“Given its green technology, its government-bailed-out lineage, and several battery fires during crash tests, politicians and conservative pundits have called the Volt an "exploding Obamamobile," and "Obama-mandated death traps." The bashing from the right has been relentless -- despite the fact that both the Volt and GM's bailout were initiated during a Republican president's term, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's declaration that it did not identify a safety defect in the Volt.”
Who are the vested interests against Green technology?
The answer is obvious, and their lobby groups are plain to see
The energy dinosaurs, monolithic fossil enterprises, see their end in sight, and are doing all they can to put off the inevitable.
Like the petrified rocks of the Namib Desert, Fossil Big Business represent the Stone Age of Energy, cavemen about to disappear into history ...
China is going Green Energy not because it is sentimental about it but because it sees it as the way forward, energy wise!
Environmental damage from China's communist past is consistent with the patterns of disregard as East Germany revealed when the Wall fell away, as the new Russia manifested once the USSR was history.
It is as evident as in North Korea, a die-hard nation of oppressive political ideology that has long ago reached its sell by date ... at least for much of the rest of the World.
Now that Green is the Future, in North Korea's historical ally, the new flowers of China are the wind turbines and the solar panels!
In time, China too will move sentimentally to a Green Values Culture as the Big Green Picture of Sustainability is finally completely and totally obvious.
In the meantime, in the West, we need to fend off powerful but inevitably declining business interests that will not only destroy themselves but also drag the rest of us down too in their primal outlook.
As consumers we should lead the way, dragging them metaphorically by their hair kicking and screaming out of their caves and into Modernity.
On 11 April 2012, Avaaz has launched a petition against Black Subsidies - the taxpayer monies that oil companies receive as subsidies!
Why on earth should there be protection from competition for oil companies!?
It also seems that the vested interests will persist with misinformation like the tobacco companies once did: why should 49 former employees of NASA band together and request " ... that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites."?
Fortunately there is also a new bill being introduced that will help against these vested interests:
" ... designed to stop subsidies to the oil, coal and natural gas industries, preserving an estimated $110 billion over the next ten years."
"The measure, End Polluter Welfare Act, would do away with tax breaks, financial assistance, royalty relief, direct federal research and development and many loopholes that benefit the fossil fuel industry -- coal, oil, and natural gas -- according to the bill's authors. It has the backing of numerous groups, including Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense and 350.org, which has vowed to campaign on Capitol Hill in support of the legislation."
