Comments on: Pickens Plan

By: The Corner Office Blog - An entrepreneurs thoughts on business, personal finance and investing. » Keeping the Climate Change Revenue Flowing

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:34:18 +0000

[...] boat as Gore. Pickens continued to push his “Pickens Plan” (which I wrote about in a skeptical post last year) to America in an effort to reduce the dependence on foreign oil and invest heavily in natural gas [...]

By: Grant

Grant — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:57:04 +0000

$58 million of his own money on advertising? That’s nothing compared to the $2 BILLION he’s spending on 667 GE wind turbines!

David, I agree with your sentiment, and I’m on board with the overall effort.

But look at T. Boone Picken’s incentive to push his “plan”. It’s not to save the Earth, it’s to make money. I really don’t have a problem with that at all, and I think if you can guide capitalism to change the world for the better, I’m all for it.

The problem I have is that he’s leveraging the fear of economic turmoil to help him make his money.

Take for instance the first several lines of his “plan” on the website:

“It’s an addiction that threatens our economy, our environment and our national security. It touches every part of our daily lives and ties our hands as a nation and a people.

The addiction has worsened for decades and now it’s reached a point of crisis.”

Not a single factual statement in that, but how could you not be on board with what ever plan he has drawn up after reading about having our hands tied while we’re in this crisis that threatens our national security! Anyone against this plan would be unAmerican!

It’s not the effort, it’s not the goal, it’s not the money. It’s the sales pitch that I have the problem with, and it’s the same sales pitch we got from Al Gore.

The world is going to end unless we band together and do something. Start by buying carbon offsets from my new company!

By: David Houle

David Houle — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 03:47:23 +0000

What is the problem here guys? It is better to get energy from an American entrepreneur than a middle eastern country, right? It is better to convert to wind and solar than continue with petroleum. There are some 50 years of petroleum left, the sun has 5.5 billion years left, and at least to this observer, wind will continue to blow across the plains.

There is no better spokesman for wind energy that a billionaire oil man. Were you guys upset when he was making money on oil? What is wrong with making money on domestic energy?

By the way, he is spending $58 million of his own money on the advertising campaign. I think the American phrase is put your money where your mouth is.

David

By: Billy

Billy — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:20:31 +0000

As one NPR reporter noted, T-Bone’s pitch comes down to the following. “Why keep sending all of these American dollars abroad to buy expensive energy when, with the help of new government subsidies, you could buy more expensive energy from me?” And since he’s replacing natural gas, which burns with almost no emissions, we’re not really improving global warming.

By: Winston

Winston — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:04:36 +0000

Excellent post Grant. People need to remember that these guys are capitalists with an agenda….and the agenda always boils down to making money. What makes them good is their propaganda skills.