Ecocide? Bring it on (in a Western government court).

British campaigner urges UN to accept “ecocide” as international crime

Some British lawyer thinks that the UN or another undemocratic body ought to have the right to try someone for crimes against “peace”, which would apparently include crimes against non-humans too: you know, harm to flat-fish, garden-variety weeds, fungus, and algae.

It’s easy to imagine the “law” descending into high farce: People call for trials of oil CEO’s for raising CO2 levels; the price of energy rises. People in Scotland build tidal energy generators; Children in Mongolia freeze, and kids in Bolivia can’t afford to go to school.  The tidal energy generators go on to destroy the habitat of the yellow bellied mud lark; the Bolivian kids go on to become cocaine farmers; the Mongolian kids don’t go on to become anything, and the UN calls for trials of the people who called for trials of the oil CEOs.

Supporters of a new ecocide law also believe it could be used to prosecute “climate deniers” who distort science and facts to discourage voters and politicians from taking action to tackle global warming and climate change.

Trials for people who twist, deny, and distort science? Bring it on, I say. Skeptical science would triumph in any court where real evidence was cross-examined. And people might find that the real deniers on trial are those who ignore hundreds of studies and thousands of boreholes, and defend statistically inept graphs, all while receiving funds from the public they are supposedly serving. The real deniers who claim that committee reports are evidence could be also held accountable for business malinvestments, gross misdirection of public funds, and children who starved as biofuels ate their food.

People who, say, banned the use of pesticides to save a few birds, and ended up killing lots of children, might have to face justice.

As I say, bring it on, but only in a trial by jury in a democratic country. To give powers to jail or fine people to an agency so unaccountable, so undemocratic, and so corrupted is hand-feeding a tyranny. It’s hypocrisy-democracy. The people who vote there are not elected, nor are they all appointed by elected governments. There is not even a shadow of democracy left when many of those who vote are the representatives of abject tyrants and bloodthirsty dictators.

When people must get their way but can’t convince us with polite conversation, all that’s left is force or trickery. Jail them.

H/t to Curt.

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52 comments to Ecocide? Bring it on (in a Western government court).

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    Otter

    The link in the title would not open, but if I recall rightly the lady- errrrr, person’s name is higgins, who proposed this. I suspect once slightly Less hysterical minds think upon it for a bit, they are going to realize just what she is setting them up for- as your article here well illustrates- and she’s pretty much guaranteed to be running a dry cleaning shop off a back alley somewhere, once they are done with her.

    [Thanks I’ve fixed the link…–JN]

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    Otter

    Well, I can hope so, anyway.

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    Dagfinn

    As you point out, the evidence won’t be accepted in a real courtroom. Also, punishing people for having an opinion is not how the law normally works. You may be punished for encouraging people to commit a crime, but it’s necessarily less serious than committing the crime yourself. So if you think climate skeptics are bad for making people ride in airplanes and cars and operating power plants, these things must be made illegal first, and then–just maybe–you can put skeptics on trial for luring others into committing these environmentally sinful acts.

    This is all hypothetical, of course. Just to show how far-fetched the idea is.

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    Joe Veragio

    NEWS: It looks like there may have been something of a reconciliation between Lord Monckton and that prominent BBC journalist Richard Black, who seems to have rediscovered some fundamentals of journalism after an encounter with Monckton.
    (Remember among his many other talents Lord Monckton did a major in journalism).

    Sorry OT I know, ‘though he points readers directly to the offending hidden texts, that would very probably have passed unseen into legislation after Copenhagen, had it not been for Lord Monckton’s vigilance (& Climategate).

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  • #
    Joe Veragio

    Ever so sorry, I forgot the Link at #4.
    From the UN climate talks in Bonn:

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    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by johnnyA99. johnnyA99 said: Ecocide? Bring it on, you #eco-Nazis http://bit.ly/dzf35O #green #climate […]

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  • #
    barry woods

    Richard Black is a ‘believer’ see him spin.

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  • #
    Joe Veragio

    Indeed, Barry @ #7,
    Here’s how he was spinning it on Wednesday (presumably before his LM encounter)

    Flowers bloom earlier as UK warms

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    Roy Hogue

    I guess it had to happen. And the trials, if they ever get implemented (seems a little doubtful) are going to be fixed from the start. These are not honest players. This quote from Mark Twain seems to be their motto. “First get your facts straight. Then you can distort them any way you want.”

    This is more evidence of the impact we skeptic’s are having. If they thought the world was with them they wouldn’t need to resort to a coward’s method and threaten those who don’t fall in line.

    I’ve probably said this before but the truth angers those it does not convince. Now is the time to heighten our resolve and push onward the way we’ve been going all along.

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    Rereke Whaakaro

    Otter: # 1

    The link has a spurious http:// at the front. Try opening it, and when it fails, delete that bit and try again – that worked for me.

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    Sean2829

    Remeber only three years ago when ethanol mandates drove the price of corn throught the roof. I believe their were food riots in 25 cities. People living at subsistance poverty levels saw the price of corn meal double in a matter of months. Hunger relief agencies could only purchase half the food they needed due to constrained budgets and prices doubling. How many people died because of this? What would have happened if the World Bank had not backed the funding of the new coal fired power generation in South Africa? How much longer would it have taken modern medicine and sanitation, cleaner water,and rapid economic development to reach this population? How much higher would the mortality rate be with less development? I suspect there are many bodies that have been left in the wake of the green revolution. The eco-evanangelists are ready to try, convict and sentence people based on the projections of a computer model. If your innocent until proven guilty how can you try COE’s before there are victims? On the other hand, biofuel policies can be linked to a great deal of misery and likely some starvation deaths in the last 5 years. It’s time to count the bodies and start naming the responsible indivuduals and orginizations.

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  • #
    Louis Hissink

    Folks,

    None of you seem to really understand the modus operandi of the Fabians – they consider themselves an intellectual elite, they have infiltrated most institutions and they achieve their goals by not being what they secretly are. The infilterated the UK Liberal party last century and turned it into the UK Labour party.

    From the start they avoided the term socialism in their policies knowing it would be rejected. Instead they supported the welfare state, and the game plan is to slowly regulate society while keeping the trappings of a private sector; vis Fascism where the corporates are permitted to exist, but do so under a highly regulated system controlled by the state.

    It’s the creeping-socialism Hayek warned us about and Higgins is but one of many intellectuals chipping away at our freedoms.

    Human rights is a collectivist term – a totally unnecessary right in the presence of individual rights, but as the Fabians reject individual rights, they needed something to replace it – human rights – and as that is somewhat inspecific, they added special interest rights, “gay rights”, planetary rights, multicultural rights etc etc. A whole raft of legislated rights specifically to small sections of the community.

    Her Ecoside crime is simply to punish those who are found guilty of environmental despoilation, which most of the people would approve. As CO2 emitters are basically climate sceptics and thus industrialists/capitalists, it becomes clear the intellectual elite have found a way of silencing and getting rid of us without upsetting the population at large which would be supportive of punishing anyone who desecrated the environment.

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    Nick

    I think it’s time for another new crime – WackoAlarmocide – – put this loony away before she harms everyone!

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    Peter of Sydney

    Welcome to the early stages of the Orwellian society where everything is turned upside down. Be prepared – it’s coming and nothing will stop it, certainly not the majority of the public who are brain dead. Perhaps one day just as in THX1138, it will be illegal NOT to take drugs in order to placate the public from even contemplating eventually waking up to what’s happening.

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    Roy Hogue

    Louis @12,

    As I think you know, if they get very far with this agenda they’ll soon have buyer’s remorse because it will kill the means of production of all the things they depend on along with the rest of us. Worse, the fighting over what’s left will be deadly as well. Unless the UN can grow its own food, make its own airplanes and cars, not to mention weapons with which to keep their thumb down hard on the world, they’d best rethink this along with their Copenhagen carbon reduction agreements. They depend on the people they’d be destroying, one way or another.

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    Steve B

    Ayn Rand wrote a very good essay on Collectivism vs Individualism which can be found on the Internet. Collectivists feed on the Individualists but what happens when there are no more Individualists left to feed on? Another article I read a few months ago put it another way. He called Collectivists parasites. What happens when then parasites kill the hosts? The parasites will have to turn on each other. It would be fascinating but I don’t think I want to be around to see the result. It wouldn’t be pretty.

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    […] and Hansen part of eco-religion ; Eco-religion and civil rights ; More here on the appalling abuse of free speech […]

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  • #
    Rod Smith

    Well I had a friend, Ocie Mills, that spent 21 months in a Federal prison for (as I remember) “poluting the navigable waters of the US.” See: Ocie for details. He moved years ago to MN where his wife died. I don’t know if he is still around, but his case was never overturned.

    I have another friend, Charles Coxwell, just a few miles down the road who spent nearly ten years, and who knows how much money, fighting the State of Florida about “dredging and filling a wetland.” He had essentially a big puddle on this property and he scrapped the bottom clean of debris, enlarged it a bit and stocked it with fish. He was at an elevation of maybe 50-60 feet and about a mile from the Gulf of Mexico, so they claimed his drainage was “polluting” the Gulf. The real problem was that he didn’t get a state permit.

    I firmly believe that maybe well intentioned laws were misused by zealots in both these cases.

    I think the moral is to watch out for the zealots in government!

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    Bulldust

    I had to stop reading after a few paragraphs as the assault of sheer stupidity made some of my weaker brain cells die.

    As always I wonder more about the motivations behind people’s actions than the actions themselves…. why did the Gaurdian even bother to print this?

    1) They support the Green Fascist notions being presented?
    2) They wish to incite the opposite feelings in the readers thereby undermining the Green movement?

    It makes one wonder…

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  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Louis Hissink: # 12

    None of you seem to really understand the modus operandi of the Fabians

    Some of us do.

    They have had some notable members: George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, William Morris. They claim that every Labour Prime Minister has been a member of the society. (Which has made life “interesting” for the UK security services from time to time).

    Their goal is to introduce “Social Democracy” by stealth. They do this by offering the general population carrots to support a socialist policy, rather than forcing societal change by using sticks.

    The concept of ecocide, as a crime, is more of a stick than a carrot, so unless they are changing tactics, Polly Higgins is not following the modus operandi.

    Always assuming of course that she is a Fabian. We may be giving her far too much credit.

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  • #
    Rereke Whaakaro

    Steve B: # 16

    The Fabian philosophy has a limited number of elite who preside over a political structure that in turn governs the masses of producers.

    In this philosophy, the “government” do what the elite tell them to do, even though it appears (from the producers point of view) to be a totally wacky thing to do.

    Does this all seem strangely familiar to you?

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  • #
    Louis Hissink

    Roy Hogue @ #15

    Buyers remorse indeed – what they simply don’t understand is when fully implemented their system of social cooperation will collapse economically – Greece, UK, Portgugal, and soon the US are starting to show the signs. However if I read the crystal correctly, economic collapse then permits them to install a dictatorship to restore order.

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  • #
    Louis Hissink

    Rereke @ #20

    I stand corrected – though specifically a Fabian is the issue – most of the Fabaians pooh-pah their involvement – many find it better not to be associated with the Society per se.

    And it is correct that Ecocide is a stick but after the collapse of the Copenhagen Summit, and the standing ovation Chavez got for his diatribe clearly pointed to most of them being socialists, or as the Fabians prefer, social democrats, then I suspect Polly Higgins’ machinations are post carrot.

    On the other hand one might be guilty of exaggerating her abilities, though she being a lawyer, and hence educated in the UK Fabian system, would suggest otherwise.

    Perhaps we should call them Statists rather than Fabians?

    In any case I had a quick listen to the Youtube video featuring her at Copenhagen and her concern for the “people” not being adequately represented at Copenhagen, (the 350 million indigenes specifically) starts to ring alarm bells.

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    Roy Hogue

    I think it’s time for another new crime – WackoAlarmocide – – put this loony away before she harms everyone!

    Nick @13,

    I just reread what you said and it hit me that if that degree of arrogance was a crime I wonder if we could build prisons fast enough to keep up with the violators.

    Well, just a stray thought that came to mind without thinking about it. But there sure are a lot of them out there. Maybe it’s something in the water or they’re smoking strange stuff — I wish I knew. It seems so hard to get a grip on the number of people who think they’re God’s gift to humanity; or in this case, the planet.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Louis @22,

    Restoring order by force is one thing and being able to restore production of food and other goods by force could be quite another. The highly technology dependent society we now enjoy wasn’t built in a day. It took several hundred years from the first steps to get all the way here. And the many parts of the world’s economy are very interdependent. If you start to kill off some of it the rest suffer and it could be very hard to get it all back, especially by force. Our current troubles should be a lesson to everyone. But most will probably miss it.

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    bunny

    Jo,

    Love your article on the Climategate whitewash on ABC Unleashed.

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    […] Jo Nova has a different take: In a real court, with real evidence, the theatre of the absurd that is AGW would exposed for the ultimate ridicule. […]

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    janama

    great article Joanne – some amazing first replies!! One commenter informs you that there has been and inquiry and you should get up to date <> I’ve made 2 posts yet neither has appeared.

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    pat

    some fascinating details on WUWT:

    Polly Higgins, the lawyer behind the idea of ecocide, is on the board of DESERTEC (www.desertec.org). As press releases make clear [quote] “The DESERTEC Foundation is a charitable initiative of the Club of Rome” Polly Higgins can be seen listed as a board member on the press releases of DESERTEC. E.g. here: http://www.desertec.org/fileadmin/downloads/press/press-release_090616_en.pdf

    more info towards the bottom of WUWT thread:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/11/climate-craziness-of-the-week-british-campaigner-urges-un-to-accept-ecocide-as-international-crime-proposal-to-declare-mass-destruction-of-ecosystems-a-crime-on-a-par-with-genocide/

    u can’t make this stuff up!

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  • #
    Bruce

    Janama@#28,

    I was going to reply to the comment by Ant on Joanne’s ABC Unleashed article.

    However I figured I’m wasting my time unless I can cc Maurice Newman!

    Do you have his email???

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    Rereke Whaakaro

    pat: #29

    Polly Higgins can be seen listed as a board member on the press releases of DESERTEC

    Nice one, Pat. I had missed that link (my bad). Perhaps I should review my opinion of Ms Higgins, and pay her more attention.

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    Baa Humbug

    “No no no” said the Queen. “Sentence first, the verdict later”.

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    sharpandready

    As more and more middle class people become aware of the AGW fraud, thanks to voices like Jo Nova, when push comes to shove there WILL be a guillotine… starting with Al Gore…

    Phil Jones…
    Michael Mann…
    James Hansen…
    Rajendra Pachauri…

    “Give me liberty or give me death.” – Patrick Henry

    Remember what our patriots gave up their lives for, it’s time to rise against all this fraud. Close down the corrupt UN. Get rid of Obama and all those who push this false global warming agenda.

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    dave ward

    “but only in a trial by jury in a democratic country!” – That is the problem, where do you think a genuinely fair trial would ever take place?

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  • #

    Jail will not work with these people. They require public humiliation.
    Make them run through the cities – naked. And pursued by polar bears.

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    Henry chance

    Thought police. No actual intentional deaths. They can’t show that.
    It is every few months someone writes how they want people to be hurt that don’t buy into global warming. How intolerant.

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    DougS

    Wonder what the punishment would be for chucking a polar bear on the fire to keep warm – plus a couple of baby seals?

    With the increasing energy costs you have to start to look at alternative resources.

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    Mark D.

    Louis Hissink @ 12:

    Folks,

    None of you seem to really understand the modus operandi of the Fabians – they consider themselves an intellectual elite, they have infiltrated most institutions and they achieve their goals by not being what they secretly are. The infilterated the UK Liberal party last century and turned it into the UK Labour party.

    Louis I’ll confess having no previous education about the Fabians (by name) until you have mentioned them here. Blame that on the USA education system or a conspiracy to keep us in the dark about their agenda. No worry we have seen “soft socialism” and soft tyranny. We have a war going on right now that is as big as WWII or the cold war. It is an ideological war at present and may not get worse. If voters cannot resolve the problem then the “solution” may be more challenging than either WWII or the cold war.

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    Roy Hogue

    sharpandready @38,

    Your list is too short. Let’s add all the nitwits at CRU, the whole IPCC, the whole UN, Maurice Strong, everyone at RealClimate and their ilk everywhere. Let’s see, there must be more – how about the CEO of every bank and investment house that trades carbon.

    I can’t say Obama because threatening the life of the president is a crime. Beside which, I hope that was tongue-in-cheek, just symbolic. But it’s tempting is it not?

    What I would really like to see is all of them so thoroughly discredited and disgraced that they get kicked out of their cushy positions and no one will give any of them a job. Begging would teach them a little humility (not that they need it of course).

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    Louis Hissink

    Mark D. @ #38

    Mark, that is precisely what the Fabians want – anonymity, and like termites, destroying society from within.

    http://WWW.keynesatharvard.org basically summarises how they captured the US since 1933 when FDR was elected president. Their goal is total state control, not like Communism, but a corporate system, aka Facism, to which the US appears to be slowly heading, save for the Tea Parties movement, which if it gets traction should stop them this time. However they are a patient lot, and quite happy to wait another decade or two before striking again.

    Once you wals down the welfare state path, there is no turning back except by civil insurrection.

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    Anne-Kit Littler

    Totally off topic (or then again, maybe not? Does starving a plant amount to “ecocide”?): Must-see short video at Andrew Bolt’s blog:

    Save the planet! Starve the cowpea!

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    co2isnotevil

    I’m not sure if a normal western style legal system would suffice. Any prosecuting attorney would attempt to exclude any juror with a scientific background thus insuring the jury would rule by emotion, rather than logic.

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    Amr

    Careful what you wise for Ms Jo, The people advocating this nonsense will not want to complicate the issue with facts.
    Amr
    Manly Beach

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  • #
    Brian G Valentine

    The lawyer proposing this is (according to reliable sources) one former labour relations lawyer named Polly Higgins.

    So hold your noses and ask yourselves, “What’s not to love about unemployed layers?”

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  • #
    Brian G Valentine

    I’m usually not quite so nasty. Really!

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    Mark D.

    Brian aren’t layers hens? Are you calling her a hen?….that is nasty…..

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    Brian G Valentine

    uhhh … typo

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    Mark D.

    Typo or humor? you be the judge.

    Sorry I thought it was funny. 🙂

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    Rod Smith

    CO2isnotevil: I’m not sure if a normal western style legal system would suffice. Any prosecuting attorney would attempt to exclude any juror with a scientific background thus insuring the jury would rule by emotion, rather than logic.

    Interesting thought, but we do have “UN Global Warming Experts.” And even some of our best U.S. courts have difficult times deciding scientific matters. If we add what I call “touchy-feely, pseudo-scientific” issues, it is extremely unlikely their decision process can be very rational.

    I attended a Federal Trial in Pensacola 10 years or so ago about a landfill water overflow after 9 days (as I remember) of very heavy rainfall. The EPA supplied expert witnesses, one of which was confused by SI prefixes, maybe kilo- and mili-, but no one even commented on that. I learned right there that “expert witnesses” are sometimes not very expert!

    One of these government expert witnesses was asked a question something like, “After x inches of rain over 9 days, if 20% of the drainage on the y acres landfall went into the z acres of fill ponds, how many acre feet of water could have drained into the Escambia River. The “expert” thought about the problem for a few seconds, and the 80 year old retired engineer sitting next to me leaned over and whispered, “About “n” (I don’t remember his actual number) “acre feet.”

    The “expert” then opined that he would need a calculator. They supplied one. He pounded away for maybe a minute, and then said, “This calculator doesn’t have enough significant digits, so I can’t get the answer.” THIS WAS ACCEPTED by the court and the trial continued.

    I rest my “case.”

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    Dagfinn

    The courts may or may not be able to decide the science rationally. But they will maintain the right to free speech and will not punish anyone for having an opinion. A fair trial is not needed, just a marginally sane judge and jury.

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    Carl

    What these AWGers are after is the Carbon Price, the way to finance the Australia section of DESERTEC Australia (Smart Grid Australia and NBN which rations the electrical power); they have admit to it here. They are hooking up the Desalination Plants to it and creating a conduit to link it up to Asia.
    “Carbon Pricing

    Proper carbon pricing will unlock sufficient money to pay for a Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure.

    China has called for carbon taxes of US$14 per tonne by 2010 rising to $28 per tonne by 2030. Santos, a major Australian natural gas producer, believes carbon prices of US$17-26 will create a shift in investment and consumption toward cleaner burning natural gas and away from coal. French President Nicholas Sarkozy has called for a $23 per tonne carbon tax.

    Applied to Asian 2006 carbon emissions of 9,522 metric tonnes, $20 per tonne would raise $190 billion per year.

    This would be more than enough to fund the annual ongoing investment in a Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure. It would also fund research and development into the upstream technologies to create the low emission energy the system would carry.

    Globally, a $20 per tonne carbon tax would raise nearly US$600 billion a year. That’s twice the annual amount needed to fund the estimated global expenditures of $300 billion needed globally to fight climate change.

    In short: climate change is not a technology problem. Climate change is an economic reform problem.”

    http://www.desertec-asia.com/content/cb-carbonpricing.html

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    Carl

    What does the Carbon Tax, Smart Grid Australia, NBN and e-Health have in common?
    They are part of the same mega project related to the use of “renewable energy”, monitoring the internet, rationing electrical power and tracking citizens.
    THIS IS THE META CONTEXT
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/NBN-is-Digital-Big-Brother/169735143036714

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