Warren Buffett

There is a lot of talk about rich people, nowadays. About the sinister Koch brothers financing the “war on climate change science” or about Warren Buffett and Bill Gates promising to donate most of their fortunes to charity, so I have decided to chip in my two cents worth.

Looking back, I’ve known quite a few rich people over the years. While I’ve never known anyone as rich as Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, I have known the grandchildren of people who, once upon a time, were as rich as those two are today.

They say that there are two types of people in the world, people who think that there are two types of people in the world and those that don’t … I belong to the second grouping. Having said that, and recognizing that the wealthy come in all shapes and sizes, I’d like to generalize about certain archetypes I’ve come across.

Kate Lanier’s collects global energy and climate news. This week, she has a special focus on the fight over the Keystone XL Pipeline in Congress including:

Keystone XL Pipeline, US Senate: Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) of the senate’s Energy and Natural resources Committee blasted the Senate’s Keystone XL pipeline bill. Sanders is concerned about the US Senate rejecting science and efficient renewable energy, while Warren concentrated on the pipeline benefitting the Canadian oil industry and not US families. Update: “Democrats plan tough votes for GOP on Keystone pipeline bill.”

Meanwhile, from Vatican City: Pope Francis has added his voice in opposition to mining, fracking, and disregard for the earth in general. He appears in a movie, La Guerra Del Fracking de Pino Solanas (The Fracking War), banned in Argentina (where the government calls fracking “non-conventional gas”), but now on YouTube.” Pope Francis also spoke to the urgency of focusing on youth, the future.

Alabama: Radioactive (tritium) leak at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant near Athens, after which TVA said “the leak was quickly contained and presented no public risk.” Not the only TVA radioactive leak, nor the only one at Browns Ferry.

Observations Of And On The Rich

Mining The Earth & Fracking The World: Keystone Showdown