Pirate's Cove

Can you guess what it is?

No, it’s not all members of the Cult of Climastrology giving up their own use of fossil fuels and going carbon neutral.

No, it’s not doing actual science instead of relying on doomsaying and computer models to determine how much of the current warm period is caused by nature vs mankind.

Hyper-Warmist John D. Sutter will use his platform at CNN to tell us, which will put out carbon pollution through the use of evil electricity

There’s a cheap, proven fix to the world’s biggest problem

Yoram Bauman learned about the idea that would change his life, and the course of the world, as a nerdy undergraduate at Reed College.

The economics professor’s pitch was so simple he couldn’t shake it.

We should make bad stuff more expensive.

And, by doing that, make good stuff cheaper.

“I remember thinking that it was such an intellectually beautiful idea,” he told me.

It is beautiful. And, as it turns out, this old theory, which dates back at least to the 1920s and an economist named Arthur Pigou, is essential to fixing one of the world’s biggest problems.

What could it be?

Washington’s Initiative-732 would make a bad thing — pollution — more expensive by putting a tax on each ton of carbon dioxide created by cars, power plants and the like.

More importantly, doing so would throw economic muscle behind clean energy, shorter commutes, cleaner air and smarter cities. It would use the market, not regulations, to choose winners and losers in the clean tech race. It would help Washington state, in the apt words of the initiative’s promoters, fulfill its moral responsibility to leave a livable planet for future generations. And it plans do so without wrecking the economy or growing government.

Why, yes, a carbon tax! Of course! It’s so simple! The Government applying force of law to force citizens to Do Something. But, it’s totally innocuous, you know

That’s because Bauman’s carbon-tax proposal aims to be “revenue neutral,” meaning all of the money the state collects from the tax on carbon will be returned to the people and businesses as tax breaks. So this shouldn’t be seen as an additional tax. It’s a different tax — a pollution tax.

If you believe that, you probably reply to emails saying they need to shelter some money, and if you’ll send them your social security number they share it with you, the modern day equivalent of jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge.

Notice throughout the article the notion that costs will go up quite a bit, but, hey, the government will supposedly refund money to consumers to make up for some of the cost increases. In reality, this doesn’t happen. In reality, the cost of energy becomes difficult to afford, hurting the very lower and middle class people it proports to defend. In reality, businesses up and leave, as well as reduce their workforce.

Notice from the first excerpt about “shorter travel”. One of the things the more hardcore Warmists have wanted was to restrict travel for citizens, something the wider parent Progressive movement has wanted. How better to control citizens than find ways to keep them in small areas? Which is what this is all about. Control.

Read: Did You Know There’s Totally A Cheap, Proven Fix For ‘Climate Change’? »

I’ve previously mentioned that a group of attorney generals (all Democrats) have joined together to go after Exxon, along with looking at ways to silence climate skeptics, such as the Virgin Islands AG going after a private group, Competitive Enterprise Institute. Now we get

(Fox News) State Democratic officials are facing mounting accusations they secretly coordinated with climate activists to investigate whether ExxonMobil hid the truth about global warming, as new documents show the collaboration went deeper than previously thought.

Emails obtained and released by the Energy & Environment Legal Institute show a number of state attorneys general and their staff received advice and guidance from environmental activists at a March 29 meeting in New York, on the same day as a major press conference.

The meeting included a presentation by Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists on the “imperative of taking action now on climate change.” Matt Pawa, who litigated against Exxon in a global warming case, was also in attendance, giving a presentation regarding climate change litigation to the AGs and their staff.

There was quite a bit of secrecy and collusion in this, with too much information to properly excerpt.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a January meeting in Manhattan was a key moment in the plan to unleash a Big Tobacco-style government probe of oil companies. The meeting brought together several veteran environmental activists to discuss how to “establish in [the] public’s mind that Exxon is a corrupt institution that has pushed humanity (and all creation) toward climate chaos and grave harm.”

As more emails are released, Exxon is striking back.

“These revelations from the meeting in January, and now these emails, show that there is a lot of collaboration, collusion, conspiracy — pick a word — that shows these groups and trial lawyers working together to attack a company that has 75,000 employees and millions of shareholders,” Alan Jeffers, media relations manager for ExxonMobil told FoxNews.com. “That’s who these people are attacking, these employees and shareholders who benefit when the company does well.”

The one thing missing from this article, an opinion piece on it at Fox, and other articles is if this is illegal. It’s certainly unethical. How about this from Glenn Reynolds, in a piece publishes prior to the release of the emails

Federal law  makes it a felony “for two or more persons to agree together to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the Unites States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).”

I wonder if U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker, or California Attorney General Kamala Harris, or New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman have read this federal statute. Because what they’re doing looks like a concerted scheme to restrict the First Amendment free speech rights of people they don’t agree with. They should look up 18 U.S.C. Sec. 241, I am sure they each have it somewhere in their offices.

For all their lofty claims, these groups and AGs are simply attempting to shut down Free Speech and other Rights.

But all is not lost for CEI. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1985 provides a civil action for conspiracies to deprive individuals of civil rights. If I were CEI — or these attorneys general — I might give that law a read as well.

Discovery could be fun!

Read: State AGs, Activist Collude To Attack Exxon »