Free markets are a hot tool, but sometimes they’re “hot” like a jackhammer at a sewing bee. Who thinks it’s smart to use a free market on a ubiquitous molecule that cycles through almost all life on Earth? Answer: people who profit from it, or people don’t know what a free market is.
About 5 years ago, the VAT tax scam with carbon credits earned financial sharks around five billion Euro. The follow up to that is that, slowly, years later, in Frankfurt about 10 people have been given prison terms. (Is that all? Only ten people and 5b, or are there others in other countries?)
This type of fraud could happen in other markets too, but it surely must be easier to accomplish in fake markets where no goods are transferred. The Global Worriers narrative is that there’s risk in unleashing carbon dioxide, but they never discuss the risks of setting up fake markets, which need a lot of regulation, auditing, checking and all that — especially when every cat and dog have a stake, and the whole market might be controlled by phytoplankton.
Every fake market we set up is a feeding lot for corruption and friends-of-the-mafia. Is that the kind of world the Worriers want to build?
News Briton charged in carbon trading probe in Germany
Frankfurt prosecutors said they have charged a British man with having been a member of a gang involved in fraudulent trading of carbon permits and evading about 58 million euros (43.51 million pounds) of taxes.
The move is part of an investigation relating to so-called carousel trades made in 2009 and 2010, in which buyers imported emissions permits in one European Union country without paying value-added tax (VAT) and then sold them to each other, adding VAT to the price and generating tax refunds when no tax had been paid.
Europol estimated cost EU governments more than 5 billion euros in lost revenues.
How Green is that Banker?
Remember how Deutche Bank was so concerned about the environment they erected a 70 foot high clock of doom tower to count CO2 and put together 50 page scientific reports on climate change? Perhaps some employees were trying a bit too hard to save the world? Eight Deutsche Bank employees have been indicted for by a carbon fraud investigation.
Also, Frankfurt prosecutors in August indicted seven current and one former employee of Deutsche Bank in connection with its carbon fraud investigations.
There is another way to combat this
Instead of waiting for the government-glacier to turn off the tap to crooks, there must be another way. Check back here, any day now we’ll be suggesting a rather innovative path to slow the trainwreck and to use the real free market to do it.
h/t to Pat in comments.
PS: Watch the comment counter (Statistics, RHS), sometime in the next day or so we’ll hit the meaningless magical comment number 333,333. :- )
It’s fascinating that your average hippy/hipster Michael Moore type hates the evil corporations because they are the source of all evil (as they order more books from Amazon on their Apple iPhone wearing clothes made from fossil fuels by corporations), yet every so called solution to the non-problem of global warming involves the worst element of the otherwise wonderful capitalist world. Paper shuffling money men and crony capitalists.
543
Yes it is extremely ironic. It must go down as the biggest in history to see the Greens movement and the like siding with the biggest financial fraudsters of all time. Makes one wonder as to their sanity, intelligence and/or truthfulness.
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Turtle. Michael Moore owns at least one huge mansion on the scale of Gore & Gates. Of course he hates everything good and productive in America. But he sure loves the lifestyle of the super rich.
311
Also they are willing to invest in stocks of the evil profit making corporations. Do as I say not as I do…..
160
You try and tell people how corrupt carbon markets are and they assume it’s like a big business trading on the stock markets, big deal?, until you point out where the play money comes from and you are being taxed without representation, or consideration for that matter!
The meaningless magical comment number when added in consecutive pairs equals 666….woooooooooooo.
210
“Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast” Revelations 13:18
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Peter, that old quote is almost right but needs updating for the 21st century.
“Let him that hath understanding of the UNIX command line tools count the number of the beast.” – Linux Revelations, man curl ; man grep
~ $ curl -s "http://joannenova.com.au/2016/01/fake-fixed-carbon-markets-feed-five-billion-to-financial-sharks-in-eu-fraud/" | grep -E -o "posts that generated.+comments"posts that generated<br>333322 comments
~ $
—
#333325 – J
70
Full quote:
355. Only 311 off, but biblical CO2 measurements can’t have been too accurate.
41
Turtle,
sorry, the number of this particular beast is 255K.
You’d be surprised how many supposed sceptics are infected –
Lindzen,
Spencer,
Monckton,
Watts,
and sadly, David Evans (who should have known better).
The Internet has now branded “255K” on each of their virtual foreheads (along with the catastrophisists). I have by the same mechanism branded 312K on mine. It is a number I wear with pride. I did the empirical experiments, they did not.
10
Yonnie, A paper on maths dated 12/12/12 has recently been found authored by Tesla he stated that understanding 3, 6 and 9 will give us the power of the universe. 12 is the special number as used in our old system. So Jo’s 333,333 may be a catalyst for something special.
20
In the USA, prohibition of alcohol established the Mafia, turning them from street punks into wealthy and powerful organized crimials. If the rewards created by artificial scarcity are high enough, criminals will inevitably take advantage. There is a lot more wealth and power at stake here than prohibition ever offered, and the distinction between criminal and ruling class is a lot less clear.
10
As they say, every little crook and nanny…
120
Please don’t forget that these financial EU carbon credit financial fraudsters could only have pulled this particular immense fraud because a small group of colluding and self promoting “climate scientists” decided that they were going to make a name for themselves and guarantee themselves ever lasting fame.
And they almost succeeded by predicting that the recent increase in a minor atmospheric greenhouse gas, that nefarious gas CO2, was due solely and entirely to human activities and that humanity would consequently be solely responsible the potential destruction of the planet through the rapid increases in temperatures due to the increasing levels of that mankind created CO2 greenhouse gas.
And then in a most despicable fashion and against all past science principles, they went on to deliberately deny other interested scientists access to their claimed data, data and modeling that they claimed supported their hypothesis but which nobody outside of their colluding circle was allowed to view and access for confirmation or otherwise of their claims.
Without that small initial coterie of colluding and despicably dishonest climate scientists and their deliberate self interested promoting of gross misinformation on the role of CO2 and its unconfirmed and hypothesized role in increasing global temperatures to both the political operators and the media, there would have been no carbon credit based financial fraud on the immense scale we are now seeing.
291
ROM,
All that maybe so but these clowns were busted for tax fraud as I read it. It does cast a shadow over the character of the operators in the business. As I see it the trade in “carbon” is worse than some kind of “double derivative”, if there could be such a thing in finance. The product is illusive and impossible to quantify with precision. The finding that tax cheats are main players comes as no surprise but vindicates the apprehension to go down that path. It is clearly not a solution to a problem that has not been well established.
121
Personally, I find the Big Climate Rip Orff hilarious. Artificial Markets sound so good, but are so ripe for plucking that it’s amusing when they’re plucked.
The ‘Hole in the Ozone Layer’ and the subsequent ‘Ozone Wars’ were, in a way, a dummy run for the CO2 blitzkreig.
The science was at least equally as bad and the propaganda as forceful and unrelenting. Unfortunately, or perhaps Fortunately, the World Bank didn’t have it’s `Everything can be solved through markets’ worked out, or we could have seen some brilliant skimming back then. I can just see the Save the Ozone Layer ‘CFCs Market,’ 🙂
20
–Paul Lutus
00
You know, there must be many, many good and decent people that believe in climate change (really global warming from CO2). But for every one of the good people, it seems like there are millions of evil tricksters, frauds, data manglers, and on and on.
Life does get tedious at times.
141
Good and decent people believe the media spin and have no other information. I was recently shown an old ABC Q & A recording that included panelists who referred to climate change constantly, one who is a marine science researcher spoke about acidification of oceans and did so with conviction.
The propaganda machine is very persuasive.
131
“The good people”?, more like the naive people. The vast majority goes with the flow and is silent. Silence is not an excuse to be good or a sign of good manners and political astuteness.
I am regarded by them as a dangerous element so they know what I talk about, enough to see what is happening. I am the villain in the eyes of the good people. The judgement and often boundless hate of me is already there. The other evil is excused as too big, part of life, nothing I can do attitude.
They assume the ostrich position and hope that no one touches their backsides. But we know from history what happens to them and me. This is just a matter of who goes first and “a when” is a tragic certainty.
20
In all honesty would anybody be stupid enough to buy carbon credits based on some bit of rainforest in Ghana or PNG? Yes is the likely answer, but why doesn’t Australia flog off the sequestration of CO2 by the phytoplanton in our territorial waters?
In a genuine market one has a tonne of wheat, a Gwh. of electricty, a barrel of oil, or whatever, but these carbon markets are illusionary.
262
The greedy and gullible led by the gormless. Rooted in their Green fixated ideation they trample on civilised society with their intellectually and morally corrupt jackboots. The ensuing presence or absence of corruption hardly seems relevant when juxtaposed against corruption, loss of freedom, impoverishment, and primitivisaton does it? What’s another layer of filth between fiends?
Green Blob filth is everywhere. I listened to the NZ MSM allowing a sound bite from a whining spokeswoman bitterly complaining about a recent report that had the faux-enraging audacity to question the current vernacular of the causal relationship between imbibing alcohol and consequent violence. She stridently complained that the alcohol industry was using the same tactics as Big tobacco, Big Pharma and wait for it, ‘Fossil Fuels’ … only ‘Fossil Fuels’ doesn’t sound so compelling when you place ‘Big’ in front of it does it? ‘Big Fossil Fuels’ sounds faintly ridiculous, bereft of the necessary phonetic truncation enabled by two leading consonants. The emphasising effect is disabled by using three in sequence thereby making all the other ‘Big’ entities sound equally silly … and to be avoided by the merchants of propaganda at all costs.
An institutionalised Fourth Estate obligingly provided the requisite echo chamber, as she omitted Big Green, Big Finance, Big Banks and Big Government from her screeching narrative.
I actually managed a smile this time … risus sardonicus
90
“Climate Scientists”, greenies and politicians are all in the trough so why shouldn’t the banks and sharks get their snouts in the trough also after all there is plenty of carbon crap cash to go around for everyone. Hey TAX PAYER smile emoticon honest Joe) cough up another Billion the trough is not overflowing and the CO2 scam still has plenty of legs!!!
153
To be or not to be–
the richest 1 percent own more than the other 99 percent put together, anti-poverty charity Oxfam said on Monday.
Significantly, the wealth gap is widening faster than anyone anticipated, with the 1 percent overtaking the rest one year earlier than Oxfam had predicted only a year ago. http://www.reuters.com/article/davos-meeting-divisions-idUSL8N151092
00
“the wealth gap is widening faster than anyone anticipated”
Ahhh…. green entrepreneurs. Sucking money from the general taxpayer.
From the actions of governments, NGO’s etc etc… this is one of the main aims of the climate change agenda.
DEPENDANCY !!!!!!!!! = serfdom.
And Oxfam is one of those driving the agenda.. knowingly or not !.. I suspect… knowingly.
01
When the number get that big, very few comprehend what it means.
70
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
A true politician!
I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.
Everet Dirksen, an American Republician politician from 1933 > 1969.
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From beginning to end the CAGW Alarmism is closely modelled on financial frauds. It includes false and distorted data, visions of arcadian benefits for the true believers, It captures advertising in the Media and enlists or buys all political support that it can, it deals in unverifiable actions and amounts of an invisible product and promises benefits to poor nations in recompense for imagined financial deprivation.
201
And like financial bubbles it will suddenly collapse and people will be angry and say how could we have been so stupid. They will then turn on those identified with it.
The Deutsche Bank will collapse. It is so heavily into AGW paper that it cannot survive when those pieces of paper turn out to be no use even for wrapping fish and chips.
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“Carbon Credits” – the greatest scam ever devised in human history. It will be exposed in due course. Is it any wonder the “Global Economy” currently sits on a precipice.
210
The whole idea is ridiculous. If the Australian farmers federation agregated orchards from it’s members that amounted to just 1% of farmland then the emission permits created would exceed Australian emissions. That’s how riduchlous this is, one sector using 1% of its resources could brimg an ETS to it’s knees. It’s economic bull$hit, and this is why it doesn’t work. Offsets can be created at a profit, effectively the money is being thrown away.
160
This shouldn’t be happening.
http://www.ibtimes.com.au/australia-allow-firms-buy-international-carbon-credits-greg-hunt-1492431
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El Gordo.
Agree, shouldn’t even be contemplated by Greg Hunt
1. Australian firm produces CO2
2. Firm pays money to O/S Carbon Credit Scam
3. Families in Nigeria kicked off land for the Scam
4. Scam Pollie get Millions $ to do nothing
5. CO2 doesn’t influence temperature
6. Green UN & Scammers make BILLIONS $
The world is getting cooler folks
The GREENS are getting richer
The workers are getting poorer
All this for ONE of the BIGGEST con jobs EVER!
191
That is all very sad. It shows that Viv Forbes is right;
“Many climate sceptics are celebrating that “nothing in the Paris deal is legally binding.” They should look deeper. They have suffered a huge political defeat.”
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/paris-propaganda-victory.pdf
They means We!
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Peter,
That maybe so to an extent but the fight’s not over yet. The racketeers have not had it all their own way in spite of the brave face they put on. My hope is that in the end science will make us all the wiser.
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Only tangible signs of global cooling will pull the structure down.
History will record that the skeptics patiently struggled to bring about ‘The Awakening’ on many fronts, but ultimately victory was realised when the scientists accepted the fact that CO2 doesn’t cause warming. The Klimatariat came to this amazing conclusion when world temperatures continued declining into the 2020s.
111
…and in spite of a multitude of .vX versions of various temperature data sets incorporating important ‘corrections’ and ‘adjustments’, unfailingly in an upward direction. The disconnect between reality and fantasy inevitably and ironically became ‘undeniable’.
‘They’ will in my view, never accept that CO2 fails to cause warming. ‘They’ are inseparably melded to this and will claim eternal adherence justified by theoretical construct, which is also the “settled” science, whilst seguing seamlessly to a range of negative ‘forcings’ that were ‘underestimated’ together with a ‘resting’ solar phase by way of ‘explanation’ of an observed cooling trend.
The move to atmospheric ‘pollution’ and land usage is well underway, not unlike the swift move from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’. These however, remain explicitly consistent with the UN definition of ‘climate change’ promulgated after cooling began in 2000, and they will continue to underpin the
UN efforteco-marxist Green ideologues through the UNFCCC and UNEP, who will redouble their manic efforts of installing the Post-2015 Millennium Development Goals, also referred to in the UN documentation as ‘The Agenda’.And it may well be another 500 years before Climate “scientists” earn the right to free themselves from quotation marks.
81
I’m more sanguine and give the AGW theory less than five years to run.
It depends entirely on the weather and the overwhelming presence of negative feedbacks, like excessive NH snow this winter. The ordinary folk are going to demand some kind of explanation and the MSM will eventually have to come to the party.
Equally important would be Ted Cruz debating Hilary over global warming and soundly defeating her at the election.
51
The centre of the CAGW/ climate change cult are the west Europeans.
Most of eastern Europe collectively gagged when they were instructed they would have to abide by the west European controlled EU’s dictates re global warming/ climate change including winding down their energy production and their economies to reduce their “Carbon” output.
And this just when they were finally getting out of the deep economic and societal mire of the Soviet era.
Then came what was quite close to a Black Swan event, the completely unpredicted and unexpected event that upsets the best laid plans of mice and men in a completely unpredictable fashion.
Some, a very few predicted the huge mass migration of middle easterners from the truly vicious and horrendous war and terror regimes created by Daesh in Iraq and and by Bashir al-Assad in Syria.
Then there was the terrorist attacks in Paris, now terrorist attacks in Turkey which previously has proved to be un-cooperative in stemming the mass flow of purported refugees from the Syria and iraq.
Merkel in Germany has compounded the problem tenfold by refusing to put any limits on the flow of refugees into Germany and then on from Germany into other EU nations.
And then Cologne and other German cities where the young male “refugees” sexually assaulted and groped hundreds of German women during the New Years Eve mob gatherings and celebrations .
Merkel is finished and as and when she goes, so goes Germany’s “Energiewende”, the transition from fossil fuels to an economy almost totally reliant on”Renewable Energy” along with the European section of the cult of a global warming catastrophe in the making.
–
The Europeans are being overwhelmed by events post Paris, events that were never predicted or if predicted and suggested the arrogant European elites didn’t believe it would happen to them or they believed they could fully control the passage of any untoward future events and direct them to their advantage.
All the polls indicate that Europe is shifting right in its politics and fast as the socialistic left wing failures, particularly the uncontrolled and even encouraged mass influx of refugees with cultures vastly different to the European culture, all of which are now creating huge societal and cultural stress and distress across the whole of Europe.
Some time back on this blog I suggested that as economies soured and as the shine started to wear off many of the European and American [ The Trump phenomen. ] socialistic policies, many nations would start to drift and move right in their politics and so it seems.
Planet saving re climate change is now becoming the idiocy owned by the European political, social , academic and environmental elites and in fact that savage contempt by the common man for the political, social, academic and environmental Elites of Europe is just starting to surface and is now being commented on in some circles.
The Elites and the policies they espoused and enforced are increasingly being seen as the source of most of Europe’s present woes and some are starting to demand a serious reckoning take place and soon.
For my part, expect a quite considerable but very low key influx of “refugees” in quite considerable numbers into Australia in the not very distant future.
Only this time it will be like the late 1940’s and 1950’s.
Many will be blue eyed and even blonde and speak a European language as their mother tongue
And most will be highly skilled and even wealthy.
Their future, their home and their kids will be Australian.
Paris is now increasingly being seen as in the ownership of the global political, social, environmental and academic Elites.
As the world and history and the human race moves on, it is these Elites who will be held accountable for the societal and economic catastrophes they have wrought over the last three decades that the global warming / climate change cult has been allowed to run wild without any semblance of accountability in any field it touches what so ever.
——-
The #333330th – J
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Huh!
—
[#333331]
20
Congrats Mr Magic.
——-
More than a quarter of Australia’s population was born overseas. We seek cashed up migrants or those with skills in short supply and as a consequence of this policy ….
‘The number of Chinese-born Australians has more than tripled to almost 450,000 in the space of two decades.
Those born in India has risen more than four-fold in that time, to almost 400,000.
‘Those numbers compare to about 1.2 million born in Britain and more than 600,000 in New Zealand, as part of an overall foreign-born population of 6.6 million.’
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/five-million-visas-into-australia-this-year-likely-to-set-new-records-20150421-1mq6km.html#ixzz3xLY6FhVL
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook
00
Jo, you need more Fs in the headline.
60
A couple of extra Fs wouldn’t be out of place considering the subject matter, but she’s just too sweet and innocent to display such vulgarities…..Evans on the other hand…..
30
A Company goes public and issues shares based on the value of the total assets of the Company. Those shares are then traded and the value of the shares goes up and down based on the fortunes of the Company.
With Carbon (Dioxide) Credits however, the price is set by the Government, based on what the UN edict dictates. Each emitting entity then has to purchase credits in the amount of their emissions, and in the case of large emitters (Like Bayswater at say 20 million tonnes of CO2 emitted) they are forced to purchase those credits. The cost of the credits is then passed on to all consumers of electricity.
ME AND YOU.
Those credits then get traded.
It’s not the Company’s money, It’s not the shareholder’s money.
It’s our money.
Do not ever try and tell me their is any form of perfect altruism in this. There WILL be fr@ud and corruption. This is on a scale way way bigger than anything on the share market. The probability of that criminal result is a dead set certainty.
When you have an emitting entity with so much emissions, who is correctly counting to make sure those emissions are actually calculated? Who is then auditing that? Who is watching the trading? Who is watching what happens?
When just Australia alone is emitting close to 450 Million tonnes of CO2, then the probability of illegal action is almost a certainty.
On a Worldwide basis, it is an absolute certainty.
They will catch the 1% of those people committing those criminal acts, if that, the unlucky ones, the ones with bad lawyers. The rest of them will be making Billions. And those billions will be just a fraction of 1% of the money involved.
With our money, not big business money, but the average person in the street.
As sure as the Sun rises in the morning this will be happening, on a scale that makes every other fr@ud look like small change.
These people are lining up now, just waiting for implementation to start their robbery. When there’s so much money involved, there’s no doubt this is going to happen.
Tony.
280
Tony,
It’s even worse than that. I have neighbours who have entered into “carbon sequestration” deals with private companies for many tens of hectares of eucalyptus. These contracts are for seventy years. That’s a very long and costly compliance effort. It begs the question: then what? The point is most of these offsets are on a promise that something will be a few generations down the track but it’s traded now. The incentive to fudge the complience is large because it has already been traded, it’s hard and expensive to measure. It spans generations, talk about making work for little reward.
140
kudos to The Independent for publishing this article. it’s more than “their ABC” has done…or Fairfax as far as I can tell.
guess it’s not outrageous enough for our MSM, which so readily finds outrage in the most minor pc infraction, or social media faux scandal:
14 Jan: UK Independent: Jim Armitage: Life is a carousel of fraud and the people involved can be clever and very dangerous
Carousel fraud sounds quite jolly, conjuring up images of painted horses and Victorian merry-go-rounds. But its consequences are far from fun. The billions of pounds and euros that organised crime gangs have defrauded from taxpayers through this nasty scam has found its way into some of the world’s most dangerous hands – none more so than the carousel scams carried out using carbon credits…
One investigation into carbon fraud traced the proceeds to Middle-Eastern terror groups, and was based on documents found by British special forces in a cave on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Other cases have been connected to serious crime gangs running robbery, extortion and murder rackets, according to HM Revenue and Customs…
It has emerged that seven Deutsche Bank employees had been indicted in Germany for their alleged part in a carbon credit carousel. Deutsche has already paid fines of $2.5bn (£1.6bn) in association with the Libor-rigging investigation.
I guess it was only a matter of time before banks started dipping their beaks…
The gangs realised that, to make the carousel safer, they needed an alternative product they could import VAT-free without having to physically move them.
Carbon credits – invisible, lightly regulated and with barely any paper trail – fitted the bill perfectly.
Authorities started noticing huge volumes being traded on France’s BlueNext carbon exchange in 2009. Subsequent probes revealed as much as 90 per cent of the trading was fraudulent, costing European taxpayers around €5bn (£3.6bn) over 18 months. There have been some convictions, but not nearly enough. And certainly nothing involving a prestigious organisation like Deutsche Bank… READ ON
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/life-is-a-carousel-of-fraud-and-the-people-involved-can-be-clever-and-very-dangerous-10455043.html
90
it’s all ridiculous and such a waste of time, energy & money:
14 Jan: ReutersCarbonPulse: Mike Szabo: Ruling nears in latest California carbon offset probe
California’s Air Resources Board (ARB) on Wednesday said it had received all information necessary to make a ruling in its investigation over 15,070 offsets issued to a livestock methane project in Indiana.
The statement kicked off a 30-day regulatory period during which ARB’s Executive Officer will weigh the evidence, culminating in a verdict over whether the credits, awarded to the T&M Bos Dairy offset project, were generated while the facility was in non-compliance with state laws.
If the facility is found to have been in breach of Indiana permitting rules, the offsets, originated by project developers Environmental Credit Corp., which was bought by Pennsylvania-based ClimeCo last year, will be invalidated…
ARB has not disclosed in whose online registry account(s) the CCOs are currently being held…
***Standard offsets can be declared ineligible for up to eight years after they have been issued, presenting a large degree of regulatory risk for investors and participants in California’s carbon market…
Separately, ARB on Wednesday reported that it had issued almost 1.3 million offsets to five projects in the first two weeks of 2016.
By far the largest recipient, getting just over 1 million early action units for reductions made between 2006 and 2009, was a coal mine methane capture project in Wyoming operated by Peabody Natural Gas, LLC…
http://carbon-pulse.com/14231/
90
Must be some new journo at the ABC who hasn’t been through brainwashing yet. Can you believe it!?
Tasmanian Government examines long-term green energy options after power woes
The other option on the table simply flies in the face of their recent experience:
Yes, they just had their power supply put in jeopardy from too much reliance on the relatively reliable renewable of hydropower, now their solution is to force even more people to rely on the even less reliable renewable of wind. Surely in the textbooks under “political correctness” this has to be added as a canonical case?
_ _ _ _ _
P.S.: Less than 15 comments til the Novometer racks up Nine Threes. Which comment will be the lucky one!?
120
Actually, Tasmania’s problem has arisen because the carbon tax made it artificially profitable for Hydro Tasmania to sell their hydro power to Victoria and they ran down their reservoirs until the carbon tax was repealed.
See this surprisingly good article from The Converaation
https://theconversation.com/how-much-will-tasmania-pay-for-shorting-the-carbon-price-29106
And now the Basslink is broken and they are about to bring a gas plant out of mothballs in the Tamar which they had intended to sell…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-11/workers-return-to-fire-up-tamar-valley-power-station/7021122
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Oh, and here is a proposal for Tasmania to “cash in” on its hydro by “investing” in its own wind generation to “recharge” their hydro storage
https://theconversation.com/glimpsing-a-tasmanian-export-opportunity-38641
40
I didn’t know they were going to combine the wind power with hydro storage, which should improve the value proposition of the combined package quite a lot.
00
After the electricity crisis in the early 1960’s, due to low rainfall, the Hydro built an oil fired power station at Bell Bay to use as a back-up for the Aluminium smelter. In this crisis they brought in a diesel electric ship from NZ and tied it up to the Bell Bay wharf as well as other measures.
The Hydro has had its own hydrology section measuring rainfall and riverflows for decades, so they are well aware of historical weather trends. However, since the advent of the BassLink, which the Hydro people thought they would make a profit, and which turned out to be more of a lifeboat, they have run the dam levels precariously low: two years ago they were around 50% and now they about 22% and falling with a reserve of 3274 GWh left and no significant rainfall until May or June. Annual consumption is around 11,000 GWh.
Clearly, it is an example of a self-inflicted problem as their experienced staff know the vagaries of rainfall patterns. People probably do not know that the chairman is one David Crean, brother of Simon Crean, and a former member of the Tas. Upper House. So political influence has a lot to do with their woes even though the current government is Liberal.
130
These days the difference between the Libs and ALP,Greens as far as “Leftys”go is a big fat “Zero”The time has come for a “Big”clean-out of these”Parasites”
00
hilarious…read all if only for quotes from the likes of “The Climatographers” – is there any climate name left unused?
14 Jan: Public Radio International (PRI): Peter Thomson: People who traveled to the Paris climate summit can offset their carbon emissions — but it isn’t easy
So for the first time, this year the UN set up a website and a booth for conference participants to offset the carbon impact of their travel. It allowed participants to go online and make up for their greenhouse pollution by either removing or preventing the same amount elsewhere through a small donation to something like a green energy plant or a low-emissions transportation project.
So how did this new option work out?
Based on our own experience, an informal survey of conference participants, and the UN’s own numbers — not so well.
When The World’s environment editor Peter Thomson went looking for the offset booth at the massive Paris conference center, he had a hard time finding it, even after it had been moved to supposedly make it easier to find. And when he did find it, it wasn’t as easy as just swiping a credit card or laying down a few euros. It ended up being more complicated than he had time for, so he bookmarked it for later…
It’s safe to say most people don’t know about offsets. Others who do know might not want to pay what’s basically a voluntary tax. And even for people who do want to pay, there’s not a lot of confidence in the system…
In the end, offsetting the CO2 from our flights to Paris cost $4.80. It took a lot of time and effort to make that very small payment, which did make us wonder about the effectiveness of our offsets, despite the UN’s assurances…READ ON
http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-01-14/people-who-traveled-paris-climate-summit-can-offset-their-carbon-emissions-it
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CAGW tales from Oregon. read all…it would be funny if it weren’t costing so much:
12 Jan: CapitalResearch.org: Dr. Steven J. Allen: Filthy dirty “clean energy”
Today, conservation/environmentalism has devolved into a scam, a con game at a level that’s beyond the ability of the human mind to grasp. The Powerball jackpot and the grosses from the new Star Wars are nothing compared to the money that’s being made from Global Warming and related causes.
Those feeding from the trough include academics and journalists, “climate science” activists and bureaucrats, politicians and, increasingly, crony-capitalist business people who want to get their hands on some portion of the trillions of dollars that, if the “greens” have their way (and they probably will), is to be pickpocketed from the world’s poor and from the American working class/small business class..
An earlier program, the Business Energy Tax Credit, was so bad a disaster it was actually repealed. It allowed businesses to set up “green” projects and take huge tax breaks—50 percent, up to $10 million, in the final, 2007 version of the credit. Worse, in the manner of cap-and-trade systems, companies could sell their credits, creating even more potential for corruption.
For example, one paper mill earned energy credits by burning wood and using the heat to dry the paper. The company sold credits to Walmart for $2.3 million, which Walmart could then use to offset $3.3 million in state taxes over five years—which, it turned out, Walmart was able to use even though the plant itself had shut down…
http://capitalresearch.org/2016/01/filthy-dirty-clean-energy/
120
Looks like its bigger than credit card fraud.
Here is a story of how easy it is to get rich, and caught, and this is ripping off financial institutions and not the regular Jo.
30
Firstly, “The Market” is not free if it is not free for all. Each and every act by government is a corruption of The Market, and each and every criminal act is a corruption of the market one way or another. If there is no government organised criminals will manage the market.
Note a key sentence in this story: “Every fake market we set up is a feeding lot for corruption and friends-of-the-mafia.” (i.e. organised crime.)
But not just organised crime. In The Market there are two kinds of players. Those who play the system to their best advantage, (not necessarily improper), and those who, to their disadvantage, just tag along.
The difference in those comparative advantages is greatly increased with the size of the corruption in the regulation.
Here, though, there is the other factor that the artificially created market has no sound base, and will ultimately collapse. To the advantage of some players an with huge disadvantage to most.
60
I’ll have a go.
A V.A.T. scam run by bankers
ended with very few thankers.
The carbon tax paid
prompted a cop raid.
What a bunch of complete… rascals.
[And we have a winner! #333,333 (Sorry I was out). Close Annie, very close, but Andrew takes it. And mysteriously the computer ate the chicken dinner sniper. 😉 – Jo]
110
My sneaky strategy has had mixed results. I had quickly put together a Limerick to post in the hope it would get the coveted 333333rd place.
My script showed me the counter was at 333331 and I got sick of waiting for someone to post #333332 so I tried to do that myself. I used my phone to post a pre-emptive comment to an older thread to bump the counter one place, hoping I could then immediately post my Limerick to this current thread and claim the Nine-Threes throne.
Oh what a twisted web we weave!
Due to some combination of page caching, moderation delays, and plain bad luck, it seems Annie was posting a comment just before I posted mine. It looks like the sniper comment I made intended as merely a decoy has turned out to be the 333333rd comment.
I await the judge’s final decision.
—
The judge likes the Limerick. Well done. — Jo
70
Gah. Not nine threes, I meant Six Threes.
It’s like the ship that made the Kessel Run in 14 parsecs.
70
Andrew:
The Millennium Falcon is a friend of mine. I know the Millennium Falcon. You, sir, are NO Millennium Falcon.*
And, BTW, I made the Kessel run in 13.9 parsecs!
Vlad
*Apology to Lloyd Bentsen
40
The Chicken Dinner Sniper disappeared? In hindsight I thought it was oddly appropriate for a story about a rigged market.
No sooner has one Chicken Dinner assertion disappeared than a new claim on Chicken Dinner takes its place. 😉
I’ll accept KFC, I’m not fussy.
I assure the gathered Senators that I will surrender these 333333 powers as soon as the present state of emergency is over.
Aaaannd it’s over.
Move along, move along, nothing to see here.
40
A comment to line up six threes,
Is as rare as money on trees,
But Andrew claimed nine,
Adding three to the line,
Could take two thousand years to please.
110
Gosh, really? Nearly 333,333. I wasn’t even thinking about it! I was too busy reading the previous thread and had forgotten the milestone was due. Annie.
PS I have a habit of photographing our car milestones…it is in miles too; it’s now well past 100001.
40
fake fixed und frau Deutsche
There seems to be a lot of ‘F’s recently….. 😮
30
Jo
O/T but FYI
“The climate alarmists have come up with a brilliant new excuse to explain why there has been no “global warming” for nearly 19 years.
Turns out the satellite data is lying.”
More at
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/15/climate-alarmists-invent-new-excuse-the-satellites-are-lying/
70
“In 2015, the world invested a record $US329 billion in renewable energy.
But in Australia, the RET – the country’s primary policy mechanism – has attracted just $15 million in investment in nearly two years.
The data, from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, confirms that since the Abbott government announced its review into the RET in early 2014, the scheme has been at a standstill.”
Australia snubs 1st major post-Paris summit after killing renewables target (reneweconomy.com)
. . .
Bringing a new meaning to the words “unprecedented” and “stupidity”.
70
comment on WUWT’s Tips & Notes:
richardscourtney
January 15, 2016 at 3:41 am
Anthony:
Prof Bob Carter has had a heart attack and is in an induced coma (info. from Bob’s wife, Anne).
Richard
[Our hopes and prayers for him, his recovery, and for his family. .mod]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-notes-2/
130
Sad news indeed.
100
If true then I too give my support for his full and speedy recovery
60
I think you speak for all of us.
90
My wife was in an induced coma for 8 days in late 2009. She now has a “porcine” Mitral valve, an ICD, and a damaged heart. Considering all things, she is doing great now.
Our best wishes, John & Nancy
60
good news:
14 Jan: Bloomberg: Chris Martin: SolarCity Slumps on Nevada Rooftop Fees, Plan to Sell Plants
Nevada affirmed increased fees on solar homes Wednesday
SolarCity Corp. fell the most in 10 weeks after Nevada regulators affirmed a decision that’s threatening the development of solar rooftops in the state, and analysts at AllianceBernstein Holding LP said management is planning to sell interests in some power plants to fund new development…
At a hearing late on Wednesday, Nevada utility regulators upheld fees on solar rooftops that took effect Jan. 1. That’s prompting developers including SolarCity to exit the state, eliminating what had been a growing and lucrative market. It’s one of several solar companies and industry groups that requested a rehearing on the decision.
Another drag on the stock came from Bernstein analyst Hugh Wynne, who raised concerns with management about how the company plans to raise funds to maintain its rapid growth…
In a first transaction, he (Wynne) expects a sale to institutional investors of leases or power-purchase agreements “representing the value of 100 to 200 megawatts of new solar systems,” raising $150 million to $300 million…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/solarcity-slumps-on-nevada-rooftop-fees-potential-plant-sales
50
snow a thing of the past?
Moscow sends out 15,000 snow-clearing vehicles to clear Moscow’s streets:
VIDEO: 1min41secs: 14 Jan: BBC: Cold War: How Moscow gets rid of snow
Snow storms have hit central Russia this week, including the capital Moscow, where nearly half the January norm fell in just one day.
The BBC’s Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg braved the cold to see how the authorities have been coping with all that snow.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35304216
according to Rosenberg, the Moscow snow gets broken up and cleaned and ends up in the Moscow River. check the ice-breakers in the Moscow River plus a great pic of a tourist boat. Picture Gallery is very easy to navigate:
13 Jan: Sputnik News: Winter Fairy Tale in Moscow
Sputnik presents a gallery of images of the Russian capital covered with a snow blanket.
Despite the heavy snowfall, no roads in the city were shut down.
PIC: Above: Two ice breakers move along the frozen Moskva River with the Kremlin in the background during snowfall in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, January 12, 2016.
PIC: Above: A tourist boat with a restaurant aboard, especially designed for ice-covered rivers, cruises the frozen Moskva River in Moscow, Russia, Monday, January 4, 2016.
http://sputniknews.com/photo/20160113/1033043751/moscow-snowfall-weather-photos.html
60
Great links. Thank you. I love Moscow but am now determined to avoid winter everywhere. You can have enough of cold and dark and ice but it is so pretty in photos with lights. London would be closed down. St. Petersburg is even more amazing but again I avoid the winter. At 60 North, it is pitch black in winter. You can miss winter, but that is a failure of memory and what you can remember is the joy of spring.
On ‘extreme events’, perhaps the coldest winters in the last 150 years were during the 1812 invasion by Napoleon, the 1855 Crimean war (Balaclavas were invented) and Hitler’s 1941 attack on Moscow when the devastating winter appeared the very day it was needed. Great people. Tough people, stoic and fatalistic. Someone was looking after them but it shows how averages do not work as predictors. These days, the sudden extreme cold each time would be understood to be the result of a slight increase in tiny CO2. Thanks IPCC, or is someone just making it up?
71
“Moscow snow gets broken up and cleaned and ends up in the Moscow River”
USA cities used to dump snow in rivers without cleaning it. The “stuff” from the streets (oil and …?) was a bit of a bother for things that lived in the rivers. I don’t know that this is done now. Snow gets piled up in vacant lots.
Boston’s Biggest Snow Pile
30
Most of the usual suspects have given up pushing Global Warming. You never hear of it, unless Tim Flannery tells us every bushfire is proof he is right at last, when he is not at his beach house on the Hunter river.
Global Warming’s spawn Climate Change and Extreme Events have entered the language. In the papers, we had ‘extreme’ wind in Melbourne this week, which was only 100km/hr gusts for a short time, nothing by the standards of the Chinooks in Colorado which blow as hard for three entire days at the start of spring and the huge tumble weeds, balls of razor wire fly though the plains, adapted to the wind. Still everything which was normal but unusual is now ‘extreme’. It is also someone’s fault which can only be fixed by taxation, prohibition and regulation and more government borrowing and spending.
So we have taxes on everything to pay for desalination, new light bulbs, people ringing all the time to offer ‘free’ LEDs or ‘free’ power boards or ‘free’ balloons in chimneys. Then other subsidized things you do not want and we know that nothing in life is ‘free’.
The intrusion of government into every aspect of our lives is frightening. All in our own best interests of course, as decided by someone else you do not know who has never asked your opinion. Now at a country level, politicians from around the world were Paris to decide how they were going to save the planet but you have to be suspicious when Robert Mugabe, banned from even entering Europe, leads the African delegation. These people were there to save us? Now that’s laughable. As Joh Bjelke Petersen would say, Climate Change is just to ‘feed the chooks’.
It is a power grab by the mighty UN. So was unseating Tony Abbott and Stephen Harper as was predicted by Lord Monckton and proudly supported by our fifth column publicly owned but utterly irresponsible ABC and SBS. We need Tony Abbott back. His political assassination was long planned, a Shakespearean tragedy like Julius Ceasar. Et tu Julie?
110
That 13% swing away from the Libs in the North Sydney bye-election,tells me that Turdbull and the other “Treasonous”Libs may be in for a shock at the next election.We the “People” are “Not amused”at their antics.
20
15 Jan: ReutersCarbonPulse: Ben Garside/Mike Szabo: EU Market: Carbon prices crash through €7 to post another 10% weekly drop, enter bear market
EU carbon hit a 10-month low on Friday to continue the rocky start to 2016, which has wiped almost 20% off EUA prices since the end of 2015.
The Dec-16 EUA contract trading on ICE settled down 41 cents or 5.8% at €6.72, just off the intraday bottom of €6.68 – the lowest price seen since Mar. 17, 2015…
On a weekly basis, the front-year futures posted a 9.9% drop for a second straight week…
Prices are now down some 23% from their 2015 high of €8.78. Any financial instrument that falls more than 20% from its peak is by definition considered to have entered bear market territory…
http://carbon-pulse.com/14247/
20
Off topic but very topical.
The 40,000-Mile Volcano
A read that supports a lot of Skeptics contentions that the heat generated deep down in the global oceans through at least one medium, the Earths mid ocean volcanic ridges might have a significant effect on the global heat balance.
And the amazing levels of deep ocean life that uses sulphur from volcanic vents and hot springs with water temperatures measured at 780 F [ “F” ? ] as the prime energy source to support their species existence.
The same volcanic vents and huge fields of extreme temperature springs where bacteria can be found in water at 250F are a characteristic of the immense in length rift valleys of the deep Mid Ocean Ridge which girdles the planet.
Sulphur consuming life forms are being found everywhere along the Mid Ocean Ridges a few kilometres down in the darkness and pressures of the world’s oceans
And in another part of the deep oceans, methane consuming life forms such as tube worms and other bizarre creatures who live not on Sulphur, but rely on the deep ocean methane and oil seeps from the increasingly suspected very deep oil source rocks now found to be very deep down below all of the World’s significant oil fields.
A deep crustal oil source whose size is completely unknown but is now increasingly believed to be of an extent that makes a complete mockery of all the so called expert’s claims about the Earth’s oil reserves running out within decades.
Oil Fields Are Refilling…Naturally – Sometimes Rapidly;
There Are More Oil Seeps Than All The Tankers On Earth
90
‘F’…Fahrenheit scale of temperature. 32F is 0C and 212F is 100C.
10
the shameless exploitation of children by CAGW activists “Our Children’s Trust” rolls on:
15 Jan: ClimateChangeNews: Alex Pashley: Big oil lines up to battle kids in climate court case
The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), the American Petroleum Institute (API), and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) joined the US government in the case on Wednesday, after a magistrate in the Oregon district court agreed an adverse ruling would be a threat to their business…
The trade associations, who will act with “one unified voice” called the case a “direct, substantial threat to [their] businesses,” according to a statement by the organisation assisting the youth, Our Children’s Trust…
Julia Olson, Executive Director for Our Children’s Trust, a counsel in the litigation, said the trade groups will have to face ***science-based evidence in a courtroom, “not in the halls of Congress where their lobbying dollars hold the most clout”.
“This case asks the court to order what the industry fears most: a national plan using ***the best science to leave a nation of clean air and a healthy climate to our kids.”…
The federal government has filed a motion to dismiss the case, which the trade groups can support. The judge set 9 March as the next court date to hear the oral arguments…
Our Children’s Trust is sponsoring suits on behalf of young people in several states.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/01/15/big-oil-lines-up-to-battle-kids-in-court/
15 Jan: ReutersCarbonPulse: Stian Reklev/Mike Szabo: Oregon lawmakers introduce cap-and-trade bill, but success seen doubtful
Two Oregon state senators on Thursday introduced draft legislation that would establish a state-wide cap-and-trade scheme from 2020, but sources said the bill stands little chance of surviving.
The Healthy Climate Act, introduced by Democrats Chris Edwards and Lee Beyer, would establish a carbon market to help Oregon meet a target of cutting GHG emissions to 75% below 1990 levels by 2050…
But a legislative source told Carbon Pulse that, in light of a recent agreement between the state’s largest utilities and environmental campaigners to all but phase out the use of coal-fired power by 2030, he would be surprised if the Edwards-Beyer bill made it out of committee.
The bill is expected to meet the same fate as several similar efforts to price Oregon’s CO2 that were tabled last year…
FACTFILE: Oregon has a single coal-fired power plant, which already scheduled to close by 2020…
http://carbon-pulse.com/14245/
30
Bewdy!
I can’t wait for the judge to rule that all coal fired power plants must close down, and all cars must be removed from the roads.
Then this whole thing will just disappear.
Tony.
110
Modern coal fired power station produce very little real pollution.
Steam and highly beneficial plant-life sustaining CO2 are about all.
There is no reason whatsoever to close any modern ones down.
What they should do is use the so-called “green fund” to update older power stations to new standards.
The efficiency gains, always a plus, would have way more effect on CO2 emissions than any FALSE benefit of so-called “renewables”, or as I call them , “non-alternative, non-energy”.
91
The alternative transport must be Horses, and then we could experience real poolution.
40
Dennis @ #33.1.2
Some REAL pollution from the pre-auto past ;
[ more.>>]
Above quoted from; From Horse Power to Horsepower
————————
There truly are some very dumb bas***ds in the greens whose ignorance of history is only surpassed by their shoe sized IQ’s.
“Ban all cars” policy of UK Green Party likely to be scrapped
61
That Green would have sat on the committee that once decided that all vehicles should drive on the right hand side of roads in Ireland.
Their plan was to stagger the changeover to avoid confusion, on a Monday all cars would move to the right and when the drivers became used to it trucks and buses would move to the right one week later.
70
Production from five acres per horse per year.
Sounds about right.
My father farmed 640 acres in Manitoba using about 24 Percherons, prior to the John Deere he purchased in 1929.
Percherons were the draft horse of preference on prairie farms in both Canada and the USA.
In the 1920’s there were more Percherons in North America than all other breeds combined.
At five acres per animal, that would account for production from about 100 of those 640 acres.
This was before my time, but I can recall him saying that one working horse could eat as much as three Hereford steers.
50
We had Clydesdales.
I think the Percherons are a big bigger horse but Clydesdales were fairly universal here in the Australian grain belt of those horse powered times.
The dozen or so Clydesdales of the horse team was sent on agistment during the 1944 drought when the feed ran out locally, to considerable tears from my Old Man as a lot of farmers loved their horses ands they were often treated almost as pets, each with their own personality.
They were destined never to return and were replaced in late 1944 by a Massey 102 Senior model tractor on would you believe, rubber tires instead of the standard extremely rough riding steel wheels and grippers.
Rubber tractor tyres were an almost unheard of luxury in Australian farming during those desperate war years.
I know as a small boy probably about 4 or so years old, I got a father of a hiding from my Old Man for playing in the dry horse manure in and around the feet of a dozen of those big horses with their 25 centimetre across hooves.
They seemed to know that they should be very careful where they stepped when that small boy was playing around amongst their feet.
60
ROM
Cue a Norma Murphy song about here?
30
There were some Percherons in the WA wheatbelt. They were from France originally. I noticed that there is a Percheron Society in Australia now.
40
We had some Clydesdales some years ago. They were wonderful horses. I also like the Shire horse. One great treat while we were in England was to see the Heavy Horses at the Three Counties Show at Malvern…I really miss it.
10
Great post. I remember the story of the Victoria houses, the Brownstones in New York for example, that they always had steps so that you could enter well above the manure level. I have found in Victoria that bluestone foundations were half buried and half above the earth, to lift the whole house in the air.
WW2 ended the domination of the horse. Even the Nazi blitzkreig or lighting war entered Russia with millions of horses. When the Russians came back the same way, they rode much faster on US Plymouth trucks. The day of the horse was ending. Mass production after the war, especially of the Volkswagen, finished the era. To listen to the Greens, you would think life was somehow paradise before oil and manufacturing and automated agriculture. Only an inner city bureaucrat or public servant could think that as they walk up their bluestone steps to get out of the manure.
60
desperate to get that “carbon bubble” going as the stock market tanks!
you have to laugh:
15 Jan: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: City slickers eye up growing climate finance sector
Green bonds, clean energy and efficient infrastructure offer vast potential in a market one banker describes as ’50 shades of green’
“Green is a buzzword but it is set to become everyday business.”
HSBC’s global head of capital financing (Spencer Lake) is speaking at London’s Mansion House on Thursday – a short hop from the Bank of England – at the launch of a UN-backed green finance report.
He’s not alone…
Elizabeth Corley, CEO of Allianz Global Investors, believes last month’s UN climate pact in Paris had sent a strong message to global investors…
***“This matters to pandas and polar bears but we are doing it for our shareholders,” says Steve Waygood, chief responsible investment officer for Aviva…
Clean energy finance appears in rude health, judging by new data from Bloomberg…
The International Energy Agency says $53 trillion needs to be invested in energy alone to avoid dangerous levels of global warming.
According to the UN, between $5-7 trillion a year is needed to ensure the 17 newly agreed Sustainable Development Goals are implemented across the next 15 years…
***“There is a dearth of understanding globally on how these issues can affect cashflow and pensions,” he (Aviva’s Steve Waygood) adds…
***UNEP chief, Achim Steiner: “The centre of gravity is shifting… stock markets committed to sustainability doubled in 2015,” he says.
“It is the beginning of a race to the top among leading finance centres. We are at the cutting edge of green innovation.”
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/01/15/green-was-a-buzzword-but-now-city-bankers-are-hovering/
30
Perhaps they meant city banks are hoovering, not hovering.:)
30
CAGW dreaming at Playboy!
13 Jan: Playboy: Robert Rath: ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 3’ is Right: Climate Change is a National Security Problem
Call of Duty: Black Ops III takes place in a climate change nightmare—a future with rising oceans, droughts, and superstorms changing the political landscape. Resource wars tear northern Africa apart as Ethiopian dams cut off Egypt’s access to the Nile. Singapore, vulnerable due to its low-lying geography, gets ravaged by typhoons on a regular basis.
Though this may seem like science fiction, it’s a future that U.S. defense planners increasingly believe is just around the corner. Indeed, some academics believe we’re already living in the age of climate change wars.
A PRESSURE COOKER HEATING UP
VIDEO: Trailer…
Strangely enough, after years of political rancor and denialism, there’s something comforting about the flooded cities and empty reservoirs of Black Ops III. Sure the planet’s boned—like, forget-prevention-let’s-just-mitigate-it boned—but at least everyone acknowledges it’s a real problem. No one’s throwing snowballs in congress. There’s no Trump tweeting that global warming is a lie invented by the Chinese. The infuriating dissonance between scientific findings and political rhetoric no longer exists.
By 2065 we’re finally taking action—even if it’s too late.
http://www.playboy.com/articles/call-of-duty-black-ops-3-is-right-climate-change-is-a-national-security
30
yes, panic has set in:
14 Jan: Guardian: Larry Elliott: Climate change disaster is biggest threat to global economy in 2016, say experts
A catastrophe caused by climate change is seen as the biggest potential threat to the global economy in 2016, according to a survey of 750 experts conducted by the World Economic Forum.
The annual assessment of risks conducted by the WEF before its annual meeting in Davos on 20-23 January showed that global warming had catapulted its way to the top of the list of concerns…
The report, prepared by the WEF in collaboration with risk specialists Marsh & McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group, comes a month after the deal signed in Paris to reduce carbon emissions. The WEF said evidence was mounting that inter-connections between risks were becoming stronger. It cited links between climate change and involuntary migration or international security, noting that these often had “major and unpredictable impacts”…
When asked which risk was most likely to materialise in 2016, respondents chose large-scale involuntary migration…
Drzik (John Drzik, president of Marsh Global Risk and Specialties) said at the press conference: “Most risks are rising. It’s a riskier world right now.”
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/14/climate-change-disaster-is-biggest-threat-to-global-economy-in-2016-say-experts
15 Jan: Greenpeace: Greenpeace International announces new co-Executive Directors
Greenpeace International has today named not only its first female International Executive Director, but two. Jennifer Morgan and Bunny McDiarmid will take up the reins in an innovative co-leadership role on 4 April 2016.
Bunny is a 30-year veteran of the organisation as an activist, ship’s crewmember, and most recently the executive director of Greenpeace New Zealand which, under her leadership, became a powerhouse of innovation in the Greenpeace world…
Jennifer (Morgan) has walked the corridors of power. As Global Director of the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute she’s dealt with heads of state and CEOs. She’s been a leader of large teams at major organisations, a climate activist, and a constant innovator. Her other ports of call have included the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Climate Action Network, and E3G…
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/International-Executive-Director/
60
Pat
And this doesn’t count?
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/01/what-could-poss-36.html
and link
10
Don’t you love the threat of ‘Climate Change’. What Climate Change? What climate is changing? The North pole? Is that it? That happens regularly, according to history. Steady sea level rises have been going on since the last ice age. Really, in what area of Australia for Australia is the climate changing, or America. Is every hot year climate change? Is every cold year climate change? Does Al Gore’s law mean any change in an average is a sign of imminent disaster. Besides, why is a change automatically a disaster? Some people would love it a degree or two warmer all year. Are we allowed have exceptionally hot or cold or wet or stormy or dry years without raising a tax? Even the IPCC admit the ‘global’ temperature has not changed.
So what Climate Change? What threat? How can people talk about Climate Change without ever explaining what they mean?
41
Off Topic, but in my opinion a very important subject;
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2016/01/europes-betrayal-of-women-.html
20
Worse:
http://gatesofvienna.net/2016/01/austria-your-future-has-arrived/#comments
20
Frightening situation Ian;
Fascinating, revealing information from one of the highest-ranking Austrian police officers. He told me the police force has given up. There is no way for them to do anything meaningful. This sentiment runs from the top down and the bottom up.
He also told me that all the scenarios cover some kind of violence. Civil war, in other words. There is no peaceful solution at all!
He said that people should have listened to those who warned them over and over again. Now there is no way out, nothing to be done. The tsunami is rolling. There’s no stopping it.
A chilling conversation. Oh, and he also told me to rifle up…
41
It always comes down to the money doesn’t it. Who gets it and who pays it. Where there’s money to be gained there will always be graft and corruption.
This became all the more clear at Paris, when it was proclaimed to be a great success when it will do nothing to mitigate co2 emissions (even though we know of course that co2 emissions pose no threat.) Only the truest of the true believers, of AGW cared about that. What was celebrated most of all was the prospect of perpetual future funding of the UN agendas and of the carbon trading schemes and rackets.
Politicians of most stripes are always looking for a revenue generator. A golden goose. Energy taxes, transportation taxes, and most of all in our times carbon dioxide taxes are very attractive to these types.
It is always wrapped up in the flags of morality, with catch phrases like: environmental justice, and helping the poor adapt to climate change. However, as pointed out above, it’s the poor and you and I that will pay the most in terms of fuel poverty and higher costs of hydrocarbon fuels, that will will still rely upon for decades to come.
Amoral politicians do not care, because they can sell it that they making big oil, the “polluters”, and and the “evil corporations” pay. Meanwhile these hidden regressive taxes keeps the Government Class living high. High living on the backs of the poor and the workers of the world.
But corporations do not pay. These costs are always passed on.
Equally immoral is subsidizing renewable energy. As has been pointed out recently, this is subsidizing the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class.
40
A problem I see with international carbon trading is that you are hitching your energy cost to a foreign currency.
If your economy tanks and your currency devalues, (which usually helps right the problem by making your exports cheaper) at least part of your cost of production (associated with carbon credits) increases directly in proportion to the devaluation.
50
The problem with trading in carbon dioxide is that most of it is natural.
40
Maybe it could be bottled and sold as nature’s own?
30
Can anyone spell Enron??? This is exactly the kind of fraud that was at the root of Enron… all enables by gullible politicians and their green hysteria enablers…
40
FB
#36.1 as emphasis?
20
In reply to ROM comment #32 , oil is most probably not a fossil fuel, it was the Rockefellers that had it classified as a fossil fuel back before the start of the 20th century . They wanted oil to be thought of as being a finite resource ( like gold etc ) so they could make a higher profit from selling it , so classifying oil as a product of dinosaur bones etc suited their purpose , with carbon trading they are selling thin air or effectively ” nothing ” and ” nothing” is a infinitely abundant (non)substance , so they can only make a demand and a profit from it by forcing customers to buy it via legislation and rigging a artificially high price , so ROM you were not really of topic .
20
Remind me again why this is a surprise to anyone?
00
Nothing original, but the UN when set up was specifically protected in law from any malfeasance.
There is currently a word of wisdom from the UN that National Governments ensure 2 things.
Firstly, pass laws that exclude politicians from becoming personally liable for anything like their stance on Climate Change.
Secondly, pass laws protecting businesses that take funds on Climate Change amelioration contracts from being sued for losses “because the funds are committed to a problem that may take 70years to have the science resolved.’
From the horse’s mouth, I believe that says everything about the present state of play. It says make sure you legally cover all ‘asses’ before the game is finally exposed and time is up for the fraud.
Science is no longer needed to prove the crime. The real world temperatures and the uncertainty of what is to come soon make cover ups the essence for anyone involved in pushing this [snip].
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