London Bankers abandon trading — 70% of jobs gone: “it’s over” says Executive

At least someone once thought London was the home of carbon finance. Now, not so much.  According to the Financial Times, JP Morgan has scaled down their carbon trading team, Morgan Stanley traders are now “part time”,  Barclays sold theirs last year, Deutsche Bank closed the office, and UBS shut its climate change advisory panel. Then there is a slew of smaller fish cutting back: EcoSecurities, Camco Clean Energy, Nedbank, Sindacatum, and TFS Green.

[Financial Times] At least 10 London banks have scaled back or closed their carbon trading desks amid turmoil in the European emissions trading scheme.

The fledgling market was once seen as a promising growth area, with the City of London Corporation predicting in 2006 that London would become the leading provider of services to the “mushrooming” sector.

But the number of City workers employed on carbon desks has fallen by 70 per cent in the past four years, according to Anthony Hobley, president of the Climate Markets & Investors Association.

Things are dire:

“…as a stand alone business it is basically over,” said an executive who oversees European energy trading at one large bank.

Read the full story here (Paywalled for some?)

The State of the EU market is so sick the World Bank canceled the report.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the money is leaving the room…

10 out of 10 based on 1 rating

110 comments to London Bankers abandon trading — 70% of jobs gone: “it’s over” says Executive

  • #
    Turnedoutnice

    My heart bleeds for the poor saps.

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  • #
    Manfred

    …London would become the leading provider of services to the “mushrooming” sector.

    Mushrooms served by mushrooms to mushrooms

    The latte drinking carbon consultants and brokers all over the world will soon be doing what their broker compadres found themselves doing after the crash in ’87 – honing their rapid response to:

    Big Mac and fries please.

    Oh joy.

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    • #
      Yonniestone

      Responses to get right:

      – Would you like to downsize upsize?

      – Are you stealing eating in today?

      – Would you like lies fries with that?

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      • #
        Safteyguy66

        Amusing that a few hopeful minor parasites are clinging on. Kind of like the maggots on a gazelle corpse after the lions, hyenas and vultures have lost interest.

        Much the same as Flannery trying to do CPR on the climate commission with the help of some other bludgers looking for a cause to milk.

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    • #
      Manfred

      I know a bright fellow with a PhD in geology. He did some company work overseas, roaming jungles and other suitable terrain in search of old volcano tubes. Great adventure. Real job.

      No doubt rewarded handsomely for his diamond seeking exploits he decided to leave the company and hoe his own furrow as an ETS consultant ……why?……..he considered that there was considerably easier money to be made from an armchair and computer screen while he was ‘saving the planet’.

      I suspect he’ll be back in the field any day now.

      90

  • #

    All those valuable City jobs gone! This will be the end of the recovery in the housing market, so expect calls for George Osborne to apologize to the House sometime soon for instilling false optimism into the British people.
    Alternatively, expectations of future energy cost inflation for businesses will be scaled downwards, so Britain may see increased investment in industry. This upswing would be much more significant if the Government had the courage to abandon the Climate Change Act 2008.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      All those valuable City jobs gone!

      Nah. The traders always have a “Plan B”, and the good ones will have a “Plan C” as well. They will be at their new jobs by the beginning of next year.

      If the historical pattern continues, we can now expect a couple of new short term feeding frenzies (think the dot-com bubble), followed by a more sophisticated, longer term, bubble.

      What that might be, I have no idea. Except it will have the characteristic of moving wealth from the people who have a little, to those with a lot.

      The big losers will be the all of the hangers on (in the case of AGW/AGC – a double-barreled scam), who have structured their world around the tangible byproducts, such as solar panels, and investments in wind generation. The winners will be the short-sellers.

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  • #
    jonathan frodsham

    Good one! Talking of money I just sent you 30 chocolates Jo.

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  • #
    pattoh

    Rather ironic really; all those Threadneedle St Cowboys will surely find employment for their talents at the top of the developed countries Superannuation pyramid scheme.

    It is a pity that their parasitic efforts in milking the current wealth of the world & extorting the future have brought about such major(terminal?) illness in the host.

    (all at a time when the boomers are about to cash in &/or a large number are taking early retirement in the face of “Age-ism” in a shrinking employment market/ global economy)

    Three Cheers for the Useful Idiots!!!

    70

  • #
    Martin Hertzberg

    They are several centuries too late. The church abandoned its sale of “indulgences” a long time ago even though it was a good money-making racket.

    80

    • #
      Steve

      Actually , no, the RCC still does indulgences…..

      There may be hope for th ecarbon market yet…..? Ha ha

      http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/nyregion/10indulgence.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

      The announcement in church bulletins and on Web sites has been greeted with enthusiasm by some and wariness by others. But mainly, it has gone over the heads of a vast generation of Roman Catholics who have no idea what it means: “Bishop Announces Plenary Indulgences.”

      40

      • #
        Safetyguy66

        You think there could be a market for Flannery’s skeletal remains [500 years from now]?

        —-
        [It needed that edit so it would not be misinterpreted – Jo]

        50

      • #
        Joe V.

        Interesting refresher on indulgences Steve. I can see how they might be equated to voluntary purchase of Carbon offsets, as a proxy for doing direct good by planting trees for instance, but as their sale was prohibited since c. 1537, they cannot be monetized and so cannot realistically be equated to Carbon Taxes, which are compulsory n or to carbon trading.

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      • #
        Joe V.

        It is interesting too how fostering the idea of Climate guilt, as has been around since the 2009 UN Draft (for World Government) may be ‘helpful’ in encouraging foreign aid. But as soon as the grubbing , atheistic, would be governing classes get their hands on the idea and seek to establish legal liability for it, as the presently ongoing talks in Warsaw were supposed to, then all similarities to indulgences vanishes, along with any sense of cooperation or good will.

        40

  • #
    Eddie Sharpe

    Death toll mounts following Cyclone on the island of Sardinia in the Mediteranean. Italy declares state of emergency.

    440mm of rain fell in 90 minutes.

    The weather system is now moving towards Venice, which is half submerged at the best of times.

    40

  • #
    Sean

    In the USA, carbon trading always puzzled me. Why in heaven’s name would a cap and trade system be treated as such a panacea by the Democratic party when you started to look at who would benefit? Until about 20 years ago, the Democratic Party was the party of the working class. People who worked for hourly wages, typically worked on fairly energy intensive production of some good if they had decent wages. If they worked in a service industry such as retail or hospitality, they had lower wages. Cap and Trade did nothing positive for the high wage or low wage hourly workers. It made the high wage worker less competitive and the low wage workers saw more of their meager wages diverted to energy costs. The environment did not benefit from these schemes in any way. The only people who came out ahead in an emissions trading scheme were the traders on Wall Street who buy and sell the securities and the government who created a revenue stream for itself. A carbon tax certainly eliminated the middle man but the hourly wage earner still got fleeced to a greater proportion than most others. I think the only reason the Democrats in this country get away with this is that most of these folks are so busy just trying to get buy they are not paying close attention. Like Europe and Australia, the revolt against green won’t start until green policy is keenly felt in people’s wallets.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I think it was due to the emergence of a sizable group of 20-35 year old entrepreneurs in the software industries. They could see how to define a new market, that was not based on tangible materials that increased in value with scarcity (the industrial model) nor on sizable cash holdings (the financial investment model).

      These new kids on the block were not old enough to have become conservative, so they were not likely to be attracted to the Armani Suit set, so under the American two party system, they drifted to the Democrats by default. Their campaign contributions would have been sufficient to shift party focus away from the hourly wage worker, towards the more lucrative areas of those things (environment, for example) that were important to the young entrepreneurs. As carbon trading collapses, these guys could loose big time. If they are still as smart as they were, they will have already gotten out from under. It is the one-idea millionaires who will suffer.

      150

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      It seems to be the same in the UK, where a (multi?) millionaire leads the Labour Party. In Australia your chances of a seat in parliament representing Labor are very slim unless you are a university educated(?) union official. Corruption is optional but no handicap.

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      • #
        Winston

        Graeme,

        Don’t be a heretic. Surely you don’t suggest that it is appropriate for someone to campaign for Labor party preselection without the requisite indoctrination education. And I disagree entirely, corruption is an absolute prerequisite.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    It could not possibly have happened to a more deserving group of people.

    As the saying goes. “Marry in haste ignorance, repent at leisure.

    When the house of cards comes down it sure comes down fast. Wow! 🙂

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  • #
    MadJak

    How on earth can they continue making payments on their maserattis now?

    Think of the poor maserati dealership. They might even have to think twice about buying that extra golf club membership.

    Maybe the leader of the free world can find a way to bail these guys out after all they’re too big to fail.

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  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    Well, speaking of things financial, The Wall Street Journal carries an article about the first-ever Congressional Hearing on virtual currencies. It seems they are concerned about the anonymity and decentralised nature of bitcoin, and its previous use in money laundering. So now they are suggesting regulation, in order to make it, “a more secure and more efficient payment system”. While clipping the ticket, of course.

    Ref: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304439804579205740125297358

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    • #
      Bulldust

      As trust diminishes in their monopoly money, aka the greenback, interest is bound to grow in alternatives. Plus they will be concerned that taxes are paid on bitcoin transactions. Every now and then they talk about if or how to reconise virtual currenies, such as Linden dollars in Second Life. The latter is waning in popularity (as all online games do after a fe months or years). As always the Government is concerned about how to raise new sources of revenue … let no economic good go unpunished!

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      • #
        Bulldust

        PS… can I interest anyone in 13 billion isk on an EVE online account? JK of course. Shame the ATO won’t accept the credits either. Reading the article it was funny to see how often they associated bitcoin and criminal activity. I guess the greenback doesn’t like competition.

        30

        • #
          RoHa

          “I guess the greenback doesn’t like competition.”

          Nope. In 2000 Saddam Gaddafi announced Iraqi oil would be traded in euros, not dollars. Gaddafi planned to introduce a single African currency based on gold (the Gold Dinar) and only accept gold as payment for oil.

          Look what happened to them.

          40

  • #
    James

    The Climate Council might be in for a rough time next year if their donations drop off too.

    120

    • #
      AndyG55

      They’ll have plenty tucked away somewhere.

      30

      • #
        Brett

        I found this the other day regarding Not-For-Profit:
        Staff or responsible persons (such as board or committee members or trustees) can of course be paid for their work, but not an unreasonable amount.

        Not-for-profits can make profit, but any profit made must be applied for the organisation’s purpose(s). Organisations can retain profits (instead of applying it towards their purpose), as long as there is for a genuine reason for this related to its purpose. For example, a good reason to retain money may be to save up for starting a new project, building new infrastructure or to accumulate a reserve to ensure an organisation remains sustainable. By contrast, if an organisation continues to retain significant profits indefinitely without applying this to its charitable purpose, this may indicate that the organisation is not working solely towards its stated charitable purpose.

        30

  • #
    Yonniestone

    The inventors of this scam will just pack up, choose another ID and start again in the next town.
    Just like any other professional con artist.

    80

    • #
      Safetyguy66

      The next conference on pandemics is about to kick off. Bound to be some fear milking opportunities there for sake oil vendors.

      20

      • #
        Safetyguy66

        And snake oil 😉

        20

        • #
          Ian H

          In NZ we’ve just had our first death from a bacteria immune to all known antibiotics. The antibiotic era was fun while it lasted.

          20

          • #
            Allen Ford

            The medical profession has been fighting a ridiculous rearguard action against the use of large doses of Vitamin C, as a non-specific therapeutic agent against viruses and bacteria, ever since Albert Szent-Györgyi first identified and isolated it in the 1930s.

            It is ironic that this death occurred in NZ where there was a famous case of recovery from terminal swine flu using intravenous Vit C.

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            • #
              ian hilliar

              Allen, vitamin C has been ingested by millions of westerners to prevent colds and in mega doses, [and IV] to prevent /cure cancer. It does not work. It never has worked. Oh yes, in the 1970s Linus Pauling’s study showed that vit c taken regularly would prevent colds, and he further believed that mega doses would prevent cancer. His study has been replicated 13 times, but Vit C failed to be better than placebo at preventing colds, He and his wife took megadoses of vit C through the rest of their lives, both of which were unfortunately cut short by cancer. A case of a viral illness recovering after IV vit C tells us very little. How many cases were treated, how many controls. This is not science, it is anecdotal evidence, and has no valid place on a science site. Furthermore, the latest news from long term studies worldwide is that vit b, vit E , vitC and multivitamins are of no medical use in well people, full stop. This does not prevent them from selling very well.

              50

            • #
              Andrew McRae

              Interesting conspiracy theory you have there, Allen.
              So all 38 of these trials were in on the game too?
              That’s one of the largest meta-studies ever conducted on vitamins and anti-oxidants and found it was 95% certain that if extra doses of Vitamin C had any effect on you at all it was more likely to kill you than help you:
              vitamin C (3637 dead/36,659 (9.9%) versus 2717 dead/29,283 (9.3%); 29 trials, RR 1.02, 95% CI 0.98 to 1.07)
              You can read more about it on Sandy Szwarc’s site.
              The Vitamin C craze goes back to Linus Pauling who has unfortunately earned himself a place on Quackwatch.

              That’s quite a co-incidence seeing as how the site you just linked to (via a tinyurl to conceal its true destination) is also run by a fellow who has an entry on Quackwatch for selling products with unsubstantiated medical claims.

              So I have to disagree about calling large doses of Vitamin C a “non-specific therapeutic agent”. The clinical trials show it very specifically has no therapeutic benefit.

              20

              • #
                MemoryVault

                Andrew,

                While I am not going to debate with you on the efficacy or otherwise of mega-doses of Vitamin C, since I am pretty much in agreement with you, I would nonetheless point out that I could provide similar studies with similar adverse results into the efficacy of both statins, and clopidogrel, the two biggest earners in Big Pharma’s arsenal today.

                It seems to me we live in an age where the efficacy or otherwise of a drug is officially judged more on its ability to deliver a profit, rather than a result.

                30

  • #
    Albert

    Christmas in November !

    40

  • #
    Bruce

    It is amusing how rationality enters into decisions when one’s money is at stake.

    The so called carbon market has been dying for some time.

    It only lives in the minds of the true believers.

    30

  • #
    Rod Stuart

    O/T I know, but I just stumbled onto this and I am sure Tonyfrom Oz will be interested. While pursuit of new ideas is a necessary part of continuous improvement, it is incredible that it seems so easy to score some dough to chase some ludicrous notion just because it doesn’t involve ‘fossil fuels’!

    40

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      That should excite a few water-skiers.

      Not only does it have a floating platform, it will also require a cable to bring the power to shore. But, hey, the guy is an engineer. He will figure out the details later.

      40

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Warning signs:

      Based on a computer model – check
      Possible used in description – check
      Much higher output forecast – check
      Needs testing of models -check
      Being developed by University – check

      Amount required to implement – BLANK CHECK

      190

    • #
      Brett

      Will it slice and dice the fish? Lucky for them the ocean is becoming acid so they won’t have to worry about cleaning the barnacles off.

      30

  • #

    It’s awkward to trade in a tiny fraction of thin air when the price is fixed by factions in a union of disunited countries who have spent the last millennium betraying one another at every opportunity.

    Still, once you get over that little hump…

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  • #

    […] Jo Nova, Australian scientist, has long advocated the maim “follow the money” when looking at the climate change advocates. Now the money is leaving the room. […]

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  • #
    Anthony

    For those of us with limited understanding of well, stuff.
    What are the implications of the london banks abandoning the trading, how does it affect the “big picture” as such?
    Cheers in advance, as I know how much you all like to voice your oppinions. (Joke intended 🙂

    10

    • #
      Safetyguy66

      Well for one thing it’s going to require even more political intervention in the market to keep the price above 4 fifths of eff all. Pretty amusing when compared to labour setting us upntonpay around $35 a ton in 2014 when the market price will be closer to 20c

      20

    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      You wanna buy some fish?

      I can getta you the fish, whenna you wanna buy?

      You give me money fora the fish now, and I getta you the fish.

      — time passes —

      Howda you find the fish, it is good yeah? You wanna buy some more fish?

      I can getta you the fish, whenna you wanna buy?

      You give me money fora the fish now, and I getta you the fish.

      — time passes —

      You waiting fora your fish? Sorry no fish. The boata, it sank.

      50

      • #
        Anthony

        Haha, spoken like a true kiwi.

        Ok, so pretty much the fish has been sitting out in the sun for to long and it’s now only good for the bottom feeders.

        Ok, so now that the boat has sunk on the rapidly rising sea, should it be safe to assume that we are going to see a bigger shift away from AGW?

        30

    • #
      ROM

      At a guess Anthony, it probably makes the raising of finance for anything to do with climate mitigation measures such as financing renewable energy systems, a damn sight harder for the promoters of those schemes.

      If the London “City” one of only a very small number of world finance centres, Wall Street being the biggest followed by “The City” in London which deals more with international finance and much more quietly than Wall Street has lost so much confidence in global warming schemes that it is closing it’s climate change desks and therefore closing off to a major extent any prospects of making money out of the so called climate change, then why would any major and sensible financier buck The City’s judgement and pour more money into any scheme that is associated with anything to do with global warming / climate change.

      This probably also means the reduction in available finance sources and finance for the so called renewable energy industry, whether new solar and wind farms or the rebuilding of older systems which are now likely to be even harder to re-finance as their economic life is now rated at only about 15 years as against the 25 years of economic life claimed by the wind industry.
      A similar situation with solar energy as there are numerous reports emerging of bad and serious quality issues with a big percentage of solar panels due to the loss making Chinese manufacturers cutting corners and costs at every point.

      It is likely to have a more subtle long term effect on government Treasury analysis as they might now start saying to politicians and governments. look, The City has lost confidence in the long term direction of the predicted global warming and it’s supposed catastrophic confidences and has closed many of it’s climate desks . So if thats how the city sees it, how about backing away from all those subsidies and all those other things to do with climate change that you politicians have been so fond of and save a hell of a lot of money which you are now running short of in any case.

      In the end the city reducing it’s exposure to any aspect of the global warming. climate change meme is a vote of no confidence in the predicted future escalation of everything to do with the global warming/ climate change meme.

      In a nutshell as has often been posted on this forum, “Follow the money” if you want to know what is the probably future outlook for global warming / climate change.

      60

      • #
        Kevin Lohse

        There has been, for some considerable time, at least since the mid-90’s, rumours abounding that the European carbon market was being allegedly used by Russian oligarchs, the Mafia and eastern european organised crime as a means of laundering ill-gotten gains. Bearing in mind the European Union financial authorities’ reputation for strong financial management, such rumours could only be the work of a small body of fanatical eurosceptics. The banks are permanently at risk of incurring swindging fines for money -laundering, and banking workers face the risk of having their careers destroyed or worse if found to be invoked in such transactions. Such is the scale of the alleged involvement of bad money, it would be surprising if the major banks did not scale down their exposure to such an allegedly risky business.

        20

        • #
          AndyG55

          The Russian mafia love all this climate change crap. It gives them soooo many openings.

          I bet the Nigerians and similar are having a great time of it, too. 🙂

          (One way to divert the wealth from the rich left wing morons to poorer countries, I suppose)

          And the Russian science community, generally just laughs at the idea.

          20

      • #
        Geoff Sherrington

        Yeah, combined with the fact that the really smart operators have already made their killings long ago and are thinking about the next major market scare. Climate change is old hat to them.
        I’d love to see an audit of the changes in personal wealth of a number of government decision makers in the last 20 years. Britain in particular seems to have its share of Lords who have taken a huge slice from the rump, using their positions to vote on matters like mandating that electricity suppliers take supplies from alternative energy first – including firms in which they have an interest.

        30

    • #
      Maverick

      1) Without the ability to convert carbon credits to real currency, the renewable projects are no longer as attractive and investment bankers will start promoting projects away from renewable projects and into the next big thing.

      2) The fund managers will follow their advice, so the amount of funds in green funds will deplete

      3) The finance industry will also move their significant lobbying influence to get tax cuts and government subsidies into easier to sell areas like technology commercialisation, housing for the people, defence technology etc.

      4) This will mean that nobody will be wining and dining the government officials in control of the “renewables money”. They will feel un-loved and go an get jobs in the new sexy sector whatever that might be. This will mean less self-appointed important people out there banging onto the media about renewables.

      5) There will be a catalyst for a crash in the renewables energy market and these same investment banks will take haircuts, the small investors will experience 100% wipeout and some scrap metal dealers will be given $100,000 to take down each wind turbine.

      6) The renewables energy market will then disappear into a distant memory just like the companies who used to put “.com” after their company names to attract money because they had a website. Pets.com, Kozmo.com, toys.com, go.com and flooz.com.

      As a former venture capatlist I remember laughing so hard when the pets.com funding rounds were announced. I laugh too about these ridiculous wind turbine “investments”. They are the same except the dot com “investments” are ash, and the renewable energy “investments” are yet to explode.

      50

      • #
        Anthony

        Thanks for the replies.
        So now we eat beef…
        So I guess my next question is will this affect new technologies that are in the works. I understand that current “renewables” just don’t cut it, but what about other tecks such as fusion?
        Basically, do you think this will affect the development of cheap clean energy?
        (Clean being not needing to dig big holes and paint the oceans black)
        Cheers again.

        10

  • #
    handjive

    The Australian CSIRO also lost workers.
    .
    CSIRO climate scientist activist Dr Pep Canadell – who is also executive director of the Global Carbon Project- a team of scientists who track global emissions – finds carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels and making cement grew 2.2 per cent in 2012 from the previous year.

    In 2013 a further 2.1 per cent rise is expected.”

    A quick search engine for the Global Carbon Project and a check of it’s sponsors quickly finds the WWF & the UN-IPCC in the one sentence.

    Q. Using UN-IPCC data, did the GCP account for failed maths in 2013 AR5? There is no update.
    .
    The once great CSIRO descends further into green activism & scientific irrelevance.

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    • #
      Safetyguy66

      There will be a lot less of them to do so pretty shortly and they only have themselves to blame. They got sucked into the eco trough and failed to predict it wouldn’t last.

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  • #
    AndyG55

    ” finds carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels and making cement grew 2.2 per cent in 2012 from the previous year”

    GOOD !!!

    40

    • #
      Safetyguy66

      Yes I was at one of our dam construction sites Monday morning.

      Me ” I love the smell of fresh cut trees in the morning, smells like ……. Progress”

      Contract ecologist ” silence”

      Tassie needs the work. Simple as that. Don’t like it ? PO

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      • #
        DT

        So much potential stifled by Green extremism.

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        • #
          Safetyguy66

          Considering this project is designed (and approved by 3rd party consultants including the EPBC requirements) to provide water to local farmers, all year round, for 100 years and beyond. Yeah its pretty important for the region. Already a carrot producer from WA has packed up shop and proposed moving to the area to take advantage of the guaranteed water supplies, bringing with them around 40-60 jobs. In Tassie right now, 40-60 jobs is HUGE. So for the sake of a few trees and it is only a few (like less than 50, the rest of the dam area is already cleared paddock from 100 years of farming) its basically not even a consideration. Its about time the pendulum swung back in favor of people over possums, the time is well overdue in Tasmania.

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  • #
    Ross

    So the moneymen have woken up and are taking action. Some politicians are taking action ( notably Tony Abbott and co. ) How long before the other politicians wake up and follow on? Because that’s what is required to finally squash the scam.

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  • #
    pat

    we may see a Pause in the CAGW plan for an energy-based world currency, the carbon currency, to replace the failing petrodollar, but plans are in place to ensure future academics aplenty to convince the next generation CAGW or something else – CAGC? – is real:

    5 Nov: University of Leicester Press Release: Leicester benefits from £100m NERC investment in environmental science doctoral training
    The Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, has announced £100 million of new NERC investment in fifteen Doctoral Training Partnerships (DTPs), which specialise in training environmental science PhD students…
    The University of Leicester has expertise in a number of areas where the CENTA partnership has particular research strength. These are:

    1. Anthropogenic impacts and environmental sustainability. Key areas of strength include pollutants in the atmosphere and aquatic environments, and satellite-based observations of the climate system.

    2. Evolution of organisms and ecosystems. Key areas of strength include modern and ancient ecosystems, responses to environmental change, vertebrates – living and fossil, exceptional preservation of fossils and their evolutionary implications, microfossils and how they link to climate change studies and hydrocarbon exploration…

    3. Dynamic Earth. Key areas of strength include magma dynamics, tectonic and Earth surface processes, rates and timescales of geological processes, palaeoenvironments and palaeoclimates, all underpinned by cross-cutting excellence in chemical analysis of rocks, fossils and geological processes.

    “The funding of new studentships will contribute to more effective environmental policies and the economic recovery in the UK by linking individual projects with companies to deliver environmental solutions.”
    The DTPs will support 1200 PhD students across the fifteen partnerships. This means at least 240 new students will begin training every year for five years, with the opportunity for partners to co-fund, boosting the number of studentships available.
    The fifteen partnerships include collaborations between 38 UK higher education institutions and 280 partner organisations, including businesses, policy-makers, and public and third sector organisations, such as Unilever, Scottish Water, and The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)…

    ***”The strong support for this programme from a number of international partners such as BP, Microsoft and Arup is enormously encouraging. Not only will this initiative benefit students, UK research organisations, business, industry and the economy, it will keep us at the forefront of the global science race.”
    http://www.24dash.com/news/education/2013-11-05-Leicester-benefits-from-100m-NERC-investment-in-environmental-science-doctoral-training

    5 Nov: TimesHigherEducation: Nerc unveils doctoral training partnership network
    Nerc chief executive Duncan Wingham said: “If UK environmental sciences are going to continue to prosper, we need to make sure we get the best from our students. These DTPs position us to compete in an increasingly competitive global environment by training students in the best possible way to use environmental sciences to help meet the challenges and opportunities facing us today.”
    Universities and science and minister David Willetts said: “This significant investment highlights the government’s commitment to supporting postgraduate training and research in the environmental sciences. The strong support for this programme from a number of international partners, such as BP, Microsoft and Arup, is enormously encouraging.”
    The 15 partnerships will be led by the universities of Sheffield, Birmingham, Edinburgh, East Anglia, Bristol, Reading, Leeds, Southampton, Cambridge, Oxford and Manchester, Imperial College London, University College London and Lancaster and Durham universities.
    http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/nerc-unveils-doctoral-training-partnership-network/2008801.article

    22 Oct: Guardian: Alice Bell: Are our universities ‘fossil-fuelled’?
    Green NGOs say we’re spending universities’ resources supporting the oil and gas industry, and not putting enough into low-carbon energy
    (Alice Bell is a research fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex)
    This week, the social and ecological justice NGO Platform published an update to their 2003 report Degrees of Capture, exploring the ways in which universities support the fossil fuel industry.
    This new report – produced in conjunction with 350.org, People and Planet and Fossil Free UK – also follows a recent update of Scientists for Global Responsibility’s work on military research and development…
    Imperial College comes under particular criticism. The report refers to “fossil fuel degrees” such as an MSc in petroleum geophysics. It also notes the college had received more research funding from fossil fuel companies than any other UK institution (£17.3m from Shell and BP alone). Research projects they give as examples include Total-funded experimental physics research into how to get more oil out of reservoirs and BP-funded projects to remotely assess the condition of machinery in refineries. As well as research funding, Imperial receive donations, sponsorships and consultancy deals with BP, Total, Shell, Schlumberger, Statoil, EDF, Anglo American, Aramco, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, Texaco, British Gas and npower…
    As an ex-employee and alumnus of Imperial, I feel I should stress that this isn’t the whole picture. It is a large and reasonably diverse place. You can also do an MSc in Sustainable Energy Futures and discuss the politics of science funding as part of courses in science communication. And there’s the Grantham Institute for Climate Change (make what you will of Grantham himself)…
    http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/22/are-our-universities-fossil-fuelled

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    RoHa

    Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, and UBS.

    I’m sure all these earnest socialists made sure that they stashed away some substantial profits from the scheme so that they could support their workers when they closed the trading desks.

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    ROM

    With apologies to Winston Churchill.

    This is not the end of the beginning
    It is just the beginning of the end

    There is a long way to go before we can write this whole nefarious climate debacle out of our past human history and a negate it as a factor in our future for ever we hope.
    There has been far too much hurt, pain, suffering, too many deaths, too much destruction of immense amounts of wealth, the creation of new levels of fraud and corruption on a massive scale by a debasing ideology desperate to inflict it’s deliberately societal destructive memes and it’s anti-humanistic ideology onto mankind.

    All this, along with the deliberate destruction of reputations of those who dared question the catastrophe meme of the warmists, the destruction of jobs, of industry, of social cohesion and much more for this calamitous period of overt and covert and the deliberate corrupting of science.

    There has been too much of this attempted green backed nihilistic hegemony inflicted on mankind to just walk away from this climate science debacle in less than a couple of generations.

    [ nihilistic = The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement.]

    The real retribution might still be some years ahead before those who initiated the deliberate corruption of science and of the political process to try and enforce their brand of a nefarious ideology onto mankind are finally brought to justice to answer for their acts,

    And the first straws are in the wind for this to start to occur with the Climate Science Coalition of NZ and their court case against the NZ’s NIWA for their deliberately corrupting of the NZ temperature data so as to reinforce the climate alarmists ideology that NIWA apparently subscribes to.
    The Climate Science Coalition has lost the first round when a judge refused to exam it’s claims.
    It is now renewing it’s case against NIWA.

    But as always as the great flow of time and tide in human affairs once again starts swinging into another and different political cycle then a new attitude on behalf of the judiciary towards the deliberate corruption of climate data and climate science will start to come into play.

    It will take only one successful well publicised judicial decision in a respected jurisdiction inflicting heavy penalties on organisations and individuals and forcing the payment of compensation to those who suffered as a consequence of the corruption of the data and science, on a climate science institution and / or individuals and groups for the entire elaborate and increasingly rotten structure of the whole bebased science of global warming for it to come crashing down.

    Then and only then will we start to see the real end of this utterly shameful loss of integrity, honesty and ethics in the whole of our scienctific and political establishments.

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    Wally

    “Ladies and Gentlemen, the money is leaving the room…”

    HOORAY!!!

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    Pete of Perth

    Anyone heard from John B?… With all this breaking news it would be nice to have it put into “context”.

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    Sunray

    I am very sorry, because I know it is a sin, but I am enjoying this, too much.

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    DT

    Mushrooming sector? Would that be a place where participants are fed Bull droppings and kept in the dark?

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    Jimmy Haigh

    Yup. If they can’t make a killing out of it, it’s dead already.

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    Richard the Great

    It may be all but over for the carbon market but the propaganda war waged by the likes of the taxpayer funded ABC continues without respite all the while the fat little piggies slurp greedily at the tax receivers trough…

    http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/19925338/abc-probes-leaking-of-journos-salaries/

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    PeterS

    So I wonder what’s the next scam they are all preparing for us? We won’t know of course until we are about half way through it. We can guess though. I suspect whatever it is it will involve our supers/401Ks/etc. simply because the money there is too much to be ignored by the greedy.

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      Safetyguy66

      Well we have had…Y2K, Aids, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Terrorism, Peak Oil, Ice Age, Heat Age, Food running out, Sea inundation, fresh water inundation, flood, drought, asteroids and super bugs…

      Im not sure there is a lot left. But Im sure someone will think of something.

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        Yonniestone

        Alien invasion, I mean after this people might just realize carbon IS life here so they’ll guess if our planet wont kill us then something not of this world might, I’m thinking alien antimatter, cosmic rays or a strange new element discovered that threatens our very existence but only the UN can detect it and save us.
        Lets call it “W*****rmantium”

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    pat

    just saw some of the salaries abc staff are getting – blood is boiling! & many of them are there decade in, decade out, seeing out govt after govt, & no doubt feeling superior to elected politicians as a result of their own longevity in the public eye.

    woke up to abc newsradio this morning, with loops of anti-govt lines being repeated & repeated, like some Labor/Greens daily ‘talking points’ session. but what got me was an interview with Ross Garnaut, by Emma Alberici. i knew of Garnaut’s new book, “Dog Days: Australia after the boom” cos it had saturation MSM coverage including the launch with Malcolm Turnbull on the A-PAC channel, (financed by Murdoch’s News). Alberici opened with mention of the book & said in it Garnaut was critical of political decisions made between 2005 & 2008. this mention of only pre-rudd/gillard years didn’t jibe with what i’d read about the book.

    looked for it on newsradio website this morning & failed to find it, but just look at the following “NEWS” they’ve been carrying to see how utterly removed from proper reporting this lot are, not to mention how politically biased they are:

    http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/listen/

    anyway, it was Lateline where i found the Garnaut interview, though the reference to the years “2005-2008” is not there, in either the transcript or the video. it must have been inserted for the newsradio broadcast. in the transcript, at least Alberici mentions Garnaut criticised post-2008 govts as well. the headline is correct, by the way, tho we soon get to Alberici’s other agenda:

    19 Nov: ABC Lateline: Australia needs to make a big effort to demonstrate respect for Indonesia’s leaders
    EMMA ALBERICI: You’re quite prophetic indeed. You criticise both the Howard Government and the Rudd-Gillard governments for spending too much and for cutting taxes by too much but I get the impression you’ve already concluded that Tony Abbott can’t put it right?
    ROSS GARNAUT: No, I haven’t. In fact, a lot of the story of the book is how Tony Abbott could be a successful long-term Prime Minister, but a lot of things have to change…
    EMMA ALBERICI: But you do seem to be less than impressed by the way Tony Abbott came to power and his election promises. You write specifically that none of the high-profile election promises of the Government will change profit calculations in ways that increase investment. None will help us to meet the fundamental challenge to improve Australian competitiveness and to increase investment and activity in trade exposed industries?
    ROSS GARNAUT: I think that’s right and I do talk about how changing the carbon policies to Direct Action will create very large additional problems for the budget, especially beyond the four-year forward estimates, years five, six.
    You had on this program a week or so ago a fellow from Frontier Economics who said he was advising the Government on Direct Action and he said exactly that: Direct Action might do the job of reducing emissions but it’s going to cost a lot in the period beyond the forward estimates, many billions of dollars, and that’s without taking into account of the lost revenue from the absence of sales of permits.
    So the carbon policies of the Government, if they’re kept in place, will make this adjustment much harder and make the budget problem more difficult than any other decision the Government could take, I think. But I’m not saying that it’s impossible for the Government to come to grips with these hard things.
    In fact, one of the things I say in the book that it’s the hallmark of a good government that it’s able to adjust its message and adjust its policies when it realises the world is not the same as the one they expected to be in.
    EMMA ALBERICI: Specifically I was curious to see that you talk about the rise of special interest groups who you blame for the Abbott Government’s decisions to scrap the mining and carbon taxes. The PM says, on both counts, the taxes were making businesses uncompetitive and the cost of living too high?
    ROSS GARNAUT: Well, on the cost of living the carbon pricing does have some effect, a modest effect. In the year in which the carbon pricing came in we still had historically low inflation, so it had some effect but not much. But people were compensated with large tax cuts and adjustment of Social Security.
    On businesses, the compensation for trade-exposed industries was comprehensive. In some cases it probably gave a net advantage when you take into account the fact that a lot of other countries are taking action on climate change that’s imposing quite high costs on business, often not through carbon pricing but in other regulatory ways that adds much more to cost.
    So making abolition of the carbon price and the mining tax the response to our productivity problem, I think, avoids the issue. It misses the big point…
    http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3894784.htm

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    pat

    turned on Radio National for headlines at bed-time last nite, & the following, repeat version, was finishing up. only caught the climate change insanity from Richard Fidler, but listened to it all today(masochist?) & made some notes.

    18 Nov: ABC Conversations with Richard Fidler
    Guest: Richard King
    Writer and critic Richard King believes that Australians have become too quick to take offence.
    Richard argues in his new book that there is a new mood of self-pity and self-righteousness.
    People are now more likely to parade their hurt feelings in public, which is poisoning debate.
    Richard says freedom of speech means nothing without the freedom to offend.
    http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/11/18/3893227.htm?site=conversations

    King, who admits he’s leftist, does defend freedom to offend, including in Bolt’s case, but it is Fidler who sets the agenda, starting with Fox News, moving on to Bolt. McCain, Gingrich & Romney get mentions from King. it’s quite ridiculous, and all based on premise that these are the people who are too quick to take offence! following is paraphrase of what i heard last nite:

    – 37’22” Fidler: the right adopted this tactic, some on the right, on issues like climate change, saying climate change isn’t real, like institutions that argued we can’t be sure smoking is bad for you, the jury is out; there’s a great movie called “thank you for smoking” where the lobbyist argues with his son, saying the jury is out, the son says the science is in, father says..;
    King: that’s mis-use of the notion of rights. no-one is challenging his right to a point of view, they’re challenging the logic of his view.
    King: ties in with “epistemic closure”…no-one’s challenging your right, they’re just challenging your sense.
    Fidler: that’s like Fox News & the election last year, they predicted Romney had won, on the night, they couldn’t accept the results. it was very odd. it was a strange thing,
    where the real world crashes in on the epistemic closure, that u were talking about…it seems the extreme right is learning from the language of victimhood, of all things, i have an example…BLAH BLAH BLAH

    to think i voted Labor/Greens! to think i once respected the ABC. to be fair, if i had turned on local ABC, it would have been Hollywood gossip all nite long. nice one ABC, promoting American Business, not Australian, for hours, most nites of the week!

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    pat

    20 Nov: SMH: Reuters: ‘Wrath of a warming planet’ felt worldwide, UN’s Ban Ki-moon says
    Many developed nations are more focused on spurring sluggish economic growth than fixing global warming, despite scientists’ increased certainty that human emissions will cause more heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising sea levels…
    No major nations have set tougher national goals for cutting greenhouse gases in Warsaw…
    ***Ban has invited world leaders to attend a summit at U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept. 23, 2014. “I ask all who come to bring bold new announcements and action,” he said…
    http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/wrath-of-a-warming-planet-felt-worldwide-uns-ban-kimoon-says-20131120-2xtxu.html

    18 Nov: UK Independent Editorial: Despite extreme weather and new evidence, prospects of a deal at this year’s climate change conference look bleak
    Climate change has tumbled down the political agenda in recent years, as weak economies focus minds on poverty and the climate sceptics wage an effective – if disingenuous – lobbying campaign…
    ***Paris 2015 is the big one – that is when nearly 200 governments around the world have pledged to agree the legally-binding carbon-reduction targets that they hope will be sufficient to limit global warming to 2C.
    ***Next year’s summit, in Lima, is therefore far more important than this one, because it could pave the way for the big deal in Paris the following year…
    http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/despite-extreme-weather-and-new-evidence-prospects-of-a-deal-at-this-years-climate-change-conference-look-bleak-8947806.html

    how about cancelling all these meetings. African countries, & the rest who were promised billions, should stop wasting time, energy & money on these talkfests & say bye-bye to the UN/IPCC/UNFCCC SCAM:

    19 Nov: BusinessDayOnline: Africans seek clarity on climate finance at Warsaw talks
    “African governments need access to climate funds. These funds are needed for climate adaptation, mitigation and technology transfer, capacity building and forest conservation,” Joseph Armathe Amougou, head of the Cameroon delegation at the climate conference, told Thomson Reuters Foundation…
    The World Bank estimates that $30-100 billion will be needed to finance climate adaptation annually by 2030, and an additional $140-175 billion will be required for mitigation efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters report.
    Developed nations have promised to mobilise $100 billion a year for these two purposes by 2020, up from around $10 billion in annual “fast start” climate finance from 2010 to 2012.
    “The sums required are significantly larger than the pledged $100 billion by the year 2020,” said a statement setting out the position of African civil society for the U.N. negotiations. “Developed countries have agreed to maintain average finance levels – roughly $10 billion a year – which they provided during 2010-2012, until 2015. But they have made no pledges for 2015-2020, leaving a five-year gap.”…
    “Uncertainty from one year to the next makes it impossible for vulnerable countries to take the action they need to protect their citizens,” said Oxfam’s climate change spokesperson Kelly Dent. “This murkiness will only heighten distrust around the negotiating table.”…
    African negotiators and campaigners also called on rich nations to cut their climate-changing emissions more deeply.
    “We demand that developed countries fulfill and implement their commitments under the U.N. climate convention, in order to fairly share the necessary ‘emissions budget’, and avoid catastrophic climate change impacts,” Mwenda said…
    They also recommended the adoption of a globally funded feed-in tariff, which could encourage the development of renewable energy.
    “Warsaw should be the place and moment for the world to choose clean over dirty energy, and Africa will be championing this choice. The best (climate) agreement on Earth won’t make a difference without implementation in the real world. That’s why one of the clear outcomes in Warsaw must be the drastic scaling up of climate finance and technology transfer,” PACJA said in a paper presented to journalists.
    http://businessdayonline.com/2013/11/africans-seek-clarity-on-climate-finance-at-warsaw-talks/

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    pat

    just want to add that the African & other undeveloped countries should chase away all those solar/wind sales teams already courting them, & exploiting them. face reality – people in the developed countries can’t afford these technologies in their present form, so what chance you?

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