Hot Air » Obama touts $400M loan to solar company run by corrupt congressman’s nephew

As Ed pointed out last week, President Obama announced in his July 3 weekly address that the federal government will back nearly $2 billion in loans to two solar power companies as part of its “green jobs” and stimulus programs. The $2 billion is supposed to produce 5,100 jobs–but most of them are only temporary construction jobs. A company called Abound Solar claims its $400 million loan will produce 1,500 permanent jobs in Colorado and Indiana, and–this is a fact Obama conveniently left out of his remarks–the $1.45 billion loan to the Spanish company Abengoa Solar will only produce 85 permanent jobs. That’s right: 85. I’m not cutting off any zeros.

As crazy as it may be to invest millions of dollars per job, this story actually gets much worse.

CSIRO corrupted by Carbonerra

Even the numerous state departments of Agriculture and Forestry are so cowed that not one scientist is prepared to say out loud that, over the life of a cow or a tree, there are ZERO net emissions or extractions of carbon dioxide.

Climategate shows the need for openness by scientists | Environment | The Observer

In the age of the blogosphere, blocking facts means science is damaged and public trust lost
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It was bad luck that the CRU scientists were singled out, said Dr James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis, adding that the group was among the best in the world at climate science. But he said: "Science has to start examining the way it works. This report compares peer review, which is 'pure', with the blogosphere, which is 'impure' – and there's some truth in that, to be sure – but the peer-review process can be exceedingly prejudiced and exert censorship even."

Eco warrior's Pacific journey shows how 'dumb plastic' is killing our seas | Environment | The Observer

"One of the difficulties in conveying it to people," De Rothschild says, "is that you can't photograph it, the flecks are too small.."