The gift that keeps giving

Myron Ebell is an anti-environmental corporate arsonist. His job is to set a free-market fire on our life-sustaining environment in order to burn the whole thing up before anyone can stop it.

For the last ten years he's been keeping the flames growing while diverting the fire engines to other places through lies and hoax calls in order to ensure that everything is too late by the time that help arrives.

Myron's work is effectively done now. All he has to do is stand back and watch us burn. He gets the oil well pissing into the ocean from a mile deep leak. Doesn't matter what he does now; no one can stop the massive damage.

For example, two days ago the President signed a memorandum on fuel efficiency standards:

I want to introduce some of the folks who are onstage who have been integral in making today possible. You’ve already heard about the wonderful team here at the White House -- Carol Browner, Ray LaHood, and Lisa Jackson. But in addition, we have onstage a number of people who were absolutely critical. Martin Daum, the CEO of Daimler Trucks; Mr. Anthony Dunkley, who is a driver for Waste Management; Mr. G. Tommy Hodges, chairman of the board, American Trucking Association; Mr. Alan Reuther, legislative director for the UAW; Mr. Dennis Slagle, CEO of Volvo; Mr. Tim Solso, CEO of Cummins; and Mr. Daniel Ustian, CEO of Navistar. Please give them a big round of applause. (Applause.)

We also have with us some legislative leaders who have been champions of not only the auto industry but also the environmental movement, and I want to thank them for being here. One of the deans of the House of Representatives, Representative John Dingell -- please give him a big round of applause. (Applause.) Representative Ed Markey is here from Massachusetts. (Applause.) Representative Chris Van Hollen is here. (Applause.) And Representative Henry Waxman. (Applause.)

Normally this type of coalition would drive Myron Ebell berzerk. But he can sit back and relax with his tumbler of Martini, because it is now all too little too late. 20 years ago it could have made a difference. But today the effort is pitiful in relation to the scale of the problem, which requires a 90% cut in CO2 emissions by 2050.

That's why the wires have been dead on the name "Myron Ebell" for over a month.

But we keep monitoring it, because the man's got to earn a living somehow, just from day-to-day -- even though his offspring are totally doomed. After all, he didn't burn the planet for a proper prize, like Lee Raymond of Exxon and his $100million retirement payout; he did it for a pathetic little salary.

I wonder where he'll pop up next.

Room for lies

The New York Times found space on its server drives for a few paragraphs of Myron Ebell:

The chance that the Senate will pass a comprehensive energy-rationing (a k a climate) bill this year remains close to zero. BP’s big oil spill in the Gulf changes very little.

You wish!

After outlining the recent sorry tale about America's dysfunctional governance in the face of an existential challenge, Mr Cambridge University Tie concludes:

Call it whatever you want, it’s still a tax that consumers will have to pay... What’s become increasingly apparent is that this legislation no longer has much to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It’s a monstrous collection of payoffs to big business special interests, ranging from Goldman Sachs to Duke Energy to General Electric.

Nobody likes Goldman Sachs. And nobody gave them as much money as the George W Bush administration through the TARP bail-out. But that didn't concern Myron Ebell one bit, because it was money badly spent.

This whole Cap-and-Trade thing is a red herring. It's an over-complex system that's designed to appeal to all those "Free-market" bozos like Myron and his friends by selling off property shares in the atmosphere in the hope that they'll stop treating it like a toilet. Isn't that what they always claim? Tragedy of the commons and all that? Funny how these narratives don't apply when it's their pals in Exxon who are plundering the commons. On no.

But instead Myron has been banging on about this Cap-and-Trade system -- a gift to guys with an ideology such as his -- being a tax. Well, what gives? Maybe we should just do it the obvious way, and call it a tax. It's a tax to clean up the oil spills. Doesn't matter what it's for, as long as the price of oil rises to a level that is actually representative of its costs.

I've found that even Exxon agrees with me:

One policy option that is intended to reduce emissions — and which has received much attention — is a cap-and-trade system. Before we rush to enact such a system, we must ask whether it can best achieve our shared goal of actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Cap-and-trade systems inevitably introduce unnecessary cost and complexity that undercut their effectiveness. It is important to remember that a cap-and-trade system requires a new market infrastructure for traders to trade emissions allowances. This new "Wall Street" of emissions brokers will take the emphasis away from the goal of reducing carbon emissions and focus on trading on price volatility instead.

There is another policy option that should be considered, and that is a carbon tax. A carbon tax avoids the costs and complexity of having to build a new market for securities traders or the necessity of adding a new layer of regulators and administrators to police companies and consumers. And a carbon tax can be more easily implemented. It could be levied under the current tax code without requiring significant new infrastructure or enforcement bureaucracies. A carbon tax is also the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions — from investments made by companies to meet their fuel needs to the product choices made by consumers. In addition, such a tax should be made revenue neutral. There should be reductions or changes to other taxes — such as income or excise taxes — to offset the impacts of the carbon tax on the economy.

Finally, there is another potential advantage to the direct-tax, market-cost approach. A carbon tax may be better suited for setting a uniform standard to hold all nations accountable. Given the global nature of the challenge, and the fact that economic growth in developing economies will account for a significant portion of future greenhouse gas emissions increases, policy options must encourage and support global engagement."

So what are we waiting for, eh?

Hey, Rex, what about putting aside a few thousands to hire a PR agent to take out Myron Ebell once and for all. Your company supported and paid him into existence. It's your duty to get rid of him and make sure he never appears in the New York Times, on the TV or anywhere from now on. It's lonely trying to hold out against him on my own all these years, you know.

The painful leak from his head

Myron Ebell has been remarkably quiet as that oil has continued to piss out of a deep water well into the Gulf of Mexico.

Who knew that drilling in mile deep water was so tricky?

But one bit of water is the same as another, isn't it, baby?

You never need to take account of the special situation and pass or enforce regulations that prevent enterprises having to cut all corners possible to compete in the market, do you?

Myron knows the need for regulations, even though he has spent his whole life lying about it.

But here he is in an Associated Press story from yesterday:

Myron Ebell of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, which usually rails against too much government intervention into business, spoke Tuesday of the need for "more scrutiny of the industry" and regulations. That way drilling can continue.

Or to put it another way, so that drilling is sustainable. America, for all its severe faults, is not like Nigeria where you can just machine gun the people out of the way. You have to use the power of lies. Lies are awesome and powerful and control the masses, but they can't do everything.

I'd like to rephrase his statement on a little broader level.

There is an need for more scrutiny of the fossil fuel industry and regulations to get it out of politics. That way human civilization might survive.

Ultimately, Myron Ebell's view of capitalism is suicidally self-destructive. It is just so sad it has to wreck everything with it.