Of course, Paxton media group, which owns the Paducah Sun (actually the "parent" publication of the corporation), is one of the most kneejerk, radical, anti-environmental publications in the country. But one would think that after they have been wrong repeatedly in major environmental issues in their own community, that they would be a little cautious about mindlessly attacking the number one environmental advocate in the world at the current time - Al Gore.

The Paducah Sun was way wrong on the LWD issue. LWD stands for (or stood for) Liquid Waste Disposal. LWD operated a hazardous waste incinerator in Calvert City, Kentucky, not too far from here. Environmental interests, including myself, kept telling the Sun and the region that this was a disaster in the making, and that it should be closed down immediately. The Sun lead the attack on us, telling the area that we were "extremist" environmentalists, and that having a hazardous waste incinerator in our neighborhood was just fine, even if they were bringing in toxic waste from across the country to burn. And, how dare anyone suggest that the facility wasn't being run to the letter of the law!

But environmentalists wouldn't let up. This is going to end up costing the taxpayers of the state millions in cleanup, we kept saying. But the Sun wouldn't listen. They kept hammering us. But wasn't it interesting when the state, faced with a company declaring bankruptcy, while the industries that were supplying it were suing to keep it from filing bankruptcy, moved to close the facility. Even so, the Sun refused to protect the taxpayers. Instead, until the bitter end, advocated for the industry. Now the facility is closed and the taxpayers of Kentucky and the U.S. are facing a many millions of dollar cleanup to try and stem the toxic chemicals which were released by the facility from going into the Tennessee River and the associated aquifer.

The Sun was just as wrong about the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant. For decades, and still today to a large extent, if anyone dare criticize the Gaseous Diffusion plant and suggest that there might be an environmental problem, the Paducah Sun is there to attack. Not only that, but they are the "go to" guys for the Department of Energy. If DOE suspects that a story that is going to criticize them is going to come out in some larger media outlet, mysteriously, an article appears either just before, at the same time, or just after the story runs, in the Sun, which supports the DOE and attempts to do "damage control" from the other story. This kind of thing happens repeatedly. Of course the revolving door between the Sun and the Public Relations office for DOE and its contractors probably has something to do with it.

But, when the Washington Post broke the story about the plutonium contamination at the facility, when locally, the DOE, it's contractors, and even local politicians, told the public repeatedly that there was no problem, and lambasted anyone who dared to suggest that there might be an environmental problem there, the Sun stuck up for DOE and the contamination. But, they ended up with egg on their face when the U.S. Sec. of Energy came to Paducah and apologized on behalf of the U.S. government for lying to the workers about what they were handling. Once again, the taxpayers are paying - billions for a failed cleanup and millions for compensation for former workers and their families.

These are just two examples of how the Sun addresses legitimate environmental issues. So the fact that it decided to dedicate a very long, and decidely aggressively negative editorial blasting Al Gore for his work on global warming isn't really surprising to me. It's just one more example where they are totally wrong. But what is more interesting to me is that while the Sun, which is the parent organization of the Paxton media newspaper chain, doesn't answer to anyone, the Paxton media group TV station, "NewsChannel 6", the NBC affiliate station from Paducah, touted environmentalism and doing everything possible to fight global warming when NBC had it's "Green week" several weeks ago.

That proved to me that Paxton media is nothing but a money whore. If you think Mitt Romney is bad at being wishy washy to meet his immediate needs, look no further than Paxton media group, which will do whatever it has to to make money. Environmental when it meets their needs (like a large network such as NBC telling them they have to be), but absurdly anti-environmental when they think no one is looking.

But finally, does anyone at the Paducah Sun think they are anywhere near the caliber of Al Gore? I can assure you that there is no one on the Sun staff that is anywhere near as influential as Mr. Gore. So go ahead, continue to make fools out of yourself, Paducah Sun. You have the money to build new buildings, and try to tear good people down, but you will fail eventually upon the weight of your dishonesty and self-interest.