Bank of America Pledges $50 Billion to Combat Climate Change
The unholy alliance between bankers and government is on naked display.
It’s the black hole in the kitchen: huge, obvious, and silent. And boy does it suck. As Climate Depot points out, Bank of America got a $45 billion bailout from the government during the global financial crisis. Now it’s promising $50 billion to “address Climate Change”. How Green is your Bankster?
It’s a feeding frenzy:
The bank’s new initiative includes lending, equipment finance, capital markets and advisory activity and carbon finance, as well as advice and investment help.
Bank of America will focus on promoting energy efficiency; renewable energy, including wind, solar and hydropower; lower-carbon transportation like electric and hybrid vehicles; and water and waste treatment and disposal initiatives. [Capitalgr]
They already spend nearly $20bn on climate and did it four years ahead of schedule. So why not $5obn?
The company has spent $17.9 billion toward its initial pledge, including $8.4 billion for energy efficiency activities, including low-cost loans and grants for retrofitting low-income neighborhoods for energy efficiency. It spent $5 billon on renewable energy projects, including helping the San Jose Unified School District in California to run on solar energy. An additional $1 billion went to consumer financing of hybrid vehicles. [WSJ]
A billion here, a billion there, and soon they’ll be talking real money.
Marc Morano asks “is that more than Heartland spends?” / sarc
Well Marc, says Jo, don’t forget it is spread over 10 years. 😉 It’s only a thousand times the Heartland budget. Expect the guys at DeSmog to immediately set up a Bank-of-America-Secrets site to protest at the evil influence large corporates have over democracy. SourceWatch will graphically connect Bank of America to scientists, solar companies, wind investors, Green Foundations, donors to the Democrats and on and on into one spaghetti bunker of vested interests. We look forward to it.
Meanwhile the global carbon market hit $176 Billion in 2011. The bankster-government self feeding loop operates independently but coincidentally in concert with the corporate-media loop: GE owns NBC, the Weather channel and lots and lots of wind turbine factories.
Any day now, the innumerate chanters of the “Big-Oil Funded Deniers” cult will learn to count past 10, and realize that they’ve been the useful idiots for the Money Masters. And pigs will fly (collect their dividends and end-of-year bonuses).
Does Climate Money matter? Is a monopoly good for a market?
Meanwhile the sleeping public dozes on zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….
 * * *
If you think the public needs to be woken up to the real conflicts of interest,
please support those who work against the billion dollar politico-industrial complex.
Every dollar for truth appears to be worth $1,000 for those pushing a self-serving agenda.
h/t Marc Morano
Well Jo,
Those who disapprove of BofA’s behaviour should simply close their accounts, and place funds in financial institutions who apply prudent economic & business practices.
If enough people do it, BofA would change their tune.
If I had a BofA account it would be closed ASAP.
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Oh dear, could have developed a lot of African agriculture with that money. Forgot, us parasites, called humans are secondary in the great scam of things.
I suspect the FED will be cranking up the printing presses or will it be that new modern sports model? Electronic fiat currency? Like trading in air!
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Don’t forget GE also had a large stake in promoting the change from incandescent to CFL lightbulbs! But that’s just small bikkies right? No one really expects much profit from lightbulbs right?
From http://www.earth-policy.org/book_bytes/2010/pb4ch04_ss2
“CFL production in China, which accounts for 85 percent of the world total, climbed from 750 million units in 2001 to 3 billion units in 2007. Sales in the United States climbed from 21 million CFLs in 2000 to 397 million in 2007. Of the estimated 4.7 billion light sockets in the United States, close to 1 billion now have CFLs.”
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Recipe for instant success: Select the 50,000 Americans with the longest commute. Give each one $1 million. Bingo, instant carbon footprint reduction.
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Just another set of malinvestments to be unwound as the debt deleveraging goes on.
Will Bank of America survive the unwinding of the deriviatives mountain. REF: http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/derivatives/bank_exposure.html
(Scroll down – they have the 3rd largest deriviatives exposure of banks in the world – only eclipsed by Citbank and JP Morgan.)
Links to the content in the block quote are in the REF.
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Whats this?
A Northern Hemisphere bank being reckless with other peoples money through obscure schemes which are far removed from the practice of banking? With some other people footing the bill?
Surely not. You must be kidding.
/s
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Thanks for that link ExWarmist. They hope that the ETS will be the next financial bubble – housing gone, IT gone, eurobonds gone. Does anyone notice an ex-Goldman Sachs CEO loitering around this? O yes Malcolm.
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Here’s another $50 billion from Citi used for the same purposes:
Citi has mobilized over $24.3 billion to date as part of 10-year, $50 billion initiative to address global climate change announced in 2007
http://www.citi.com/citi/press/2010/101018c.htm
Interestingly, about a year earlier, Citi was given $50 billion in bailout funds courtesy of US taxpayers:
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2009/11/02/Small-business-loans-scarce-at-large-banks/UPI-69151257198709/
“Citibank, whose parent company Citigroup Inc., accepted $50 billion in federal funds, made eight SBA 7(a) loans in the state in the same period, lending $2.4 million.”
Do you know what I see here? I see a *possible* scenario where Citi and BofA are sending these billions to developing countries and sticking US taxpayers with the tab. If this is the case, then this is a form of stealth ‘North to South’ redistribution of wealth.
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This is really sad and scary stuff. In the absence of checks and balances this can, and already is, getting real ugly.
In the XX century we had Eugenics, Nazism, Communism, all in the space of a few short decades. I believe the AGW theory is the next popular elitist lie seeking control and superiority over the world.
The public now are sooo complacent, and complacency will cost us all dear – already is.
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Not very surprising really-
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NF13Dj02.html
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Something tells me that Bank of America’s definition of “The Cause” is slightly different from Phil Jones or Michael Mann’s definition of “The Cause”.
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With trillions of dollars at stake, no one asks the magic question: What is the Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) for alternative energies like solar, carbon sequestration, or wind.
By My calculations, the EROEI for the Livermore Pass Project wasn’t 14.83 as advertised, but 0.29. Wind power is unsustainable.
Next time anyone proposes a wind farm, ask then for the EROEI using Embodied Energy analysis.
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O/T but “How green is your electric care?”
“Electric Vehicle Mileage Fraud”
More at
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2012/06/electric-vehicle-mileage-fraud.html
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On top of what the banks are doing we have the following reported on WUWT
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/12/unfccc-wants-immunity-from-prosecution-prior-to-rio20/
It is like this whole AGW situation is really a party of scamsters all trying to out do each other with the best and biggest scam.
In the past alot of these people would have valued their individual reputations but I doubt whether many of them could spell the word now.
The situation has got so big, widespread and above all intervoven now I struggle to think of how it will eventually fall apart.It certainly has nothing to do with the environmant any more.
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One correction I would make – the Bank is not spending the money. They don’t spend one dollar of their own money. They are effectively taking it out of the interest they would otherwise pay to their depositors and are charging higher interest to those who borrow from it for all purposes.
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GE also owns CNBC. They have a presence in all the right places.
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Carbon Pricing in Australia and Green Tech investment begins in 17 Days….
WOOOOO HOOOOO
Who care who’s investing or spending money to clean up our mess it is about time.. Those so called skeptics do not get a say anymore game is over and people are acting on fixing the mes they have made..
ENJOY
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Completely off topic (hey, it’s me), but I thought I’d share my latest brainf4rt. I was reading the following story in The Oz:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/treasury/budget-behind-worst-conditions-since-gfc-business/story-fn59nsif-1226393620676
(Use the usual Google search of the story title and click the link to bypass the paywall).
Swan and gillard are trying to convince the business community that everything is peaches… hard to explain why all the leading indicators are pointing down then, but hey…
Then it occured to me that Hollywood is always fond of concatenating names of power couples, so I thought we should do the same with the PM-Treasurer couple … I dub them … /drumroll …
I don’t know, but I think it could catch on…
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the banksters got the taxpayer bailouts when the sub-prime bubble burst; the banksters are up to their necks in setting up the carbon dioxide bubble, but it’s always someone else’s money:
24 May: SustainableBusiness: Goldman Sachs Commits to $40 Billion in Green Economy Investments
At its annual meeting this week, Goldman Sachs will announce its intention to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2020 and invest $4 billion a year for the next 10 years in green economy projects, reports Reuters…
***A majority of those funds won’t be it’s own, most will come from clients, and Goldman Sachs will set up the deals…
Last year, when the Dept of Energy awarded its final loan guarantees for renewable energy projects, the $1.46 billion in partially guaranteed loans for First Solar’s Desert Sunlight Project, were to be funded by a group of investors led by Goldman Sachs and Citigroup…
At the same time, Goldman got an “F” in the latest edition of “Dirty Money,” which rates the largest US banks on financing coal generation (mountaintop removal coal mining and coal-fired power plants…
http://www.sustainablebusiness.com/index.cfm/go/news.display/id/23728
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remember this misleading headline and the 1.4bn tonne emissions gap:
10 June: Reuters: China Emissions Suggest Climate Change Could Be Faster than Thought
“The paper identifies a 1.4-billion tonne emission gap (in 2010) between the two datasets…”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=china-emissions-study-suggests-clim
add on the surplus that exists without the above gap, and tell me how credible any carbon dioxide bubble would be:
12 June: BusinessGreen: Emissions trading scheme could be oversupplied until 2024
A surplus of around 1.42 billion emission allowances is predicted by the end of the decade in a report prepared by the Oko-Insitut for campaign groups WWF and Greenpeace and published yesterday to coincide with a meeting of EU environment ministers in Luxembourg…
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2183454/emissions-trading-scheme-oversupplied-2024
name a single MSM which is even mentioning the ongoing frauds and inherent dangers of a carbon dioxide bubble.
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Reuters only needs FIVE individuals to craft their latest “let’s blame China” piece on the UNILATERAL, EXTRA-TERRITORIAL money grab by the bankrupt EU:
12 June: Reuters: Alison Leung and Anurag Kotoky: China ready to impound EU planes in CO2 dispute
Additional reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Jane Baird
China will take swift counter-measures that could include impounding European aircraft if the EU punishes Chinese airlines for not complying with its scheme to curb carbon emissions, the China Air Transport Association said on Tuesday…
A new stand-off looms after EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard said the carriers would have until the end of this week to submit their data or face enforcement action.
“Chinese airlines are unanimous on this. We won’t provide the data,” Wei Zhenzhong, secretary general of the China Air Transport Association, said on the sidelines of an International Air Transport Association (IATA) meeting in Beijing…
EU member states can fine airlines for non-compliance or carry out other reprisals including impounding aircraft.
“We would not like to see a situation of ‘you hold up my planes and I hold yours’,” Wei said…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/us-iata-china-emissions-idUSBRE85B09W20120612
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GE and US cable TV operator Comcast announced a buyout agreement for the company on December 3, 2009. Following regulatory approvals, the transaction completed on January 28, 2011. Comcast now owns 51% of NBC Universal while GE owns 49%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBCUniversal
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a thought – is there someone besides jo, who already works so tirelessly, who has the expertise to put up a website strictly for Public Action to kill any ETS.
i have long ago recommended converting Super Funds (or other retirement funds) to the Cash Option as one such option many have, and China (plus other Countries who are just as angry about the EU’s brazen behaviour) has shown there are other methods, including delaying plane orders worth up to $14 billion from European planemaker Airbus over the row, so we are told.
we should not be passive in this fight. anyone else got suggestions as to how we can fight back. the CAGW scam is not a left/right scam, so we need to come up with actions that will work no matter who tries to create a carbon dioxide bubble.
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headline uses the average, Labor Opposition demands a bigger rebate (LOL), while electricity increases post July 1 are just one tiny factor in rising costs caused by the CAGW scam.
if anyone does do a website for Public Action, it would be great if it could attempt to include all the funding, bureaucracies, desal plants, etc that have already cost the Australian taxpayers untold billions:
13 June: ABC: Power pain hits NSW with 18pc price increase
New South Wales electricity prices are set to rise an average of 18.1 per cent from next month, after a final determination by the regulator…
IPART chairman Peter Boxall says half of the overall increase is because of rising transmission costs for poles and wires, while the other half is due to the introduction of the carbon tax…
Household bills for Energy Australia customer will increase by 20.6 per cent, an average of an extra $364 a year.
Country Energy customers will be slugged on average an extra $427 a year, an increase of 19.7 per cent.
Integral Energy will be hit by the smallest increase of 11.8 per cent, which translates to an extra $208 a year on average.
Gas prices are also set to increase, by between nine and 15 per cent.
Yesterday’s state budget included a $75 rebate to help struggling households with power costs.
But Opposition Leader John Robertson says the rebate is not enough to off-set rising costs…
“It’s not going to be enough because Barry O’Farrell’s selling off our electricity generators. That’s going to push power prices even higher,” he said.
“He’s already increased prices by 18 per cent and if this IPART determination is applied that’s another 20 per cent.
“That’s 38 per cent in two years and the rebate isn’t going to be enough to off-set the increased costs that are going to be felt right across New South Wales.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-06-13/power-pain-hits-nsw-with-18pc-price-increase/4068266
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Banks are Fu**ed, markets are Fu**ed, we,? WE are worse off……….
Unless you are well prepared.
PS, good luck if you think and believe that governments (and their oversight) will help you.
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Has it not become clear by now that the financial strife of countries is in rough proportion to the enthusiasm with which they discarded old, reliable electricity and spent big on alternative energy?
Spain is a classic case. Once the shining example of solar and wind power, now broke. Spent too much on windmills, money that went into the pockets of shallow people who would sell the Harbour Bridge to a sucker.
Germany, now having second thoughts about closing down nuclear, nearly broke. Too many windmills that perform at about 30% of anticipated.
Not a country, but big enough, California was always strange. Tally ho, alternative energy and electric cars … but … but … why is business leaving California as fast as it can run?
………………………….
Australia, is there nothing more we can do to turn back the carbon tax before the theft starts on 1 July, just over a fortnight off?
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[…] How Green is Your Bankster? Bank of America spends $50 billion to save the world. […]
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I just wanted to share this excellent offering from Delingpole about only in America …
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(Attention Mods – If you could, might you post this image here with this comment. I have included the image as a .gif file image) [no probs tony. mod oggi]
This is way way off topic, (hey, what’s new Tony) but this was just too irresistible to pass up.
There I was, cruising the sites we have permission from to copy their Posts to our site, and lo and behold this appeared, at a major U.S. site no less, NewsBusters.
Most sites now have advertisements placed down the sidebars of their sites, and those ads could come from anywhere, and often I’ve seen ads from Australia, and that’s understandable, and I would say it’s a case of ….. ‘insert your own ad here’.
There it was, an ad for a new course at Adelaide University, and that course is a Master of Applied Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Nothing new and sort of what I might expect from them. However, something made my eyes dwell on the ad for longer than the usual microsecond I devote to these ads.
Then it hit me.
The guy in the ad is holding forth something.
It’s a damned incandescent light bulb.
Can you believe it?
What a pack of idiots.
Say, isn’t that the Uni that our own team Maxine has her B.Sc. from?
Now just so you don’t think I’m making it up. here’s the link to that image.
This is just classic.
Adelaide University Masters Degree Advertisement (.gif file image)
Adelaide University Masters Degree Advertisement (.jpg image)
Tony
image
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A bit O/T but this is very mportant.
There seems to be no stopping Steve McIntyre and this anti hockey stick graph could be his best job yet. Very, very inconvenient truth indeed.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/12/the-longest-most-high-resolution-most-inconvenient-paleoclimate-data-that-hasnt-been-published/#more-65583
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No wonder guys like Malcolm Turnbull, Paul Keating, John Hewson etc have all jumped on the bandwagon. Plenty of money in it for their back pockets.
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/how-green-is-your-bankster-bank-of-america-spends-50-billion-to-sav… […]
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One by one my friends and relatives have been closing their accounts at Bank of America. Now they are about to drink the Green Koolaid. For me it is the last straw so my two remaining accounts will be closed ASAP.
This used to be a great bank when Hugh McColl was running it. The fish rots starting with the head.
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The first question that comes to mind is whether Bank of America is really addressing the issue of climate change, or are they only after extending the cycle until they trample upon someone powerful. Bank of America has been pledging here and there, and in the end, they have been benefitting because of the government bail-outs. There have been discussions going about that this cycle will just repeat itself, and nothing will happen to our community. It won’t go greener; climate change will not be lessened. I hope that this is not true, because if it does, then we have little to no hope of addressing this issue.
Large companies together with the government can make a difference in this issue, but if all they are after is money, then hope is pretty much lost. They are the ones who should serve as role models since they have greater power. They should be the one making effective measures to see that this problem is solved, but what are they doing? What have they been up to all this time? Are they just sitting there earning and waiting for us to lose everything – loved ones, material goods, and our world? The government and bank should work hand in hand to make projects that actually benefit the society and Mother Earth.
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[…] How Green is Your Bankster? Bank of America spends $50 billion to save the world. […]
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