Everything You Need to Know About Viral Sensation Ken Bone and His Presidential Debate Question

By Steve Horn
After Kenneth Bone asked a question about energy to presidential nominees Donald Trump and Secretary Hillary Clinton at the presidential town hall debate on Oct. 9, he quickly became a viral internet sensation.
That evening at Washington University in St. Louis, Bone asked, "What step will your energy policy take to meet our energy needs while at the same time remaining environmentally friendly and minimizing job loss for fossil power plant workers?"
Trump responded by touting "clean coal" and bashing what he described as President Barack Obama's war on energy. Sec. Clinton responded by promoting hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for oil and gas as a "bridge" to renewable fuels while also citing climate change as a "serious problem" and that she wants "to make sure we don't leave people behind."
Lost in the shuffle of the viral memes, internet jokes and a Facebook fan page is a basic question: Who is Ken Bone and what does he do for a living?
A DeSmog investigation has revealed that Bone works for the Prairie State Energy Campus, which is co-owned by a consortium of electric power companies and located about an hour southeast of St. Louis in Lively Grove, Illinois. Adam Siegel, who blogs at the site Get Smart Energy Now, first pointed to the lack of disclosure the day after the debate.
Both a blog post promoting Prairie State employees' community volunteer work and his personal Facebook page confirm that Bone works for Prairie State.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Prairie State opened in late 2012 and is one of the dirtiest U.S. power plants opened in the past quarter century. Previously, it was partially owned by coal giant Peabody Energy until it sold its five percent stake in May.
"Each year, it will churn more than 13 million tons of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, an amount equivalent to adding 2 million cars to the nation's highways," wrote the Chicago Tribune. "Most U.S. power plants emitting that much climate-change pollution date to the 1960s and '70s."
Prairie State has also been marred by cost overruns, with the plant racking up far higher building costs than originally stated. These cost overruns have led to lawsuits filed against the company by townships such as Hermann, Missouri and Batavia, Illinois.
The company has attempted to dodge compliance with President Obama's proposed Clean Power Plan, which would force coal-fired power plants to comply with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcement of the Clean Air Act for carbon emissions. The company wrote a letter to the EPA in May 2015 expressing its concerns about the proposed rule and also is a petitioner in the energy industry and states' lawsuit against the EPA, a case which will soon be decided upon by the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia.
Despite this track record, Bone told The Washington Post, "We're one of the most environmentally-friendly coal power plants in the world. We're very recently built."
The case study of Bone and Prairie State Energy Campus, then, raises another question: How are those who ask questions in the audiences vetted to avoid potential non-disclosure of industry ties and conflicts of interest?
Lack of Disclosure
In introducing Bone, co-moderator Anderson Cooper of CNN did not disclose what he did for a profession, but that was standard procedure for all audience members who asked a question. In doing post-debate media interviews, Bone has said he works for a coal-fired power plant company, but media outlets apparently have not asked him about which company he works for.
The Gallup Organization teamed up with the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) to choose debate attendees from St. Louis-area residents. CPD is the nonprofit organization founded by Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee leaders, but ahead of the debate, the Los Angeles Times reported that it remained "unclear how members of the audience will be selected to ask questions."
"The Commission on Presidential Debates worked with Gallup, a research and polling company, to randomly select uncommitted registered voters from the area around St. Louis, where the debate is being held," reported the Times. "Uncommitted voters include people who have not made up their minds or are leaning toward one nominee but could still be persuaded to vote for the other."
In a videotaped interview with the Belleville News-Democrat, Bone said he was randomly selected to attend the debate by Gallup based on the randomized phone survey the organization conducted for undecided voters, saying he was surprised it did not turn out to be a "dog and pony show" in terms of who gets to ask questions and what he or she gets to ask.
He also went on Anderson Cooper's CNN show the day after the debate, but the interview focused on his wardrobe, not what he does for a living. On his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Bone did say he worked for the coal electricity industry and expressed worry about some of Clinton's proposed energy policies, while also pointing to his fear of Donald Trump's stances on bread-and-butter civil rights issues like gay marriage. He expressed similar sentiments to The Washington Post.
Bone told DeSmog he went to the debate on his own volition and told The New York Times, "I'm just glad I was able to spark the energy debate a little bit. It was kind of getting overlooked."
"I got no funding of any kind. I work in coal and I care deeply about the environment," he told DeSmog. "No one knew my question in advance except the moderators and my wife."
Bone's employer also said that he was there on his own, not as a representative for the company.
"Ken attended the event as an individual and not on Prairie State's behalf," Alyssa Harre, manager of public relations and government affairs for Prairie State, told DeSmog. "Ken developed the question on his own."
While it doesn't appear to be the case this time, in the past the coal industry has used what's called third party technique, in which the industry deploys regular-seeming people to speak positively on its behalf.
For example, the industry did so during the 2012 election cycle when Murray Energy had Ohio mine workers appear at a "mandatory" rally (without pay) for Republican Party candidate Mitt Romney.
A senior CPD official said it relies on Gallup do a "process and screen, the details of which [the CPD] does not get into—a similar process for which we've been using for many cycles—to identify individuals that are non-committed." The official also said identifying the line of work for the person who stands up and asks a question at town hall debates is not something the CPD has ever done.
Memoranda of Understanding
Leaked Memoranda of Understanding from previous presidential debates offer some clues as to how questioners are selected. The Memoranda are the agreements designed by the two major party campaigns each election season which govern the format and rules of the debates. While typically not released to the public, they were leaked to the press in both 2004 and 2012.
Both documents describe a nearly identical selection process.
Gallup is first tasked with finding a "nationally demographically representative group of voters" using a methodology which must be approved by both campaigns. Once selected, audience members then submit their written questions to the moderator, who makes sure the questions are roughly divided between foreign policy and national security on the one hand, and domestic and economic policy on the other. The moderator is also tasked with removing any questions they find "inappropriate."
Finally, the moderator must then come up with a process fulfilling the paradoxical task of both randomly selecting questions and making sure they cover "a wide range of issues of major public interest." The candidates must approve this process as well.
While it's not clear if the candidates did or did not sign a written agreement this year, the two campaigns did negotiate the debate rules and it would not be surprising if they followed a similar process in earlier debates. Janet Brown, executive director of the CPD, told CNN that the moderators would select around eight audience members from a crowd of 40 to ask questions "with the goal of maximizing the number of topics covered," suggesting the process is little changed from previous years.
ABC News—whose reporter Martha Raddatz co-moderated the debate alongside Anderson Cooper—deferred a query about how those who ask questions at debates are vetted to the Commissions on President Debates and Gallup. CNN did not respond to a request for comment.
Additional reporting by Branko Marcetic. Reposted with permission from our media associate DeSmogBlog.
‘Existential Threat to Our Survival’: See the 19 Australian Ecosystems Already Collapsing
By Dana M Bergstrom, Euan Ritchie, Lesley Hughes and Michael Depledge
In 1992, 1,700 scientists warned that human beings and the natural world were "on a collision course." Seventeen years later, scientists described planetary boundaries within which humans and other life could have a "safe space to operate." These are environmental thresholds, such as the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and changes in land use.
The Good and Bad News
<p><span>Ecosystems consist of living and non-living components, and their interactions. They work like a super-complex engine: when some components are removed or stop working, knock-on consequences can lead to system failure.</span></p><p>Our study is based on measured data and observations, not modeling or predictions for the future. Encouragingly, not all ecosystems we examined have collapsed across their entire range. We still have, for instance, some intact reefs on the Great Barrier Reef, especially in deeper waters. And northern Australia has some of the most intact and least-modified stretches of savanna woodlands on Earth.</p><p><span>Still, collapses are happening, including in regions critical for growing food. This includes the </span><a href="https://www.mdba.gov.au/importance-murray-darling-basin/where-basin" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Murray-Darling Basin</a><span>, which covers around 14% of Australia's landmass. Its rivers and other freshwater systems support more than </span><a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/latestproducts/94F2007584736094CA2574A50014B1B6?opendocument" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">30% of Australia's food</a><span> production.</span></p><p><span></span><span>The effects of floods, fires, heatwaves and storms do not stop at farm gates; they're felt equally in agricultural areas and natural ecosystems. We shouldn't forget how towns ran out of </span><a href="https://www.mdba.gov.au/issues-murray-darling-basin/drought#effects" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">drinking water</a><span> during the recent drought.</span></p><p><span></span><span>Drinking water is also at risk when ecosystems collapse in our water catchments. In Victoria, for example, the degradation of giant </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/logging-must-stop-in-melbournes-biggest-water-supply-catchment-106922" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mountain Ash forests</a><span> greatly reduces the amount of water flowing through the Thompson catchment, threatening nearly five million people's drinking water in Melbourne.</span></p><p>This is a dire <em data-redactor-tag="em">wake-up</em> call — not just a <em data-redactor-tag="em">warning</em>. Put bluntly, current changes across the continent, and their potential outcomes, pose an existential threat to our survival, and other life we share environments with.</p><p><span>In investigating patterns of collapse, we found most ecosystems experience multiple, concurrent pressures from both global climate change and regional human impacts (such as land clearing). Pressures are often </span><a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2664.13427" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">additive and extreme</a><span>.</span></p><p>Take the last 11 years in Western Australia as an example.</p><p>In the summer of 2010 and 2011, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/marine-heatwaves-are-getting-hotter-lasting-longer-and-doing-more-damage-95637" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">heatwave</a> spanning more than 300,000 square kilometers ravaged both marine and land ecosystems. The extreme heat devastated forests and woodlands, kelp forests, seagrass meadows and coral reefs. This catastrophe was followed by two cyclones.</p><p>A record-breaking, marine heatwave in late 2019 dealt a further blow. And another marine heatwave is predicted for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/24/wa-coastline-facing-marine-heatwave-in-early-2021-csiro-predicts" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">this April</a>.</p>What to Do About It?
<p><span>Our brains trust comprises 38 experts from 21 universities, CSIRO and the federal Department of Agriculture Water and Environment. Beyond quantifying and reporting more doom and gloom, we asked the question: what can be done?</span></p><p>We devised a simple but tractable scheme called the 3As:</p><ul><li>Awareness of what is important</li><li>Anticipation of what is coming down the line</li><li>Action to stop the pressures or deal with impacts.</li></ul><p>In our paper, we identify positive actions to help protect or restore ecosystems. Many are already happening. In some cases, ecosystems might be better left to recover by themselves, such as coral after a cyclone.</p><p>In other cases, active human intervention will be required – for example, placing artificial nesting boxes for Carnaby's black cockatoos in areas where old trees have been <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/publications/factsheet-carnabys-black-cockatoo-calyptorhynchus-latirostris" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">removed</a>.</p><p><span>"Future-ready" actions are also vital. This includes reinstating </span><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets/a-burning-question-fire/12395700" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cultural burning practices</a><span>, which have </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-you-have-unfinished-business-its-time-to-let-our-fire-people-care-for-this-land-135196" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">multiple values and benefits for Aboriginal communities</a><span> and can help minimize the risk and strength of bushfires.</span></p><p>It might also include replanting banks along the Murray River with species better suited to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets/my-garden-path---matt-hansen/12322978" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">warmer conditions</a>.</p><p>Some actions may be small and localized, but have substantial positive benefits.</p><p>For example, billions of migrating Bogong moths, the main summer food for critically endangered mountain pygmy possums, have not arrived in their typical numbers in Australian alpine regions in recent years. This was further exacerbated by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-million-hectares-of-threatened-species-habitat-up-in-smoke-129438" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">2019-20</a> fires. Brilliantly, <a href="https://www.zoo.org.au/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Zoos Victoria</a> anticipated this pressure and developed supplementary food — <a href="https://theconversation.com/looks-like-an-anzac-biscuit-tastes-like-a-protein-bar-bogong-bikkies-help-mountain-pygmy-possums-after-fire-131045" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Bogong bikkies</a>.</p><p><span>Other more challenging, global or large-scale actions must address the </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iICpI9H0GkU&t=34s" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">root cause of environmental threats</a><span>, such as </span><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0504-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">human population growth and per-capita consumption</a><span> of environmental resources.</span><br></p><p>We must rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero, remove or suppress invasive species such as <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mam.12080" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">feral cats</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-buffel-kerfuffle-how-one-species-quietly-destroys-native-wildlife-and-cultural-sites-in-arid-australia-149456" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">buffel grass</a>, and stop widespread <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-reduce-fire-risk-and-meet-climate-targets-over-300-scientists-call-for-stronger-land-clearing-laws-113172" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">land clearing</a> and other forms of habitat destruction.</p>Our Lives Depend On It
<p>The multiple ecosystem collapses we have documented in Australia are a harbinger for <a href="https://www.iucn.org/news/protected-areas/202102/natures-future-our-future-world-speaks" target="_blank">environments globally</a>.</p><p>The simplicity of the 3As is to show people <em>can</em> do something positive, either at the local level of a landcare group, or at the level of government departments and conservation agencies.</p><p>Our lives and those of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/children-are-our-future-and-the-planets-heres-how-you-can-teach-them-to-take-care-of-it-113759" target="_blank">children</a>, as well as our <a href="https://theconversation.com/taking-care-of-business-the-private-sector-is-waking-up-to-natures-value-153786" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">economies</a>, societies and <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-address-the-ecological-crisis-aboriginal-peoples-must-be-restored-as-custodians-of-country-108594" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cultures</a>, depend on it.</p><p>We simply cannot afford any further delay.</p><p><em><a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/dana-m-bergstrom-1008495" target="_blank" style="">Dana M Bergstrom</a> is a principal research scientist at the University of Wollongong. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/euan-ritchie-735" target="_blank" style="">Euan Ritchie</a> is a professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences at Deakin University. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lesley-hughes-5823" target="_blank">Lesley Hughes</a> is a professor at the Department of Biological Sciences at Macquarie University. <a rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michael-depledge-114659" target="_blank">Michael Depledge</a> is a professor and chair, Environment and Human Health, at the University of Exeter. </em></p><p><em>Disclosure statements: Dana Bergstrom works for the Australian Antarctic Division and is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Wollongong. Her research including fieldwork on Macquarie Island and in Antarctica was supported by the Australian Antarctic Division.</em></p><p><em>Euan Ritchie receives funding from the Australian Research Council, The Australia and Pacific Science Foundation, Australian Geographic, Parks Victoria, Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, and the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. Euan Ritchie is a Director (Media Working Group) of the Ecological Society of Australia, and a member of the Australian Mammal Society.</em></p><p><em>Lesley Hughes receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a Councillor with the Climate Council of Australia, a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and a Director of WWF-Australia.</em></p><p><em>Michael Depledge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://theconversation.com/existential-threat-to-our-survival-see-the-19-australian-ecosystems-already-collapsing-154077" target="_blank" style="">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>- Coral Reef Tipping Point: 'Near-Annual' Bleaching May Occur ... ›
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