Friday, March 14, 2008
Forgot Something
The Picayune ran an editorial on ethanol and the dead zone today:
If you'd like some more information on the subject, this article is a good start.
Anyway, I realized that I had forgotten to update my Dan Abrams post with the missing quotes:
Dan needs to fact checking his fact checking. I hate to be too hard on him because Abrams at least tries to be impartial, but he only does a one hour show. If he's going to cite a statement from a group that he's probably never heard of, he should at least look the group up. I'm also astounded that somebody who works in the news business can't spot astroturf a mile off. If the name of a group practically screams "good guys for good things" and you've never heard of the group before and the group has a very focused set of policy recommendations (e.g. ethanol and biodiesel as opposed to a wider variety of alternative fuels), a little googling might be in order.
In this case, you'd find that the RFA's leadership contains executives from both ADM and VeraSun. I don't think that The Renewable Fuels Association sounds enough like a grass roots organization to qualify as "astroturf," but the same warning signs were obvious.
The link between the dead zone and the ethanol boom has been shown in several studies, including a report published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That study says expanding corn-based ethanol production will make it "practically impossible" to reduce nitrogen flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. The ethanol goal set by Congress could increase nitrogren runoff into the Gulf by 10 percent to 18 percent, the researchers said.
If you'd like some more information on the subject, this article is a good start.
Anyway, I realized that I had forgotten to update my Dan Abrams post with the missing quotes:
And contrary to Clinton‘s claims that the bill retarded the development of clean, renewable energy, the spokesperson for the Renewable Fuels Association said, “It obviously wasn‘t a step backward. It created a meaningful market for renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel. All right. So, bottom line here, Laura, did the Clinton camp hope that they were just going to get away with punch and no one‘s going to call them on it?
...
Well, the problem is, it‘s not a sound biting. I mean it‘s only on this show we go through the fact checking that you get to actually say, “All right. You know what? I know the energy bill isn‘t going to be the big issue.” But you know what? We‘re going to fact check her...
Dan needs to fact checking his fact checking. I hate to be too hard on him because Abrams at least tries to be impartial, but he only does a one hour show. If he's going to cite a statement from a group that he's probably never heard of, he should at least look the group up. I'm also astounded that somebody who works in the news business can't spot astroturf a mile off. If the name of a group practically screams "good guys for good things" and you've never heard of the group before and the group has a very focused set of policy recommendations (e.g. ethanol and biodiesel as opposed to a wider variety of alternative fuels), a little googling might be in order.
In this case, you'd find that the RFA's leadership contains executives from both ADM and VeraSun. I don't think that The Renewable Fuels Association sounds enough like a grass roots organization to qualify as "astroturf," but the same warning signs were obvious.
Labels: Dan Abrams, dead zone, ethanol
