Enron was jubilant when the Kyoto agreement was put forward
Here’s a legacy exhibit from the historical annals of How the Global Warming Scam Grew. You can see the cogs of the industrial machine picking up the “green theme”, becoming patrons of eco-legislation, and pouring money and influence into any big-government scheme that also promises them big profits. This is exactly the unholy alliance of Big-Finance with Big-Government that I described in the Climate Scare Machine Map. The email below documents one part of that self-fulfilling cycle where the taxpayers and citizens get screwed, corporates and politicians win, and the environment is irrelevant. The Greens ought be ashamed their naivety and ambition was so easily gamed by the real powers-behind-the-scenes.
Robert Bradley Jr. was working for Enron in 1998, and saw Enron lobbying for profits in the green sector. Bradley’s name was on the “to” list of this email below (perhaps with the wrong address because it did not arrive). He only saw the email when another man asked Bradley what he thought of it, and Bradley asked him to forward the message.
See Master Resource for the full email. Here are some key snippets.
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From: John Palmisano
Date: December 12, 1997
Subject: Implications of the Climate Change Agreement in Kyoto & What Transpired
Implications
If implemented, this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States. The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous. In addition, a carbon emissions trading system will be developed. While the trading system will be implemented by 2008, I am sure that reductions will begin to trade with 1-2 years. Finally, Enron has immediate business opportunities which derive directly from this agreement.
The endorsement of joint implementation within Annex-1 is exactly what I have been lobbying for and it seems like we won.
On the business front: During the next year there will be intense positioning of organizations to capture an early lead in a variety of carbon trading businesses.
The clean development will be a mechanism for funding renewable projects. Again, we won. (We need to push for natural gas firing to be included among the technologies that get preferential treatment from the fund.)
The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us.
Enron was busy cultivating influence with the Green patsies it wanted to use to make money:
Through our involvement with the climate change initiatives, Enron now has excellent credentials with many “green” interests including Greenpeace, WWF, NRDC, GermanWatch, the US Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI, and Worldwatch. This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monetized).
We can see how the Greens kid themselves that they are being influential. They think a corrupt entity is being a good corporate citizen:
(Parenthetically, I heard many times people refer to Enron in glowing terms. Such praise went like this: “Other companies should be like Enron, seeking out 21st century business opportunities” or “Progressive companies like Enron are….” Or “Proof of the viability of market-based energy and environmental programs is Enron’s success in power and SO2 trading.”)
The deal may not have happened if it weren’t for “Brussels” dragging in individual countries
The EU negotiated as a group. Until two years ago, they negotiated as individual countries. While there are still individual country interests, the EU retains substantial power when working together. It was this cohesiveness that lead to a more stringent agreement.
The US knows what a real free market is, everyone else was hijacking it:
EU delegates asked for my input into the agreement to oppose some of the positions espoused by some US delegates. In particular, the US was advocating no rules governing the trading of carbon emissions because rules would “inhibit trading.” My position is that rules defining who owns what reductions, how reductions are traded, how they are tracked, and liability rules will help promote trading since rules give both buyers and sellers more confidence in the commodity.
Someone somewhere with play the “rascist” weapon to silence dissent against their profit making plan:
An increasingly ugly trend has become evident to the environmental NGO community and the delegates from developing countries. They see the argument about developing country participation as a thinly disguised recycling of the early twentieth century fear-mongering characterized by the so-called “yellow-peril” or invasion of the US by Asian peoples.
This agreement will be good for Enron stock!!
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UPDATE:
Bradley’s book on political capitalism sounds a lot more appealing than its title suggests
Capitalism at Work: Business, Government and Energy (Political Capitalism)
Book description: “Capitalism took the blame for Enron. Yet Enron was anything but a free-market enterprise, and company-architect Ken Lay was hardly a principled capitalist. On the contrary, Enron was a politically dependent company and, in the end, a grotesque outcome of America s modern mixed economy.
That is the central finding of Robert L. Bradley s Capitalism at Work: The blame for Enron rests squarely with political capitalism – a system in which business interests routinely obtain, and employ government intervention for their own interests at the expense of consumers, taxpayers, and competitors. Although Ken Lay professed allegiance to free markets, he was in fact a consummate politician. Only by manipulating the levers of government was Enron transformed from a $3 billion natural gas company to a $100 billion chimera, one that went from seventh place on the Fortune 500 list to bankruptcy.
But Capitalism at Work goes beyond unmasking Enron s sophisticated foray into political capitalism. Employing the timeless insights of Adam Smith, Samuel Smiles, and Ayn Rand, among others, Bradley shows how fashionable anti-capitalist doctrines set the stage for the ultimate business debacle. Those errant theories, like Enron itself, elevated form over substance, ignored legitimate criticism, and bypassed midcourse correction. Political capitalism was thus more than the handiwork of profit-hungry businessmen and power-hungry politicians. It was a legacy of failed scholarship. “
[…] Ο Καναδάς η πρώτη χώρα που αποσύρεται από την ΠΑΡΑΣΙΤΙΚΗ Συνθήκη τού Κιότο. Enron called Kyoto “a victory for us” in 1997… […]
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Yes, it is very worrying stuff – there are so many things that can kill you, and how will civilisation survive? It is all Greek to me …
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It’s easy to see from this that some ‘organisations’ were on the ball as to how easy Kyoto would be to ‘scam’.
COP3 at Kyoto was held in December of 1997, and as you can see from the above information from Enron, it was dated Dec 12 1997.
I’m sure Enron were not alone in doing this, almost as much as I am certain that some of those organisations actually had teams ‘working’ on how to ‘use’ the protocol, not for the sake of the environment, but as a money making, or even money laundering mechanism.
All that needed to be done then was to ‘cultivate’ Green leaning groups, lobby politicians, push hard, and then sit back and watch the money roll in, of course, minus their cut, and minus cuts for, er, ‘palm greasing’ if I can be so bold.
Admitted, Enron failed due to over extension, but I’m certain smaller Companies have indeed flourished.
Now, when the talk is in hundreds of billions of dollars, how easy would it be to ‘siphon’ even millions.
The Kyoto mechanisms actually ticked off all the boxes for these Companies.
The only people who really ‘did have’ a clue about what Kyoto actually called for were in fact these Companies. The politicians then fell in line.
Now that we have an inkling about what the implications might be, Countries are pulling back.
At the start, something like Kyoto was ‘airy fairy’ and idealistic, so politicians asked business if it could actually be doable, and going on what is detailed above, you tell me what the advice to those politicians would have been.
Hype up the Science aspect that no one even understood, mention that monetary mechanisms are the only ‘real’ way to make it work, after all, er, “Let the market decide” became the meme.
Now that most of the ‘money making’ mechanisms are already in place, those raking in the big bucks don’t really care if they pull back from Kyoto, because NOW, it’s political.
It was NEVER about the environment.
It was always about the money.
Now, and you only have to look at what is said. Ordinary people ‘justify’ their stance, not on any regard for the environment, but almost solely on which side of politics they follow. Ask the average guy in the Street what Kyoto actually called for, and if you get any answers, none of them will be what Kyoto actually said.
Each Country was asked to lower emissions to a level 5 to 7% lower than what they were in 1990.
Not one Country of the 194 signatories has even gotten close to that, and each COP each year now sees those original demands watered down.
Consider this.
If Kyoto is extended, as we are told, then that original demand still stands.
Trust me.
NO COUNTRY WILL EVER ACHIEVE this one thing.
The rest of the demands, as I have detailed elsewhere are the sticking points that will ensure Kyoto is never extended beyond its expiry at the end of 2012, and NOTHING like Kyoto will ever get up again.
They can spin all they like.
People are beginning to see the light.
Tony.
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First comment Tony, you must be on Jo’s speed dial? 🙂
I found it amusing that ExxonMobil Australia’s main objection to the Carbon ETS was that they (an oil company) would be paying through the nose (less any emission reductions) whereas many other companies without a huge CO2-huffing infrastructure would be gaming the scheme to make money from the ETS at ExxonMobil’s expense. How do I know this? It was one of the joint select committee submissions that did get accepted and published… though as mere lip-service to democracy of course.
Truth from Big Oil, whodathunkit?
It is also worth remembering that the top four funding pools for climate science research in the world are 1) the IPCC (including USA, UK, Australia, etc), 2) the Chinese academy of science, 3) the Russian academy of science, and 4) India. Well of those four groups only one of them has scientists who supported the global warming scare.
India told the IPCC (and their countryman Pachauri) to bog off after Glaciergate.
The Chinese have never believed CAGW, and with their written historic and paleoclimatological records really (ahem) taking the heat out of global warming they were unlikely to believe such nonsense.
The Russians make noises about global warming at the top level but seems the only actions they take are to study the issue more and, since they recently launched a multi billion-dollar cluster of 4 satellites to monitor the Arctic (ostensibly in the name of studying climate change), for them the science isn’t settled. The head of their solar observatory department (Abdussamatov) has publicly predicted a LIA-esque global cooling for 2040…2060, implying that global warming is not a persistent threat in his view.
In so many ways the scientific support is found to be lacking and all the climate change warning signs are dollar signs.
I have to agree with one of the other commentators here (forget who) that this realisation that the entire CAGW project is being shepherded by groups with primarily rent-seeking motives means that it is fast becoming utter folly to continue to beat the dead horse of global warming science in the blogosphere. Disproving the manufactured consensus is still a heavy-going first step in unconverting the public, but we already know how to do that from everything discussed in the last 3 years. More activism and education (oh no, who do I sound like now??) is needed before the public critical mass can support a national abandonment of UNFCCC legal instruments and an intense rotten tomato volley at the public figures who have aided and abetted the scam.
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Isn’t it amazing how such a corrupt endeavour like Enrons’ influence can continue for so long after the rotten core of it’s corruption was exposed.
It was from the fall of Enron where CDOs and other mystically oblique rort vehicles stemmed from. “Carbon” trading inclusive.
What complete and utter stupidity that our dear leaders are still following Ken Lays lead.
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The full email is very interesting.
In my view, this is just one snapshot in a long-running discussion. One of the opening paragraphs says, “This memo summarizes the implications of the agreement reached in Kyoto and also describes what I was doing and provides some observations.”
The wording, and its flavour of informality, throughout the whole email, gives you the impression that there was an overall strategy they were playing to. The sender and recipient(s) have had many conversations in and around the strategy – they “wear” it – and they have had many discussions around the risks and opportunities associated with what they intend, and Kyoto was just a tactical engagement as part of that strategy.
This is commentary (it doesn’t have the gravitas of a “report”) on a tactical incident (i.e. Kyoto!), related to the strategy; what happened; how they responded; and what gains they made tactically.
These are major players, playing grown-up games, and for very high stakes, and they talk about it as if it were nothing. They are confident that they are in control – dangerous people.
Pity some of the senior management were economical with the truth when it came to their financial statements.
But when you compare this sense of purpose, with some of the stuff that comes out of the Environmental NGO’s, there is no comparison. No wonder the big business sees the conservation movement as simply being useful idiots.
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Wow! Useful idiots for both Marxists AND big business! They may as well walk around with a sign saying “idiot for hire”, except they’d do it for free.
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It’s far more interesting to look at this and compare it to something where Enron was successful – with California electricity de-regulation.
What was passed in California was supposedly a ‘de-regulation’ of the electricity market. But what, in reality, was passed was something that lobbyists essentially wrote to favor companies like Enron and that politicians put into law, despite readily admitting they didn’t really understand it. But hey! They were Enron and everyone thought they were wonderful! Look at business publications of the time and Enron was regularly named #1 company in America for all sorts of things, including innovation and progressive thinking.
Once the laws were in place, the scam went like this: Enron owned (directly and indirectly) both power generation and power transmission in California and neighbouring states.
They would simultaneously restrict supply (closing down generation) through co-ordinated ‘maintenance’ and then, hey presto! when demand overwhelmed supply, the price went up. And because you own both the remaining generators plus the transmission lines from the neighbouring state, you can make twice as much cash.
That might have been enough for your average type of profiteer, but – if you’re going to game the markets, why rest at just making money from power.
No, the real cream was made because electricity was now traded on a market. And whenever you have a tradeable instrument, you can construct a derivative instrument on top of that. Doesn’t matter whether it is an option, a futures contract, or just a plain old wager (otherwise known as contracts for difference). You don’t even need an exchange to trade these – just two people willing to enter a transaction (otherwise known as an ‘over the counter’ or OTC derivative).
Now, once you’ve got some derivatives in place, you can then restrict supply, drive the price up and then collect big-time on the derivatives. It makes match-fixing look like childs play.
This one strategy was enough to re-inflate Enron’s earnings for another two years and allow it to continue to play games with the finances of the company. Without California, it would have expired much sooner. It’s just a shame for those ordinary people who had to pay a fortune for power just to prop up a bunch of crooks.
This one single issue was the major reason for the Governor of California losing in the recall election that elected Arnold Schwarzenegger. Of course everyone blamed it on those pesky ‘free markets’ but in reality the reason was the general public were just pawns in a power and money making fixed game.
What does all this have to do with Carbon Trading?
Well, as the emails attest, the one thing that Enron specialised in was securitising markets and turning ordinary supply of things into tradeable commodities. And Carbon Dioxide was The Big One. Imagine a market that traded the very thing that every person on the planet used in just about every thing they did.
The market was structured exactly in the same opaque manner that the electricity market was. Nobody really understood it all. The big players were moving early to get themselves the big pieces of pie (the WWF et all were in this too, buying up Brazillian and Malaysian rainforest with backing from big banking). Then once the market was in place, pushing around the price would be a cinch. This was because the supply of carbon credits could be infinitely manipulated – they are literally created from thin air, after all. You just take a tree that has been growing for 50,100, 150 years. Then you promise not to cut it down. Hey presto! Carbon Credit created just like that.
With the supply side safely taken care of, it would be a cinch to also manipulate demand. Demand for carbon credits, after all, was a simple function of the government deciding who was required to purchase them. Demand a bit lagging? Easy fixed- just change from the top 500 companies to the top 600. Bingo! Demand is up.
Once it’s all together, just start trading derivatives. Purchase some 12 month options, dump some supply or generate some demand, and watch the price spike up, and collect your winnings. It’s like playing in a casino where you get to put the ball on the roulette wheel at your leisure.
The irony is I doubt the WWF et al were even aware of how they were being played. They probably believed their own BS and through they were saving the world. The truth is, like Californian legislators and voters, they were just being played in a much bigger game they weren’t really aware of.
The worst thing is that these crooks (like Ken Lay and others) always used capitalist talk to promote their plans. They did this because they needed ‘in vogue’ ideas to push their plans. But the resulting mess is nothing like capitalism, just cronyism and monopoly-formation by regulation. However the end result is that unthinking zealots tend to see ‘market’ and blame capitalism, when nothing could be further from the case.
Markets work extremely well when it’s a fair exchange : I give you money and you supply me electricity. But they are prone to manipulation and thus a strong rule of law is required to make sure the trust levels are high between participants. But when the rule of law is bent to allow one set of people to manipulate markets, the outcomes are never desirable.
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brc,
perfectly explained.
Now, move that across to Australia’s ETS when it comes in.
At the start of the year, The Government issues (sells) credits to the emitter in the equivalence of their target CO2 emissions for the year, and at the end of the year, that entity then has to return that same number of credits back to the Government. The Government sells them for a set rate, with a floor price if the bottom falls out of the price.
Structured so that there will be a set number of credit auctions during the year, those credits can then be bought and sold, provided the entity has the same number to return at the end of the year.
(There are penalties if emissions increase, and I have explained them elsewhere here at Joanne’s blog. International credits can also be bought via the CDM, another function of Kyoto, but if these are traded they are not worth as much as ‘home’ credits, and the same also applies at end of year return of credits, international credits valued so that the total credits must add up to what was issued at the start of the year.)
Consider the first auction after issue. Those credits will drop in value, and drop considerably.
Now take the auction close to handing in time, when entities will be scrambling for make up credits if they don’t have enough. The price will be considerably higher.
Now here’s where the Government issue comes into play. This issue occurs after that last auction, and the credit price the Government charges is hooked to that last auction price for credits.
Do not even consider trying to tell me that this market will not be manipulated, by everyone, Government included.
“Let the market decide!”
Yeah! Right!
Tony.
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Well, as I keep saying, ad nauseum, there already is a price for co2 / ton. Because we can pretty much buy and sell anything we want (even so-called illegal items like drugs) there is already a market price on everything. The market price reflects the supply and the demand, and varies over different places due to physical goods having different supply chains.
So we already have a price for co2 like we do for oranges, coal, diamonds, 98 octane unleaded fuel, harbourside real estate, pokemon characters and olympics tickets. Everything has a price, and that price is always the correct value (whether perceived as such or not)
So the price of a ton of co2 emission is not zero because some people genuinely want to buy the credits to assuage their climate guilt. Airlines sell offsets for about $20/ton for offsets, but nobody buys them because the price is too high. Most estimates are in the 1-2% range for takeup with airlines, which shows gross overpricing. Jetstar says it gets 20% takeup for Byron-Bay bound flights which shows that some people genuinely believe in this stuff, and good luck to them. I don’t wish voluntary payers ill anymore than I wish those who tithe into a collection plate ill will. You’re free to spend your money on whatever core belief you have.
So the price of co2/tonne isn’t exactly zero. But it’s not far above it.
Any attempts to manipulate this natural market through legislation and international agreements will ultimately fail.
And the attempt to use the term ‘market’ is both a orwellian double-speak to sell the idea (they might as well have called it ‘cuddly kittens’) and probably a long-term idea to destroy the idea of markets by labelling non-market solutions as market solutions, so that the anti-market types can turn around and say ‘see, the market doesn’t work’.
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I’ve just finished watching Greg Combet being interviewed by Chris Uhlmann on 7.30.
Oddly, the first thing that came to mind was the following Randy Newman song.
Big Hat No Cattle!!!!!
Tony.
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Hopefully Mr Combet will not be in parliament after the next election.
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It might be hard getting rid of him since he is in a “safe” electorate.
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Not so safe, according to local opinion. Charlton is a power generation/mining electorate with many tradies unimpressed by the carbon tax. Also, Combet was parachuted in by the machine men in 2007, and there are rumblings about him not representing the electorate’s interests.
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I watched some of that interview Tony, in amongst washing the kids in the bath!
What I saw was a complete buffoon! Out of his depth, with an ADAMS APPLE that cannot hide the lies he is telling!
You watch him next time, that Apple gives him away every time, it’s a classic!
He is an embarassment, he has never had a real job, and would not know how hard it is for me to pay me next Power Bill Tony and that’s what makes me so mad about this bloody Govt.!!!!!
Is there a Buddy Holly song that goes…”Going Down the Drain…?”
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The yarn ended with Uhlmann asking Combet about Plimer’s most recent book. His response was predictably condescending.
WHAT AN OPENING!
I’d pay good money to see a debate on facts between Plimer & Combet ( or any Federal politician for that matter) even if it was moderated by Tony Jones.
I suspect one of the protagonists would walk away feeling like he had had an encounter with an amorous porcupine with a pineapple fetish
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Hi Jo.
I think you’ve hit the gold here again! It’s so easy to see why the money-hungry companies and power-hungry politicians would game Kyoto.
It’s also easy to see why the naive green factions in all their different guises would fall into line and provide their support.
I can even understand why ‘green’ scientists would push the agenda (and the wider scientific community can get sucked in just by the way data is presented to them).
Even now, with the wheels coming off the whole ‘global warming/climate change’ meme, there is still huge momentum in the movement – and Kyoto will not die until that energy has dissipated. As we all know energy cannot be created or detroyed only transformed; so where is that energy going to go next?
The bit that I don’t get is, who had the first idea? Who is the spider in the middle of the web? In some ways I sort of admire them for creating this edifice but at the same I wish they’d [snip…”been stopped”] before they could perpetrate this scam on the rest of us. I don’t know much in this direction but to me the Sierra Club looks like a prime candidate.
Cheers.
NicG.
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Agreed. The snipped expression was a little too strong. Sorry.
NicG.
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Nic
In my opinion: To find the “spider” you need to go back to the days of the oil embargo’s and the wish of certain European countries to become much less dependent on OPEC oil. In those days, outside the US, production OPEC oil counted for something like 80% of the traded oil in the world.
Looking at the timing of the initial concept of “warming”, when government organizations were set up to push this notion, when politicians became involved (almost from the start) in the late 70’s, I believe it is difficult to come to any other conclusion. And of course in those days it was also believed that there would not be enough oil to last into the next century so in a sense the embargo’s brought home the future early. Something was needed to galvanize the population and to just say oil is going to run out or we want to get rid of OPEC would not have cut the cake.
For European politicians it became clear that energy independence was a must for any of them to remain a sovereign nation not held hostage to the whims of major oil producers ( read in that what you like). The US was also hit by the second embargo but they did have enough oil themselves, if they wanted to, for their own needs so the US did not have quite the same motivation as the Europeans to get rid of oil and let’s not forget that being a major oil buyer also gives you power.
Of course since then major oil and gas finds by some of those same countries and many more others elsewhere changed the thinking, but the cat was already out of the bag and of course, in theory at least, we must assume ( the greens should know what that stands for) that fossil fuels will eventually run out. Looking for alternatives in that sense will always remain a necessary evil.
Now it has morphed beyond rationality and too many countries see it as a money grab as do many NGO’s and others. Can you blame Enron and others for making the most of opportunities that present themselves and pushing issues along certain lines to optimize the returns? If it had not all started back in the late 70’s with this warming/ get rid of oil slogan the above email would likely never have been written and Enron would have had to pursue other avenues of making money, but making money is what they would have done. They probably would have been a major coal power generator.
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I agree, Jake. Good summary.
I think we also need to put this in the European perspective, especially that of the West Germans during the late ’60s and ’70s. If you will remember, they had a lot of trouble with “Acid Rain” bleaching and killing trees in the Black Forest. It was the first “major ecological catastrophe”, and would have made a great impression on young West Germans at that time. These children then grew up to become the senior German activists of today.
Combine that thought, with the political philosophy ingrained in the East Germans schooling system, and you get quite an interesting mix of attitudes upon the reunification of Germany.
It has always been my opinion that the political drive behind the modern manifestation of the climate-change movement is centred in Germany. Certainly many of the activists who turn up at the talk-fests are of German origin. Germany also provides much of the political drive in and for the EU, along with France. And the EU has ever been the poster child for Carbon Trading.
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The fact that Germany is so engaged in the Green movement is a legacy of the pair who started the Green Party (this was the pair that died in a murder suicide). Keep in mind that the pair who started the movement were in fact Marxists before they were Green.
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just some thoughts on your very well-stated ideas. The thing to remember here is that OPEC is an oligopoly. An oligopoly works in much the same way as a monopoly with the supplier dictating the price. In this case OPEC has been dictating both price and supply.
The difference now is that the USA is not producing as much oil as it has the capacity to produce because the Green movement has been busy locking up all of the mineral reserves. This means that rather than keeping prices down, they are steadily rising and affecting all of us.
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I have no problem with OPEC or the embargoes of the time, before those days the buyers basically set the price and that was next to nothing with even less left over for the producing countries. They flexed their muscle and won, included in that they started to get a reasonable return. Is the current price fair? Nothing to do with the argument really, but if you take inflation into account it is just about the same as in the early 80’s. The US is using their monopoly on military might while it lasts, makes it hard for anyone to say that OPEC should not have used their assets to their advantage while they could.
The problem we now face is that after the embargoes and the subsequent price hike Europe in particular got a shock with all the consequences we face today. Of course one could also conclude that an old and decapitated empire was smarting over the fact that ex colonies and protectorates had the audacity to dictate terms to them and virtually bring the economy of that empire to its knees. But that is looking from the continent across the water. No doubt the view was different from the empire before it struck back with a breath of hot air.
Add to that a European country that could never do much more then dream of real empires but loves everything to be centralized and in control of it all and the mix is complete.
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It just shows how naive (green) the environMENTAL NGOs are. They are full of people who are taken in by any money-making scam that they naively think will “save the planet”. Idiots all of them – but those at the top are wealthy idiots, those at the bottom are just gullible idiots.
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AGW was never about the environment. It was always about the struggle between the coal and natural gas industries to provide energy. The gas industry was cunning enough to co-opt science and the environmental movement as its’ mouthpiece.
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Apologies, off-topic. Senator Inhofe to debate with warmist markey http://junkscience.com/2011/12/12/nader-markey-inhofe-should-debate-climate/comment-page-1/#comment-16363
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Along the same lines Yandle points out what I call a “collusion of means”, where the motivations are entirely different but the chosen means are the same. I.e. both Baptists (patsies) and Bootleggers (Money Men) wanted alcohol banned (same means) but their motivations were entirely different. In the various eco scams the enviros are always the patsies, and the big finance houses or their industrial front companies are the bootleggers.
In these games, the means always rewards the money men and always disappoints the patsies. I.e. everyone still drank alcohol, CO2 is still being emitted, etc.
Another angle to this is that the patsies are always fundamentalist believers in “something” which is then exploited by cynical sharpies that make money out of directing the energy of the fundamentalists.
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The Australian reported the launching by John Howard of Ian Plimers book on questions to ask teachers. Half the short report was given over to a rebuttal by some UNSW member of the Climate Science faculty. Unfortunately it’s behind a paywall.
I suppose the report is balanced however the critique is a slur on Plimers facts and information or misinformation as the Uni climate scientist who happens to be a geologist calls it. He was not asked to give examples of the supposed errors and misinformation.
We still have a tough road to hoe and very little help from those who should be asking questions.
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Plimer went on ABC yesterday and had to tolerate a very rude interview from Tony Jones. He then went on “The Project” was asked some of the most dumb questions such as ‘Are you a climate sceptic?’
The vitriol I have read about Plimer and Howard was unbelievable. Just the baseless hate without any proper debate. It seems the alarmists seem to just throw the insults out when somthing goes their way.
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Apologies for the O/T
But Perth Australia’s first ghost metropolis has just past its rainfall average for the first time in 6 years.Could someone pass on the good news to Tim The Fool Man Flannery.
Also on the weather report on the ABC this morning the man from the BOM was asked by the presenter if he could give an early prediction of the weather for Christmas Day but he said he couldn’t because the models weren’t accurate enough that far out.I nearly wet myself laughing.
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Tims already heard the news rukidding and has said “I was mis-quoted!” “I meant to say, Perth will be the next water Metropolis!!”
Hahaha, ROFL….What a joke is our Climate Commisar!
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Jo,
What country is not deeper in debt than ever before?
And yet they want the “rich” countries to subsidize the poor.
From more people going into debt for this with higher taxes?
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“Westpac supports the implementation of a price on carbon …”
“AGL supports the Government’s intent to legislate for a carbon price…”
“Alinta Energy commends the government on the work completed thus far in drafting the Clean Energy Legislative Package…”
CFMEU “In conclusion we support the passage of the bills…”
“GE supports a price on carbon…”
ORIGIN ENERGY http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/qa-grant-king Origin CEO Grant King Exert from interview 25 August 2010:
“Giles Parkinson:Sure. But you’ve argued strongly for a carbon price in the past and been fairly consistent about that. Grant King: Yes.”
All quotes are taken from Submissions made regarding the Clean Energy Legislation except Grant King.
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ACTEW-AGL have built the windfarm at Bungendore. I can guess why they are so keen for the “carbon price”
Considering how AGL has doubled the price of gas over a period of 10 years in the ACT, I can see that they see this as an opportunity to keep increasing the prices.
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Very important read:
Interesting new piece about Ken Lay the Technocrat and Enron here:
http://channelingreality.com/Power/where_the_bodies_are_buried.htm
“… Enron wasn’t an ordinary business and Ken Lay was not an ordinary business man. Enron was a global economic WMD created for the purpose of privatization of public utilities as a strategy of the “market-based” Green Pirates of the Environmental Defense Fund and their “movement” which is actually War by Other Means.”
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Dear Jo
I have posted below email 0601. Please use as you wish and if off topice please delete.
I know who the clowns are in the uk but I’m not sure of David Jones who said “Australians now rate climate change as a greater threat than world terrorism” Also in September 2007 almost all your cities were on the verge of running out of waters. Did it happen?
Take Care
Ps you may already have covered this email? So if so sorry.
cc: “Shoni Dawkins”
date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 08:28:03 +1000
from: “David Jones”
subject: RE: African stations used in HadCRU global data set
to: “Phil Jones”
Thanks Phil for the input and paper. I will get back to you with comments next week.
Fortunately in Australia our sceptics are rather scientifically incompetent. It is also
easier for us in that we have a policy of providing any complainer with every single
station observation when they question our data (this usually snows them) and the
Australian data is in pretty good order anyway.
Truth be know, climate change here is now running so rampant that we don’t need
meteorological data to see it. Almost everyone of our cities is on the verge of running out
of water and our largest irrigation system (the Murray Darling Basin is on the verge of
collapse – across NSW farmer have received a 0% allocation of water for the coming summer
and in Victoria they currently have 5% allocations – numbers that will just about see the
death of our fruit, citrus, vine and dairy industries if we don’t get good spring rain).
The odd things is that even when we see average rainfall our runoffs are far below average,
which seems to be a direct result of warmer temperatures. Recent polls show that
Australians now rate climate change as a greater threat than world terrorism.
Regards,
David
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David Jones is from the BoM. He has an attitude problem in that he believes that people have been taken in by the lies.
None of those Australian cities ran out of water, but it was a close call, because they would not build the new and necessary dams to shore up the water supply. This applies especially to Melbourne. This is why we laugh at the Flim Flam Man with his lies about not having any more rain.
On top of that, decisions have been made that are disastrous, which led to the devastating impact of the floods in Brisbane at the beginning of the year. It is because people began to believe that spin about not seeing any more of the rains that led to houses and shops being built in the flood plains.
Having lived in an area where there were obvious flood plains, and having gotten through a big flood in that area, I know that it is important that people find out whether or not the land or house that they want to purchase is on a flood plain. Then it should be buyer beware.
Government land releases in Sydney, especially in the Windsor District have in my view been unconsionable because they have released land for sale knowing that the land is on a flood plain. This happened in the 1970s and later, and I might add that this was an area that was flooded in March 1978.
As for Australians believing that climate change is more important than terrorism, well it was being played up ad nauseum by the press, which meant that the most gullible group (the under 30s) believed without questioning the LSM. This is in part what led to KRUDD gaining momentum prior to the 2007 election. Yes, it was hot in the summer. So what else is new? We often have hot summers in Australia.
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When the Wivenhoe dam was built, it was said on the grand opening that it would secure Brisbane’s water supply up until the year 2000.
Unsurprisingly, given the almost constant population growth of the SE corridor, that’s about 2 years earlier than it started showing the strain of supporting the population.
Brisbanes population has doubled in the last 20 years. But the water supply hasn’t been expanded realistically in the last 40 years. It was hard to make the case that the city didn’t get enough water when just about everyone had a full water tank, even throughout the drought. The fact is the water system now requires above-average rains to make up for lack of capacity, hence the decision to keep the flood buffers low – which was just a cheap way of building a new dam by artificially raising the height of Wivenhoe.
The problem with the current rains is that they are becoming complacent again and there isn’t any ground being struck on new water supplies, which should be underway NOW while the rains are still falling. When the next drought arrives, which it will, the same problem will happen again, only this time it will be 2x worse because the population continues to grow, and the water supply does not.
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> “Brisbanes population has doubled in the last 20 years. But the water supply hasn’t been expanded realistically in the last 40 years.”
The solution is quite obvious. Stop the population from growing.
<rant type=”mini”>
Attention is always given to only one side of the equation. People seem quite fine with halting population growth by permitting overcrowding, unemployment, disease, malnutrition, and dehydration to take hold in the future, but any suggestion of planning to avoid such calamities is met with shrieks of horror – as though unending growth is even possible, let alone a good idea.
I suspect the same banksters and crony capitalists we all love to hate are the ones who keep this growth paradigm alive, since they make more money out of construction, mortgages, and real estate speculation. I’ve noticed in my area the free market is beginning to head towards solutions, such as knocking down a bunch of old houses and building 3-storey apartment blocks on top. The benefit of higher density housing for reducing bushland destruction is paid for by the lower quality of life of living in a box with no trees or personal space. That is everyone’s future in the unlimited growth paradigm.
(Before anyone asks, no I don’t think the situation is so bad that a Final Solution of any nefarious “pro-active” type is needed… yet. I hope dear readers will agree that throttling down the source instead of widening the sink is a more humane approach.)
</rant>
Well a visit to the facts is in order. For Queensland in particular our birth rate is almost at long term replacement rate, and since domestic and international immigration took a nose dive over the last two years the main source of growth currently is natural increase.
Wait, what? Fertility is at the replacement level and natural internal increase is still the biggest source of population growth? In theory there is unfortunately only one explanation for how that can be true. People aren’t dying fast enough. You can see that in the declining SDR. Probably hygiene and medicine are prolonging life faster than we are making babies. The birth rate can change quite quickly… almost as soon as the right mood strikes I guess ;D . However the death rate is slow to change because it is mainly a function of the longevity expected from the living conditions of 70+ years ago. That imbalance will rectify itself within 15 to 20 years as the new use-by date is reached.
That still leaves a net influx of 48,000 people migrating into Qld per year. That is mind boggling. People want to live here in coastal cities, can’t blame them for wanting that. With the collapse of the EU imminent we are likely to see a spike in economic refugees heading our way. But there is a finite amount of water catchment area and locations for dams and annual rainfall. There is a finite area that can be used for agriculture before the water and housing demands are infringed. There is a finite area that can be used for housing before the transport costs of living in the desert become too high and wildlife becomes islandised and endangered.
Shouldn’t future generations live in a world where there’s enough food, water, housing, and kangaroos to go around? A resource supply as good as we had? How bad does the resource strain have to be before they have to close the borders to immigration? People who unwittingly advocate unlimited growth have to answer that question. Infinity is not a practical answer.
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I agree about limiting the size of the SE corner just through limiting the creation of new cities like SPringfield.
The solution has also got to be spreading the population out along the coast. North of Noosa the population density drops drastically – for no apparent reason.
What is needed is encouragement for southern migrants to head further than just over the border. And that means releasing plenty of cheap land and some big new power stations with cheap coal to encourage industry to open up further up the coastline.
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Tuesday night 2011/12/13 on ABC local radio (774 Melbourne) I heard an interview between Ian Plimer (launching his new book) and Matt Peacock (ABC journo..)
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3390224.htm
Journo tried all the usual tricks – ad-homenim, marginalizing, suggesting links with big coal/asbestos companies etc.., but when he started to give Prof. Plimer a lesson on geology, Plimer became ‘ruthless’ and said some things that a few journo’s need to be reminded of! I HIGHLY recommend having a listen… For once, I actually enjoyed listening to ‘my ABC’ 🙂
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unbelievable the arrogance of the ABC’s Matt Peacock.
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Agreed. What a rude person!
On CH10 he was questioned why his book was not delivered to Fairfax newspapers and the ABC. I started laughing and found it no coincidence though in saying that Plimer said he wasn’t in control of who the books were delivered.
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Next they will be trying to tell us that lead pencils are made from lead because that is the industry name. So what type of asbestos is SV40?
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The first 30 years of my life were lived in a house with asbestos walls,asbestos roofing and 4 inches of asbestos wool in the ceiling – I used to crawl around in the stuff. Over 30 more years have passed and chest xrays have never revealed a problem. And none of my relatives have ever had a problem related to asbestos.
I’ve spoken with a person who died who after having worked at the processing plant at Wittenoom Gorge W.A. and he told me that while working the dust was that thick that he could hardly see the person working next to him. Driveways in Wittenoom were paved with asbestos.
There has got to be another reason for the scare.
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My understanding is that the different types of asbestos have very large differences in the hazards they represent (see here).
White asbestos (Chrysotile) which is mostly mined in N. America and represents most of what is used here, is the least dangerous
Brown and blue asbestos (Amosite and Crocidolite) which are from Africa and Australia are considerably more hazardous, due to their short, needle-like fibers.
I bet what you were crawling around in as a child was white asbestos.
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Quite different structures and reactions to acid.
Chrysotile is quickly broken down by the acid in the cells of the lungs, and if ingested, by the hydrochloric acid in the stomach.
However Amphiboles (brown asbestos) have a structure that is a double chain of silicate tetrahedral which makes it very strong and durable and is not soluble regardless of pH.
The wanker from the ABC was insinuating that chrysotiles are asbestos that cause lung disease.
The term asbestos was adopted for commercial reasons only.
The ABC wanker was generalising whereas Ian Plimer was being very technical as you’d expect a specialist to be.
Chrysotile is still being used today in such things as building materials, gaskets etc
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Whoever told you that was spreading disinformation.
(from “The pH Level of Healthy Lungs“)
In other words, the lungs are always alkaline, not acid, so they can’t dissolve chrysotile in the manner you describe.
However, as with all substances, the poison is in the total dose. Only a large accumulated total exposure over time can lead to disease. Presumably they ban it from buildings but can safely use it in specialist applications for that reason.
The exposure limit in Australia since 2003 is 1 fibre per 10mL of air.
: Safe Work Australia report.
In other words, regardless of chemistry about 30% of the fibres in asbestos are long enough to cause the lung disease observed in those exposed to large doses of it. So no insinuations are needed, the wanker from the ABC was repeating the fact that chrysotiles are asbestos that cause lung disease.
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Thanx for that interesting reply.
My information comes from THIS SITE (it is a pro chrysotile site)
As the text in your post states..
Your reply seems to me to be about asbestos in general rather than for a specific type, which is what my post was.
I’m sure there are websites that are anti-chrysotiles and present evidence that it causes cancer.
The fact remains that unlike brown asbestos, chrysotile hasn’t been banned by the WHO and is being used extensively now.
The subject isn’t of enough importance to me for me to chase it all up. But if others do/have and they post a comment about it, I’ll read it with interest like I did yours.
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Baa Humbug,
“The Biodurability of chrysotile asbestos”
http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM77/AM77_1125.pdf
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@Kevin Moore
Thnx for that confirmation.
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BobC.
I think you are right about white.
http://spiderjohnson.com/asbestos.html
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Mesothelioma typically appears 30-40 year after asbestos exposure. It is an extremely unpleasant disease with a very poor prognosis for survival.
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Here’s a great 30-second knockdown of the global warming scam: The years in which the highest temperature was reached on a given continent are (hottest first): Africa 1922, North America 1913, Asia 1942, Australia 1889 (or 1960), Oceania 1912, Europe 1881, South America 1905, Antarctica 1974. Because (anthropogenic) CO2 has continued to increase, these long-ago dates are powerful evidence against it causing any warming. Moreover, in 6 or 7 of these 8 continents the highest temperature actually precedes the lowest temperature recorded, suggesting a *cooling* trend. Detailed stats at
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalextremes.html
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Anton, the 1960 OOdnadatta temperature holds the hottest recorded temperature. This has not been bested either by the Melbourne or Adelaide 2009 temperatures that led to the dreadful bushfires.
Also, the 2009 temperatures just pipped the January 1959 high, but not sure if it actually beat the 1939 record temperature.
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For a long time Cloncurry held the record but I’m not sure what happened after warmist attempts to discredit it.
John L Daly wrote this about it:
“Some critics will dismiss individual station records as merely `anomalous’ (in which case most of the non-urban stations would have to be dismissed on those grounds), but when one station acquires an importance far beyond its own little record, no effort is spared to discredit it. This was the fate of Cloncurry, Queensland, Australia, which holds the honour of having recorded the hottest temperature ever measured in Australia, a continent known for its hot temperatures. The record was 53.1°C set, not in the `warm’ 1990s, but in 1889. It was a clear target for revisionism, for how can a skeptical public be convinced of `global warming’ when Cloncurry holds such a century-old record? The attack was made by Blair Trewin of the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne , with ample assistance from the whole meteorological establishment. And all this effort and expense was deployed to discredit one temperature reading on one hot day at one outback station 111 years ago. Stations do matter.”
http://www.john-daly.com/ges/surftmp/surftemp.htm
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Where further information on Cloncurry can be found.
“There are also numerous extreme high temperatures which have been recorded prior to about 1910 using non-standard instrumentation, most notably a reading of 53.1 at Cloncurry in January 1889. It is likely that this will be struck from the official record in the near future. A discussion of the evidence behind this may be found in:
Trewin, B.C. (1997). Another look at Australia’s highest temperature. Aust.Met.Mag. 46. 251-256. “
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Did you notice how Plimer’s volume is dialed down from time to time to make him easier to talk over?
The ABC should be split up. Broadcasting is already outsourced, as is some program production. Direct control by Parliament would at least make the political strings more apparent.
Once it is pared down to a manageable size, say 200~300 $M/a, ABC2 and ABC3 should be offered, with half the budget, to a coalition of the IPA, Quadrant, etc to run.
Current Affairs could be funded from both budgets.
As Julia says, ” a fairer Australia”
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Sorry, this was to have been on #17, not sure what happened there.
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http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=37ae6e96-802a-23ad-4c8a-edf6d8150789
U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
“Gores [Really] Inconvenient Timing – ‘Consensus’ On Man-Made Global Warming Collapses in 2008”
“UN Warning on 10 year ‘Climate Tipping Point’ Began in 1989”
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Gee, I didn’t know Enron was a bunch of thugs. You mean they weren’t on the up-and-up? How could that be? They sent me all those nice brochures saying how they’d cut my gas bill and my electric bill if I’d just sign up with them. It was such a good deal!
Hanging is too good for some people; prison too. You want justice? Put ’em to work at minimum wage mopping floors and see how long they last doing an honest job. What, can’t hack it? Too bad and who cares?
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6 Feb 2002: Cato Institute: Why Enron Wants Global Warming
by Patrick J. Michaels
By now, much to the chagrin of my greener friends, it is common knowledge that Enron Corporation was lobbying the Bush administration for highly profitable policies relating to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. In fact, the tatters of Enron still want the administration to place a cap on carbon dioxide emissions so the company can broker the trading of “permits” to emit carbon dioxide under that cap…
But what’s not run-of -the-sty is a 1998 letter, signed by Enron’s then-CEO Ken Lay (and a few other bigwigs), asking President Clinton, in essence, to harm the reputations and credibility of scientists who argued that global warming was an overblown issue. Apparently they were standing in Enron’s way.
The letter, dated Sept. 1, asked the president to shut off the public scientific debate on global warming, which continues to this date. In particular, it requested Clinton to “moderate the political aspects” of this discussion by appointing a bipartisan “Blue Ribbon Commission.”
The purpose of this commission was clear: high-level trashing of dissident scientists…
But what about Kyoto itself, which Enron knew would never be ratified by the required 67 senators? In 1998, Kyoto enjoyed the support of about 12 senators. “We urge the Kyoto Protocol not be submitted to the Senate in the near future, where pre-emptive rejection would remove the U.S. from a political leadership role,” said Lay’s letter. In other words, Lay wanted to derail the normal democratic process of having our elected officials vote on a treaty, so that Enron could prosper.
While that was happening, Enron commissioned its own internal study of global warming science. It turned out to be largely in agreement with the same scientists Enron was trying to shut up. After considering all of the inconsistencies in climate science, the report concluded: “[T]he very real possibility that the great climate alarm could be a false alarm. The anthropogenic warming could well be less than thought and favorably distributed.”
One of Enron’s major consultants in that study was NASA scientists James Hansen, who started the whole global warming mess in 1988 with his bombastic congressional testimony…
True to its plan, Enron never made its own findings public, self-censoring them while it pleaded with the new Bush administration for a cap on carbon dioxide emissions that it could broker. That pleading continues today — the remnant-Enron still views global warming regulation as the straw that will raise it from its corporate oblivion.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3388
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Jan 2002: Natl Center for Policy Research: Enron and the Environmental Movement:
Global Warming Politics Makes for Strange Bedfellows
by Amy Ridenour
With a payoff worth tens of billions of dollars at stake, Enron Corporation laid out millions in campaign contributions in the 1990s apparently in part to persuade the Clinton Administration and the U.S. Senate to support the Kyoto global warming treaty.
Enron hoped to cash in on the Kyoto treaty by masterminding a worldwide trading network in which major industries could buy and sell credits to emit carbon dioxide – the inert gas that some scientists and most environmentalists believe contributes to global warming.
The Houston firm’s lobbying push appeared to be on the verge of success when Vice President Al Gore signed the Kyoto Protocol in November of 1998…
The Clinton Administration’s interest in obtaining an international agreement to fight global warming meshed with Enron’s dream of huge profits from new investments in natural gas utilities and pipelines. Ratification of the Kyoto treaty would have played into Enron’s greed by forcing the U.S. to switch from coal-fired power plants to ones fueled by cleaner-burning natural gas. The trading surge in emission credits thus would have funneled an ever-increasing flow of cash into its coffers…
As part of the strategy, CEO Kenneth Lay signed Enron onto the Business Environmental Leadership Council of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change, a left-leaning think-tank headed by Eileen Claussen, a former Environmental Protection Agency and State Department official in the Clinton Administration.
The Pew Center has waged an expensive propaganda campaign over the past few years aimed at convincing journalists that global warming is a dire threat.
Other companies joining Pew’s Business Environmental Leadership Council also stood to gain vast sums if federal regulators imposed strict new limits on carbon dioxide emissions, including such powerhouses as Boeing, British Petroleum, International Paper, Lockheed-Martin, Maytag, 3M, Toyota, Weyerhaeuser and Whirlpool.
Lay, a close personal friend of leading Republicans and Democrats, also joined two far-left environmental groups – the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council – in calling for new curbs on emitting CO2 into the atmosphere…
How duplicitous were the environmental groups that joined Enron in its crusade for Kyoto? Did these organizations financially benefit from their strange bedfellow alliance with giant energy company?…
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA384.html
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It’s good to see the Green polemicists keep such good company, with the Enron’s, the Goldman-Sach’s, the EU commisars in Brussels, the UN in it’s various guises……
They say you can judge a man by the company he keeps- well, all these organisations share a commonality- they each are the embodiment of rapacious greed, amorality, riddled with corruption, have a complete narcissistic disregard for the welfare of others, and are single mindedly determined to self-perpetuate, propagate, metastasize and spread their tentacles into every nook and cranny like a cancerous tumour. How naive must they be to think that they can fool these cunning organisations/entities into fostering their utopian vision. Surely, they must realised they are being jollied along only until all the money has been squeezed out of the scam, and THEY will then be left “holding the baby”, shamed and disempowered while these wolves make their escape, the ill-gotten loot firmly in the bag.
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the great??? conservative, Gingrich:
8 Dec: New American: Brian Koenig: Gingrich Cosponsored 1989 Climate Change Bill With Pelosi
The synergetic bond between former House Speakers Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi extends well beyond the 2008 climate-change commercial that has stirred heated criticism among conservatives, as the GOP presidential hopeful has cosponsored 418 bills in Congress with Pelosi. Such a revelation, particularly when coupled with Gingrich’s Freddie Mac connections, liberal-leaning views on illegal immigration, and support for an individual healthcare mandate, underscore Gingrich’s waning support for true conservative principles…
Further, the 1989 bill established two goals:
(1) that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere be reduced from 1987 levels by at least 20 percent by the year 2005 through a mix of Federal and State energy policies; and (2) the establishment of an International Global Agreement on the Atmosphere by 1992. Requires the Secretary of Energy (the Secretary) and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to report to the Congress within two years regarding whether a higher level of carbon dioxide emissions reduction is desirable after 2005, together with any necessary policy actions and their costs and benefits…
***For those who may not yet have seen it, here is the 2008 Gingrich-Pelosi commercial on climate change…
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/10117-gingrich-co-sponsored-1989-climate-change-bill-with-pelosi
the left/right paradigm needs to be smashed.
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What needs to happen is for true conservatives to stand up for their beliefs, instead of fake conservatives of the Malcolm Turnbull type.
Too many times people present themselves as conservative and then systematically expand the government as though they were born into a family of socialists. John Howard fell for this problem in his need to be re-elected, and wherever he strayed from his core beliefs, he got into trouble.
Instead of standing firm on rejecting Kyoto, he weakened and gave it legs, instead of standing strong and saying ‘this will do nothing for Autsralia and nothing for emissions’.
Instead of standing firm on the Workchoices legislation, he weakened and let people assume that the union scaremongering was factual in basis by not properly defending it. He should have rejected criticism and invited people to recommend specific changes to improve things while keeping the overall concept. Instead he couldnt’ be bothered defending it and now we’re back to the 1970’s with strike action soaring and productivity in full-on decline.
This type of soft-headed thinking is still rife within Liberal ranks and they continue to move away from a true liberal ideal (not the co-opted ‘progressive’ liberal, but a true liberal in the original sense of the word). Any Liberal party that can come up with support for an ETS is not a liberal party I would ever vote for.
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While we are all at it and reflect on this year just gone by, please spare a thought for our brothers and sisters in Denmark.
http://www.europeanenergyreview.eu/site/pagina.php?id=3417
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Now, where have I heard that before, Julia. Dream on, taxation doesn’t make you rich, and spiralling energy costs cannot make a country’s economy anything other than less competitive, less productive, less efficient and less progressive. Yet, a country like Denmark, who have been an advanced, progressive and peaceful nation (something other countries should aspire to, in fact), are committing economic ritual suicide while their so-called leaders congratulate each other on how clever they are. Amazing! If you didn’t see it with your own eyes, you would think they were making it up. Yet, the deluded continue to think they are somehow the vanguard of enlightenment!
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I want you to try and envisage the difficulty in all this Kyoto business, how impossible those original demands were, and how they change the rules as they go along.
Kyoto originally called for EVERY Country to lower its emissions to levels 5 to 7% lower than what they were in 1990.
Not one Country has even gotten close to doing this,
You have the Annex 2 Countries, now 154 of them, all classified by UNFCCC as Developing. They need do nothing more than report their emissions.
AS they develop, their emissions are rising, and rising in some cases exponentially, and some now have emissions greater than 1990 by factors between 100 and 300% higher. And that;s being conservative) To get their emissions back to levels 5to 7% lower than 1990, then in effect, they need to stop that development, and effectively go back to the dark ages.
Annex 1 Countries, 40 of them, also need to lower their emissions to the same level. None have done this, or even gotten close.
Of those 40 Countries, the 23 who have to DO everything, and foot the bill for the other 154, they too now also have increasing emissions, and here it needs to be mentioned that most of those 23 Countries already have a form of ETS, have exponentially started introducing Renewables on huge scales, and still their emissions increase.
They KNOW that the level of 5 to7% lower than 1990 is unobtainable, and was always going to be the case, so now they change the rules regarding those emissions, watering down Kyoto, and then artfully telling us that they will somehow get everyone to agree to a replacement, when no one can even keep to Kyoto.
In the current Draft Energy White Paper, the statement is this:
Kyoto (1997) called for levels lowered on 1990. Now, 14 years after Kyoto, and no one reaching that, they call for 5% lower than 2000 and then say it is to be done by 2020.
If they couldn’t achieve this one target, what spin will they use to make us think they can achieve this target.
PERSPECTIVE:
See how something seemingly simple, ergo achievable has proved impossible to reach, when at the time it was undoubtedly a relatively conservative looking target. (Yeah! We can do that!)
They couldn’t. They didn’t.
No matter what they do, or more importantly, what they say, emissions are still rising.
There’s probably 2 scenarios, or, distilled right down, only the one scenario.
To achieve this lowering of emissions, then we (The already Developed Western World) will arbitrarily impose draconian measures that by their very nature MUST stop those 154 Countries from developing any further, if you will, the age old Colonial attitude, only now on a Global scale.
Then to achieve lower emissions in our Country, we must impose our own draconian measures as well.
The real result is that we keep the 154 Developing Countries in the Dark Ages, and then we just go back there and join them.
Tony.
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A lot is being said about China, and how they are now the largest CO2 emitter on the Planet.
However, there is always a need for some perspective on this.
I know I link in to my own Posts, and some of you may think that is a little opportunistic of me, but all sides of a debate need to be seen to gain some idea of the real situation.
In March of last year, 2010, I Posted a three part series on what life might look like without access to a reliable and constant source of electrical power.
In part 2 of that Series, I explained what the situation might look like in China, and how that just saying China is now the largest emitter of CO2 has some background that not many people are aware of, especially with respect to that access to electrical power at the residential level, something that we take for granted here in Australia, but something barely one household in six in China has access to, effectively meaning that almost (and probably more than) one billion people have no access whatsoever to electrical power at the residential level, let alone a constant reliable supply.
Some of you may wish to read that Post just to see a different side of a debate we are yet to have, even while being told that the debate is over.
Life Without (Electrical) Power (Part 2)
Tony.
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Statement of James Inhofe – Hearing Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy hearing entitled, “Green Jobs and Trade” Feb 15 2011
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Statement&Statement_ID=70ca3cdc-24db-4e1d-91a1-1f0b30dd6edd
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Enron is alive and well today.
Enron Wind was bought by GE and is GE wind
Enron pipeline is owned by Warren Buffet. Berkshire hathaway.
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Birds of a feather right?
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Warren Buffett knows a good moneymaking scam when he sees it. He also made billions out of Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae.
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Come on trolls, support Enron’s complicity in the CAGW scam!!! You know you want to!!! Let the inner idiot out!!!
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Further Proof of Big Oil funding to sceptics. Hey, hang on a minute. Isn’t this bloke one of the most rabid warming alarmists produced by Australia?
From ABC Conversations.
24 June 2011, 10.44am AEST
Author
David Karoly
Professor and ARC Federation Fellow at University of Melbourne
.Disclosure Statement
David Karoly is an ARC Federation Fellow in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He receives funding through research grants from the Australian Research Council and the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. In the past, he has received significant funding from the Williams Company, an energy company in Tulsa Oklahoma, and a Shell Australia Postgraduate Scholarship.
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It looks as though the bias to the pro gov’t agenda versus the skeptics is $1 billion to $1 million.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=38D98C0A-802A-23AD-48AC-D9F7FACB61A7
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[…] Enron called Kyoto “a victory for us” in 1997 […]
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