which haven't been exposed to ozone for as long, are still green. The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party - NY Times "The Koch brothers agenda is morphing into the Republican agenda. "Their program opposes a federal deficit, but has no objection to running up trillions in red ink in tax cuts to corporations and the superrich; apologizes to corporate malefactors like BP and derides money put in escrow for oil spill victims as a slush fund; opposes the extension of unemployment benefits; and calls for a freeze on federal regulations in an era when abuses in the oil, financial, mining, pharmaceutical and even egg industries (among others) have been outrageous." Oil company owned by Tea Party's billionaire brothers gives $1 million to fight California's climate change law, from the San Jose Mercury News. Roaming closer to the tupelo, which has already lost most of its leaves. Koch Industries Funds Attack on Science Linking Formaldehyde and Cancer Branches are bare. Voter Beware: Concentrated Corporate Power Is Creating Deceptive Elections. Just a few of the remaining leaves have any tinge of the vibrant red they should be. This is a tupelo in 2008. Even more, ruminations by Professor Coyne on the deceptive Koch exhibit about evolution at the Smithsonian. The only good thing was discovering that for some reason, under the sparse grass, is a spreading layer of wild thyme, which is one of my favorite herbs, vying for most fragrantly evocative with basil and tarragon. Here for the purpose of comparison, is a post from last year about the Tupelo and another, with a link to a very bizarre song. On the way to DC we stopped for lunch.  I realized I have always HATED powerboats, planes, ATV's, cars, helicopters, and RV's.  Now I know why.  They are going to cause the end of our formerly gorgeous earth. This view from the restaurant in Maryland reveals trees in decline, just as they are everywhere else.