Green Watch
Kitzhaber and Hayes, “Greens” vs. Transparency
How do environmentalist politicians protect themselves from being held accountable?
[PDF here] [This is Part 3. Click HERE for Part 1. Click HERE for Part 2.]
In Parts 1 and 2, we reported on the tangled web of power-hungry and greedy special interests—environmentalists, business people, and government officials (including White House advisors and governors of other states)—that was exposed in the scandal that forced the governor of Oregon, John Kitzhaber (D), to resign. In this final installment on the Kitzhaber-Hayes affair, we examine the ways the scandal is tied to key goals of the environmental Left. One key goal: making it much, much harder for voters to hold “green” politicians accountable for the disastrous results of their policies.
This month, in Part 3 of our look at the scandals that forced Oregon Gov. Kitzhaber to resign, we examine a trip to Shangri-La (well, Bhutan) … the ways in which billionaires want to measure your happiness … how British Columbia took a “climate” stand, along with Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia … how Walmart cashed in on paper-drying … and how Oregon First Lady Cylvia Hayes, after being advised on how to avoid the appearance of impropriety, just couldn’t take a hint.
Warming is coming. Run!
In last month’s issue of Green Watch, we were introduced to Kate Gordon, who was listed as a board member of the Clean Economy Development Center (the shadowy group that provided a “fellowship” to Oregon’s then-First Lady Cylvia Hayes). Gordon links billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer to the concept of the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), which we’ll get to in a moment.
Some background: To the “green” Left, cost-benefit analysis is a problem. Even some environmentalists admit that many supposed anti-Warming measures would do real harm to the economy, especially to poor and working-class people—greater harm than the Warming itself. To get around that problem, activists have worked to build up the current and future threat of Warming. It’s been blamed for everything from the spread of AIDS to the future extinction of coffee beans and red-headed humans, from bumpy plane rides to the loss of people’s sex drives to a rise in the pitch of the croak of the coqui frog of Puerto Rico. [See Green Watch August 2014.] Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a recent Democratic presidential debate that “In fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism.”
Summing up all the Warming harm is hard work, and work to which billionaire Steyer has turned his attention. In February 2014, Anne C. Mulkern of E&E [Energy and Environment] reported:
High-profile billionaire and environmental activist Tom Steyer held center stage at an event here [in Santa Barbara, California] . . . In his final minutes, Steyer announced that he planned to launch an effort to quantify what inaction on climate change could cost the country. When a reporter afterward raced for Steyer, he begged off questions, waving for his aide, Kate Gordon.
