I was really looking forward to watching the documentary 'The Politics of Power" on Global warming, the politics involved, and the high power moneyed interests fueling the war of environmental science denial from Chris Hayes and his team @ MSNBC. I missed it when it aired on August 16th 2013 as that hour which I've set up to record 'All In' did not record the documentary which broadcast in the usual time slot of 'All In' with Chris Hayes
Rachel Maddow's recent program on the Iraq war called 'Why we did it' (full video at link) was also set up this way - where her normal hour of programming would not record as usual. Rachel then apologized to her audience after receiving calls that many of them (me included) didn't see the documentary 'Why We Did It' the first time it aired. The documentaries had to be specifically and manually programmed to record.
Rachel recognized this problem and made changes so that the documentary 'Why we did it' did record in her normal time slot with no manual programming required. The documentary has since been aired several times. It's excellent btw.
This fix did not happen with 'The Politics of Power' documentary as far as I can tell. Chris Hayes and his team worked very hard to put this documentary together, so it makes no sense that the same recording fix was not done as Rachel Maddow did. Anyone expecting the show to automatically record at the regular hour very likely missed seeing the program at all. I missed it as regular viewer. It's now a year later and still unavailable in its entirety on-line
While searching for the Chris Hayes documentary 'The Politics of Power: the evidence of climate change' I ran across this posting by D.R. Tucker @ Brad Blog called:
MSNBC's 'Power' Outage: Chris Hayes' Climate Change Documentary STILL Unavailable Online | The curious blackout of the cable net's one-hour 'Politics of Power' special...
D.R. Tucker explores several aspects of this problem, includes links to short video clips and conversations, questions and answers from Chris Hayes and others with some very telling transcribed excerpts from the program itself
One of the links was to an up-date:
UPDATE 10/2/2013: MSNBC's 'missing' climate change documentary finally found! Sort of...
Here is the 'sort of'. It's a 10 minute clip of the documentary:
(short ad - sorry)link to MSNBC:
http://www.nbcnews.com/...
# # #
Here is the transcript to August 16, 2013 program & documentary
(updated 8/20/2013) with special guests & comments:
Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, Steve Coll, Jigar Shah, Carol Browner, and
Bill McKibben
# # #
Here is the original trailer for the documentary with commentary from Bill McKibben:
link to MSNBC trailer page:
http://www.nbcnews.com/...
# # #
The last 59 seconds of the documentary:
(short ad - sorry) link to MSNBC:
http://www.nbcnews.com/...
# # #
You can look at MSNBC's documentary listings
older and
newer by hovering over the msnbc tab and choosing documentaries but 'The Politics of Power' documentary is not there
# # #
So here are just a few words from
Bill McKibben (author of
The End of Nature) from the transcript:
We will not get that price on carbon until we've beaten the power of
the fossil fuel industry. Sooner or later, the world will figure out that
it has to regulate carbon. That this is the most dangerous thing now on
the planet. But the sooner or later is the key part of the question here.
If we don`t do it pretty soon, then there`s not much use in doing it.
# # #
A world that doesn`t depend on the Koch Brothers and the Exxons and
everybody else to bring them their energy, that instead is set up so that
you can get it from the sun and if you want to understand why those guys
hate that world so much, just remind yourself, from their point of view,
what the problem with the sun is. You can`t meter the damn thing.
# # #
Shorts clips can be
found on-line, most of them in advance of the airing of 'The Politics of Power" documentary, but both
D.R. Tucker and
Brad Friedman @ the Brad Blog have a strong point. There seems to be a 'blackout' on this type of reporting that takes aim at the powerful fossil fuel industries and their influence over government
(putting it gently), the MSM, and what type of viewing will be broadcast.
“Climate change is a problem without borders; and developing countries are feeling the heat even more than the first world.” According to a Stanford University report, the planet is undergoing one of the largest climate changes in 65 million years.
If the story is about war that feeds the
military industrial complex it will be almost unavoidable to see and hear as the MSM pounds out story after story, each building on the next until it reaches a crescendo. But when it comes to challenging Big Corpo monopolies it's an uphill battle just to be heard. Even if one has their VCR programmed to record a program at the specific time there is no guarantee that will happen without going over extra hurdles. The airing of the documentary was on cable with one chance to catch it if you manually programmed for it in advance, and as far as I've seen nowhere to be found online in its entirety.
Not being a big fan of CT's and reading up on what I could find on this documentary and the questions raised, it sure seems, by looking to history as a guide (tobacco lobby), that it got the attention of those with the clout that could make it go away, soon to be forgotten, without also raising unwanted alarms that would achieve the opposite.
The cigarette industry created 50 years of pseudo science to convince legislators, regulators and smokers that smoking was not harmful. Is the fossil fuel industry now paying for pseudo science to convince policymakers they`re not to blame for climate change?
Of course they are.
Unlike War(s) in service of protecting fossil fuel "interests" here and abroad, renewable energy doesn't require weapons of occupation & killing people.
So, just spreading the word in hopes for a re-broadcast and an on-line version giving more people a chance to see this important documentary and start asking more questions too. Maybe questions like; How come spending wasting 3.7 $trillion as of 2011 (and counting); or 4.4 $trillion; or maybe it's an even 6 $trillion on perpetual wars costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, takes top priority while convincing our lawmakers to invest in the only war that will matter in the end is something they run from?
Or this question: How many much needed jobs matched up to much needed infrastructure would 6 $trillion invested create for the middle class workers of America? And what about public schools & colleges or medical need?
If the republican deniers are so hell bent on "liberty" & "Independence", let's try independence from fossil fuels and the wars in the Middle East as the first step towards true independence with the diversity and a whole range of new high paying jobs that people producing their own solar energy will bring - imo
And for the teabaggers to really put it to the "Washington elites" they say they despise? Try this idea: Decentralizing electrical power can help decentralize economic power
Also too! Major Kudos to all who are on their feet making some really good noise sending out an SOS ♫♪♫
- Thanks for stopping by
Note: things may have changed to where this documentary can be purchased through a cable provider or elsewhere. but that's not really the point. A bit like "conservatives" that sneak in voter suppression laws under the guise of "truing the vote" hoping it will go unnoticed until it is too late; (shaving a few points here a few points there suppressing the voices of people), any questions in opposition to Big fossil fuel monopolies are quietly silenced
And then the opposite; the war-drum we're hearing today cannot be avoided. It's everywhere in every media. So a documentary exposing corporations to questions asking about the promotion and financing of pseudo-science, including the reporting of it? Not so much
- time to turn in - be back later today :)