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Thom's blog
Let's make Big Oil pay in advance!
When Big Oil is forced to pay for their disasters, the environment has a much better chance to recover. Twenty-seven square miles of wetlands along the Texas coastline have been preserved using funds from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation recently purchased the 17,000 acre Powderhorn Ranch using about $38 million dollars from BP's fines and other conservation group funding.
That purchase will protect the salt marshes, oak forests, and pristine wetlands of Texas's coastline, and it will provide a buffer for storm surge and sea level rise that pose a threat to that state. The Wildlife Foundation had been trying to purchase the land for over three decades, but was unable to raise the funding until BP was forced to pay.
This is exactly why it's so important to prevent corporations from privatizing gains and socializing losses. So many of the natural disasters caused by the fossil fuel industry have been left to taxpayers to clean up, and it was only the massive scale of the BP spill that prompted large fines and settlements.
When we divert tax dollars to clean up a corporation's mess, we make that funding unavailable for other important functions. By forcing Big Oil to pay for their disasters, we are able to clean and protect our environment without depriving our government of the tax dollars needed to operate. And, we raise the cost of business for the fossil fuel industry, and force them to do more to prevent another disaster.
Texas's newest wildlife preserve is proof that fining oil companies can be a success, but we shouldn't wait until the next disaster to make Big Oil pay up. Let's make them pay in advance for the destruction they cause by instituting a tax on carbon. To find out more, check out our new video "Carbon" at GreenWorldRising.org.
-Thom
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Tonight on The Big Picture on RT TV at 7pm and 10pm... Is there an Iraq strategy? (check your local listings for stations or stream at RT or Free Speech TV, and catch past shows on Youtube)
 Be sure to check out our new video: CARBON - narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio
Screwed: The Koch Brothers' on fascism- America's Lawyer Mike Papantonio, Ring of Fire Radio 
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Wednesday's Daily Stack 
Quote: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." by Karl Marx (History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce).
Quote: "You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people,' he [Colin Powell] told the president [George W Bush]. 'You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all.' Privately, Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called this the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it." according to Bob Woodward".
Quote: "One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans" by Otto von Bismarck, 1888.
Quote: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" by Samuel Johnson, April 7, 1775.
Hour Two: Why do conservatives hate free pre-school?- Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum Speech: " A Rendezvous With Destiny", 27 June 1936 acceptance speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt. " An old English judge once said: "Necessitous men are not free men."" Article: " The North Atlantic Treaty" by NATO. Article 5: The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently ...
Hour Three: What's your dental IQ?
- Dr. Joon Kim, DDS takes your calls. Economics and Labor news |
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Watch & Listen to Thom
ISIS executes another American
The GOP War on Workers has Killed Again...
Detroit...Bankruptcy on Trial
Or watch the Full "Big Picture" Show...
Full Show 9/2/14: ISIS Beheads Another U.S. Journalist
Thom discusses the beheading of journalist Steven Sotloff with Author and Activist Tom Hayden and how the fate of Detroit is resting in Judge Steven Rhodes' hands with the Change Agent Consortium's Pastor D. Alexander Bullock. Tonight's "Politics Panel" talks the decrease in the cost of the Medicare program, Obama's "no strategy" comment and whether Sen. McConnell will actually lose in November. In tonight's "Daily Take" Thom discusses how conservative policies have claimed another life.
Echos of WW1?
Why do Conservatives Hate Free Pre-School...?
...A Strategy for Iraq?
Thom Hartmann on Economic & Labor News: September 2, 2014
Sea level rise - what's the plan?
Caller: I'm Tired of the Lie, Christians Hate Women!
Radical Islam & Fundamentalist Christians Agree?
Is there an Iraq strategy?
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