Thank you for this expose, Michael. The public goodwill associated with the Sierra Club name is apparently available to the highest bidder. The above $136 million McClendon and Bloomberg donations to the Sierra Club helped to get the nonprofit to back dirty natural gas and oppose clean nuclear power. In 2010, The New York Times reported that billionaire David Gelbaum donated $200 million to the Sierra Club. https://tinyurl.com/Gelbaum-2010 Gelbaum had become a significant backer of solar energy. The motivation (and "strings" on Gelbaum's Sierra Club donations) were revealed in a 2004 Los Angeles Times article https://tinyurl.com/Gelbaum-2004. Additional facts are revealed in this 2014 Bloomberg article https://tinyurl.com/Gelbaum-2014 David Gelbaum died on September 30, 2018 at the age of 68.
Environmental Progress has a long expose of the Brown family’s dirty energy dealings. Jerry’s picture belongs at the center of the bullseye for all of this stuff. I hope he is eventually charged, prosecuted, convicted and sent to prison for his part in his family’s racketeering of the state energy market.
In California, banning the use of natural gas by end users has an additional goal… the natural gas needed to generate electricity to make up any energy shortfall would be purchased on no-bid contracts from well-connected cronies like the Browns.
Excellent point. Consider banning your gas stove. If it is replaced with a natural-gas-fired generator, the typical thermodynamic efficiency is about 1/3. That means heating your meal will then require three times as much natural gas - and yield roughly three times the emissions. This "virtue signaling" is a sweet deal for natural gas "insiders" such as former California governor Brown.
Thank you for this expose, Michael. The public goodwill associated with the Sierra Club name is apparently available to the highest bidder. The above $136 million McClendon and Bloomberg donations to the Sierra Club helped to get the nonprofit to back dirty natural gas and oppose clean nuclear power. In 2010, The New York Times reported that billionaire David Gelbaum donated $200 million to the Sierra Club. https://tinyurl.com/Gelbaum-2010 Gelbaum had become a significant backer of solar energy. The motivation (and "strings" on Gelbaum's Sierra Club donations) were revealed in a 2004 Los Angeles Times article https://tinyurl.com/Gelbaum-2004. Additional facts are revealed in this 2014 Bloomberg article https://tinyurl.com/Gelbaum-2014 David Gelbaum died on September 30, 2018 at the age of 68.
Environmental Progress has a long expose of the Brown family’s dirty energy dealings. Jerry’s picture belongs at the center of the bullseye for all of this stuff. I hope he is eventually charged, prosecuted, convicted and sent to prison for his part in his family’s racketeering of the state energy market.
In California, banning the use of natural gas by end users has an additional goal… the natural gas needed to generate electricity to make up any energy shortfall would be purchased on no-bid contracts from well-connected cronies like the Browns.
Excellent point. Consider banning your gas stove. If it is replaced with a natural-gas-fired generator, the typical thermodynamic efficiency is about 1/3. That means heating your meal will then require three times as much natural gas - and yield roughly three times the emissions. This "virtue signaling" is a sweet deal for natural gas "insiders" such as former California governor Brown.