Climate change is potentially a $7 Trillion dollar money making venture (for bankers)

The tide of money, the vested interests flows

Carbon credit, climate-change, carbon market, 2016.H/t to Eric Worrall at WattsUp.

The current “green” industry is already around $1.5 Trillion a year. Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England said he expects this to grow to $5-7 trillion.

Financial Post: Climate change a $7 trillion funding opportunity

He said that given the enormous funding needs for clean infrastructure — he estimates at somewhere between $5 trillion and $7 trillion a year — investment opportunities will rebound.

 If clean green energy was efficient, cheap and reliable there would be no “funding need” as the market would leap to exploit that opportunity. Instead most leading investors act like they are skeptics. The fact that central bankers are selling it so aggressively says a lot. Perhaps central bankers want to help the poor and save the world, or could it be that the entire financial industry will profit from a fake, forced market and another fiat currency? What are the brokerage fees on a $7T market…

Again we get this “free market” myth:

[Carbon pricing is the cleanest way for markets to judge the tangible exposure to climate change,” said Carney

Banks, financial institutions, carbon trading.

Carbon pricing has failed to change the weather all over the world. Free markets don’t work when they aren’t free and when they apply to a ubiquitous molecule involved in almost every life form on the planet. And what does “clean pricing” mean anyway? The  cost benefit assessment of using solar panels to reduce your exposure to flood damage in 2100 is as filthy-dirty-a-calculation as anything gets. Calculations don’t get messier, blacker or more pointless than this. Crunch those numbers and then bury them in 6 feet of volcanic ash.

The idea of slapping a market onto a product that is mostly produced and consumed by nature is bizarre in the extreme. Almost none of players in a global carbon market will respond to the incentives on offer. The Pacific Ocean won’t buy a credit, and nor will phytoplankton, cows, sheep or yeast.  Even in the 4% of the market controlled by humans, demand is “inelastic”, meaning the costs of energy already force most of the market to be efficient. The gains that are left are minor, pathetic creeping improvements. So sweeping, economy wide measures are inefficient, even if the IPCC models weren’t broken.

Though it’s not 100% clear whether Carney meant “annually” or over the next 20 years. Bloomberg implies the latter. But hey, a trillion here, a trillion there…

“In terms of orders of magnitude of clean energy, or lower carbon energy infrastructure, cleaner water sanitation etc. that would be put in place over the course of the next 15-20 years,” Carney said. “Given increased urbanization, given brown fields, given policy frameworks that are being put in place — somewhere in the order of $5-7 trillion.”

Given that investment is already at $1.5T,  I presume he  meant $7T per year in 10 – 20 years time. Since we are trying to change the global climate with windmills and cold-showers, a bonfire of this magnitude is “realistic” in the same way that a fund to capture the tooth-fairy could be realistically said to cost a similar amount.

Can anyone find a transcript?

The numbers are small, but they’re trillions,
In reality, thousands of billions,
To fund ‘carbon’ schemes,
And fulfil bankers’ dreams,
But disappoint millions and millions.

–Ruairi

h/t Scott.

9.7 out of 10 based on 82 ratings

113 comments to Climate change is potentially a $7 Trillion dollar money making venture (for bankers)

  • #

    We should never have taught the Left to say “market”. Putting “free” in front doesn’t help. They don’t get it, and they never will. Giving them jobs at Goldman Sachs is not only not a help, it’s a kiss of death. Banks are Mother Russia.

    Not in the whole tide of times will the Left ever get it. It’s easier when they’re just out in the streets and parks ranting against everybody’s money except their own.

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  • #
    TdeF

    There are three components to life on earth, three essentials. CO2, H2O and energy from sunlight combined in photosynthesis, the only process which creates trees, plants, insects and all life on earth. They all burn and in combustion the three components are freed. That is the cycle of all life on earth.

    However one of these is a deadly pollutant threatening our existence and we have to spend $7trillion a year reducing it. Yes, we have too much water. Water is the problem with floods, ice, snow, disasters and all extreme weather involves water. Hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, torrential rains, monsoons. Without water there would be no tsunamis, tidal waves, icebergs. Wars are fought over water. In fact water is the core problem in droughts.

    What we need it water sequestration because the seas have been rising steadily and will drown whole civilizations. We need to solidify water and grow trees and shrubs to trap water. Maybe even pump it into colder parts the planet. A cold rocks business and sequestration could fuel a whole Water economy. People could be paid to trap water. The problem is urgent. Cities like Venice are already drowning from too much water. We need a water trading system run by the UN and water credits. People who trap water and stop it from entering the oceans should get cash from water polluters who have to pay for the right to use water.

    So the next time you flush a toilet or wash, remember you are a polluter. Big industrial polluters like power stations which use and release vast quantities of water into the air need to be taxed. This will push up the cost of energy, but it is a price we have to pay for a safe planet for our children’s children’s children. Help today. Stay dry all day. We can even have a yearly Earth Hour where no one turns on a tap or flushes for an hour. Malcolm’s Goldmann Sachs is more than happy to create Water Credits for trading. Only bankers and economists can save us now. They have the concepts and H2O is the problem. Polluters must pay.

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    • #
      tom0mason

      TdeF,
      The lunatics will never forgive you for not mentioning the importance of our beautiful companion, the moon. And those lunar effects on all that water, the weather, and life on this planet.

      🙂

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      • #
        Olaf Koenders

        We should strip-mine the thing for He3. Clean energy an’ all that.. 😉

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      • #
        Gee Aye

        Some lunatics like me would like to mention other sources of energy other than the sun that predated photosynthesis. Nice story though

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        • #
          Greg Cavanagh

          “predated photosynthesis”. You got me there Gee, the only one I can come up with is nuclear radiation.

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          • #

            HI Greg, although speculation abounds harnessing the sun’s directly was probably not the first strategy employed by life. The very first life – proto bacteria and cell-less reproducing chemicals- was probably harnessing energy lying around the environment in the form of heat and chemicals/catalytsts that they encountered.

            Look up extremophiles for examples living today. There is speculation about first life occurring on reactive surfaces underground.

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            • #

              hmm should have proof read that :\

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              • #
                TdeF

                There are some primitive life forms still around which work on a Sulphur cycle rather than a Carbon cycle. They exist around fumeroles, volcanic sulphur vents on the sea bottom at great depth where there is chemical energy but no sunlight of course. The only other thing on the bottom of the ocean feeds on what falls. Without sunlight there is no life. Chlorophyll itself evolved from a more primitive form like Vitamin A. The whole sunlight/CO2 capture process was refined over billions of years. We carbon lifeforms left the ocean and are filled with ancient saline. If CO2 is a pollutant, so are we.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I like the concept. I hope it is taken up. I also hope that it is not watered down, in its implementation.

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    • #
      Raven

      People could be paid to trap water. The problem is urgent.

      I’m onto you, TdeF.
      My bet is that you have a new Pokemon-like game in the wings. I can see people gathering in city parks all over the country looking to catch water in all its forms. 😉

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      • #
        Ted O'Brien.

        Last night the kids and grandkids forced me to notice this Pokemon thing, after I had been seeing the word in very unimportant looking news for a few days. I had been aware of the name in computer game years ago.

        Whatever it is, it looks like the most powerful marketing excercise since I saw Richard Morecroft years ago on ABC News talking about Cabbage Patch Kids, several months before they were released in Australia.

        How to create a demand for your product. Get in the news. But how?

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        • #
          Dennis

          Mobile phones at the ready a small army of Australians are searching now, Pokeman craze has them under control.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Mouth breathers catch a lot of things, flies, rain, dust etc….imagine their joy when catching the moon in a bucket of water!

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  • #

    I keep say that it’s amazing how the 99% are so supportive of the 1%. Or don’t they understand?

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    • #
      James Murphy

      This is exactly what amazes and mystifies me. I don’t believe the rabid ‘save the earth’ (and equivalent) crowd are necessarily stupid, just that they are ignorant and unwilling (unable?) to acknowledge that there are different opinions, and more importantly, facts which demonstrate just how much cash is involved in all this via the usual banking suspects.

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  • #
    Olaf Koenders

    Trouble is, the Fractional Reserve Banking model we’re stuck with allows the banks to produce funds from signatures alone via credit lending and investment in that contract via securitisation, THEN they make more again by demanding repayment of those credit “loans” in your hard-work dollars.

    The money they “loan” you comes from unicorn farts, the origin of the carbon trading scam, but our hard-work dollars will feed it via the Green Blob.

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    • #
      Analitik

      Fractional banking is a fine concept (within firm limits). The issue is that the banks are allowed to base large portions of their reserve on the book vale of valueless junk investments (including the loans securitized and tranched into CDO’s) with the book value that is either hopelessly optimistic or, even worse, self valued. This undermines the whole concept leaving what are in reality, massive debt overhangs. They then exacerbate their positions by providing huge loans to shady corporations with business models founded on subsidies and political support which, strangely enough, tend to be for “emergent green technologies” and the like.

      Meanwhile, the junk investments are propped up via quantitative easing which, at the end of the day, “works” by devaluing the currencies so that the junk value becomes even more meaningless. The eventual write off of this junk and the loans will mean nothing since the currencies themselves will cease to have value.

      We’re heading for a hard crash and no knows what will emerge from the wreckage. The “Fight Club” financial reset is coming and Tyler Durden won’t be needing to bomb banks to set it off.

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      • #
        PeterS

        The problem is when the crash happens the bankers involved in the scam will likely escape any punishment. That in itself is a sad indictment of our system of law and government. The more money one loses, be it theirs or not, the greater the protection they appear to have from any responsibility. It should be the other way around.

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        • #
          Analitik

          Absolutely. They should have been jailed for their role in creating the mess that was the 2008 GFC but the governments wimped out, mainly due to ex-bankers being embedded in the regulatory bodies who sold the concept of the “too big to fail” nonsense (looking at you Helicopter Ben).

          They didn’t pay the price then and were bailed out to keep playing their games so why should they be punished this time?

          The only punishment will be the devaluation of their stocks and savings but you can bet they have hard assets stowed away as well.

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          There is a precedent in English law from 1721 after the South Sea Bubble. The company directors had to submit their net worth and were fined, in some cases very heavily, up to 98% in the case of the most guilty. Nor were corrupt politicians spared – the Chancellor of the Exchequer was imprisoned in the Tower and later fined over £50,000 – well over a million in today’s terms. Even the estates of guilty politicians who had died (or suicided) were fined.

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  • #
    tom0mason

    Maybe Mr. Carney is channeling his fellow countryman Maurice Strong

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  • #
    Rereke Whakaaro

    I seem to have a problem.

    I just don’t understand the whole concept of credit.

    I have credit cards, certainly, because banks and credit agencies keep sending them to me. I even use them for convenience from time to time, but I always pay them off as soon as the bill arrives.

    As a result, they give me even more credit, which I don’t need, and make me all sorts of offers of goods and services that I don’t want, at vastly deflated prices. I was even offered a free holiday, somewhere I didn’t want to go. Why do they do this? I just don’t get it.

    They keep telling me that I can get all these wonderful things at reduced prices. But they never include the family groceries, which would be a good idea.

    Something is screwy about this. I get the impression that I am not playing by the rules. Why don’t they just come out, and tell me what the rules are?

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    • #
      AndyG55

      I have a DEBIT card.. ONLY !!!

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      • #
        ianl8888

        There’s a problem with that.

        When a debit card is hacked (and it happens in great numbers constantly), the card is directly linked to your bank account – which can then be rapidly emptied.

        When a credit card is hacked (even more frequently because there are many more of them), the card is linked only to your credit limit, presumedly a lot lower than your bank account.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          “which can then be rapidly emptied”

          Only if there is something in it !

          I hold my main funds in a second account, and transfer to the debit account as required.

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          • #
            ianl8888

            Fair enough, although that’s too much fiddle-faddling for me.

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          • #
            tom0mason

            Or keep it ‘safe’ in a virtual wallet full of virtual currency.
            Soon maybe you can get a virtual loan and live like virtually virtuous royalty.

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      • #
        Mari C

        I have several “credit cards” – one is a health account card, funded via payroll deductions, and cannot be used for more than what is in the account. Very similar to a debit card, but for medical items only.
        I have a regular credit card, for a few items that get me a discount if paid via card monthly, and for emergencies.
        I have a few cards that offer 6 to 18 months 0% interest (Same-as-cash) periods. One is a card for veterinarian bills. The others are various store cards; I generally use them once every 5 to 10 years, when purchasing a high-cost item (furniture, yard shed) that I could pay cash for, but choose to stretch out a bit as I am uncomfortable going below a certain reserve. If the interest rate were the same as a regular card I would -not- use them but would pay cash.
        Not having a credit card in this day and age has many benefits, yes. It also makes it difficult, in the USofA, to get a mortgage, a car loan, etc., as you need a decent history of “loans” and repayments.

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    • #
      James Murphy

      I too, always pay off my credit card (though actually don’t use it much at all), and, for some strange reason, used to keep accepting credit limit increase offers – until I wanted to borrow money to buy a house. Then, suddenly, all the “credit” I had, was viewed by the same bank which gave it to me, as a debt, despite the fact I had never come close to even the lowest credit limit I had.

      I tell myself I understand the reasons why this is the case, but do I really think it’s reasonable and logical? Not particularly…

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      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Yes, that happened to me as well, when I wanted to buy some land.

        I just said I would cancel all of my credit cards (because I wasn’t using them), and thus, there would be no problem.

        The bank backpeddled, in spectatular fashion, and guess what … increased the credit limit, on each of my cards, as if that mattered to me! I really don’t know which part of the gene pool, bankers come from.

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        • #
          Graeme No.3

          Never mind which part of the pool, what pool?

          Many years ago I was working full time with a good salary and my credit card was issued with a limit one fifth of the one given to my younger sister, then a uni student with an annual income less than the monthly interest if she had maximised the withdrawal.

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        • #
          Olaf Koenders

          Rereke;

          The reason banks and credit societies want you to have credit cards is because once you sign that contract for the credit, it’s securitised (traded on the securities market – BEFORE you get your credit) and they’re allowed to make 9 times the amount of the loan by trading that contract. All they needed was your signature.

          Where did the “loan” come from that they credited you?

          Under their own rules, banks aren’t allowed to loan any of their own money or assets. They simply traded your signature for binary digits on a hard drive, then you have to pay it back in hard-work dollars (cash etc.). That credit never came from any actual account.

          They can’t lose.

          Check out these guys – they know how the credit scam works and have downloadable template letters to put the banksters on notice:

          https://www.getoutofdebtfree.org

          In the 1930’s, Henry Ford said: “If the general public knew how Fractional Reserve banking actually worked, there would be revolution by morning.”

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          • #
            Yonniestone

            “That credit never came from any actual account.” sounds very Ponzi-esque doesn’t it?

            I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Keynes, after all look what happened when a Keynesian got into the White House…..

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            Olaf,

            Thanks for the reference. Interest-ing reading.

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    • #
      Analitik

      Yeah, anyone with any level of sense will pay off their credit card account balance before it’s due and earn points without ever paying interest.

      To the banks, people like us are gaming their system which is designed to get people addicted to living beyond their means so they end up paying interest for the rest of their lives. They have to allow us to play because there is no way to frame the law to prevent it but enough people are captured that our syphoning of value via points is more than made up for in the profits from the interest payments of the rest. Credit is like gambling for some people and they have serious problems breaking out of the debt cycle and remaining off it.

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      • #
        Mari C

        Yup, they count on the majority to get stuck in the minimum payment rut. And hike the limit to where you might be able to pay it off, if you paid nothing else, and bought nothing else on it, in, oh, 30 years time.

        Too many think that if the bank says they are good for it, they are good for it. Banks take the interest paid, that’s the good stuff, the cream, the profit, and write off any losses on the balance once you’ve gone bankrupt or restructured the “loan” to a more affordable, longer-term schedule.

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    • #
      Rick Will

      Banks create money through credit creation. Their asset is the money on loan to you and they garner a small margin on the money loaned. With more money on loan their little margin adds up to more money garnered from the economy.

      The world has been financialised with ever increasing private debt. Virtually every transaction involves electronic money and the money is channeled through the banking sector so they can take their small margin on every single transaction. Electronic money enables near zero cost per transaction but the banks still take a healthy margin.

      The financial sector in Australia represents almost 50% of the ASX 200 largest companies. That can be interpreted as 50% of profits from the 200 largest companies in Australia is derived from financial transactions. This is a sector that has no output needed to sustain life and yet it takes a huge slice of the output from the productive sector.

      It is a mathematical certainty that any business with a profit motive and the ability to create money will eventually take over the economy. Australia is about half way there. Malcom Turnbull is about the best person the banking sector could have in government to ensure the banks continue their march toward complete economic takeover. It is not their motive, rather a mathematical certainty. It will not change until the profit motive is separated from the ability to create money. Remember money is created into existence through loans and is not extinguished until the loan is repayed or written off. The banks are driven to create new assets i.e. your debt so they get bigger profits.

      How much of your life has been dedicated to paying off a mortgage and other debt! How much of your children’s life is or will be dedicated to paying down debt.

      The situation is so silly now that banks can offer negative interest rates to savers in some countries for the money that comes back around to them for relending, at a margin, to the next person willing to go into debt slavery.

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  • #
    RoHa

    More proof that it is all a left-wing plot cooked up by that Communist Margaret Thatcher and backed by those crypto-Marxist bankers.

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    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      I don’t think you are correct, in claiming that Margaret Thatcher was a Communist. Far from it, in fact. If she could have been accused of anything, it would be that she veered too much to the right of politics, where Fascism lies.

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      • #
        Manfred

        I regularly decline the auto-offer to extend the credit limit on my credit card. At the moment it sits in the stratosphere. I’d need to fund and build a rocket to reach it.
        You just gave me an idea RW. I’ll write to the bank and ask them to subtract the largest chunk of credit on my card and wait to see the response. I just know they’ll write back and say it’s free, what’s your problem? Not unlike the undelying philosophy behind solar panels and wind mills come to think of it.

        I did try to use all the credit once, just for the hell of it. I tried to buy a whole car. The dealer naturally wouldn’t have a bar of it. Damn. I was thinking of all those points and the wonderful holiday the dealer would be paying for. So all that credit serves no useful purpose, unless one incrementally sells one’s soul in small bites of consumerism. Then the bank owns you completely, lock stock and incarcerating barrel.

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        • #
          Mari C

          They get upset when you decline the free upgrade in limit, or ask to have it lowered. Some even claim it will hurt your credit scoring! but I have a limit I am comfortable with, it is much much lower than what they offer, and I call each time it is raised and politely demand it be lowered.

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  • #
    Egor TheOne

    So old ‘Carnival Carney’, another of the many Goldman and Sachs appointees (stooges), is frothing over the huge thievery of the CAGW racket, he and his cohort are part of!

    These criminal bankers need to be breaking rocks with sledge hammers until they drop, and only then would they have paid back a tiny fraction of their combined thievery.

    Nothing ever happens to these blatant and obvious thieves, which is why they do what they do.

    Is it any wonder why big banks and their criminal associates are such big advocates of saving the world with carbon credits?

    It seems that this ‘saving the planet’ business (racket) is hugely profitable, but only for some…..no ‘little people’ included!

    It’s heads they win, or tails we lose…..a rigged game.

    We are increasingly being fleeced with higher and higher electricity prices, and the funding of this fraud for zero net gain…..zero effect to a non affected and non threatening climate.

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  • #
    PeterS

    The figure is questionable (I believe it will end up being a lot higher) but the intent was always to make massive amount’s of money from the biggest scam in history. People who performed other scams that involved a tiny fraction of the money being talked about here are in prison today for a long time. Need I say more?

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    • #
      ianl8888

      During my relatively long career, I have done quite a few projects (of both the due diligence and entpreneurial types) for banks, both retail and merchant.

      At one stage, I had two projects on the go, both for the same very large, well-known merchant bank. One was analysing a proposal to loan many $millions for a mine development, the other was for a wind “farm” which was to negate the output of the proposed mine.

      Essentially, this bank had Chinese walls between the two executives running these disparate projects so the conflict was only highlighted after I flagged it. But both projects were eventually funded on the basis that both of them would make money. Who was I to argue with the Masters of the Universe ?

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  • #
    pat

    ***this has Carney quote that it’s “$5- to $7-trillion A YEAR”

    15 Jul: Globe&Mail: David Parkinson: Carney highlights financial potential of reining in carbon emissions
    VIDEO: 1min47secs: Carney discusses the impact of carbon pricing on the market
    He estimated that global carbon reduction needs imply “somewhere in the order of ***$5- to $7-trillion a year” in clean-infrastructure investments. “The question is, how much of that is going to be financed through capital markets?”…READ ALL
    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/carney-says-carbon-plan-could-open-door-for-financial-sector-profits/article30935769/

    Carney was in discussion “with Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna before a large audience at a Toronto Region Board of Trade event” according to the above. lots at twitter below, but can’t see video, at first glance anyway:

    twitter: CPLCCCanada
    https://twitter.com/hashtag/CPLCCanada?src=hash

    also from Globe & Mail piece:

    Mr. Carney left the conference hall quickly after his public conversation with Ms. McKenna ended, and didn’t speak to media…

    Mr. Carney, a Canadian who was the head of the Bank of Canada before taking the top Bank of England job three years ago, told the audience that he actually came to Canada to visit his brother – but joked that an “irresistible force” convinced him to participate in the climate-change event. (Ms. McKenna’s office was instrumental in lining up Mr. Carney, according to an event official.) …

    COMMENTS ARE ALMOST ENTIRELY NEGATIVE.

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    • #

      Thanks for looking Pat, like you I found a few which appeared to quote him with the per year phrase, but they were all just short partial sentences, and the bloomberg one appears to be a longer quote which does not say that. But 5 – 7 billion over 20 years sounds too small…

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  • #
    pat

    btw short video in Globe & Mail article does not include the trillion-dollar quote…

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  • #
    pat

    16 Jul: Toronto Sun: Lorrie Goldstein: Here comes carbon pricing
    The Trudeau government will introduce its national plan this fall … and it’s going to cost us big-time
    Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna said Friday the Trudeau government will present its plan for a uniform, national carbon price this fall, as part of a larger package of climate change initiatives.
    “What we want to see is uniformity in terms of a national price,” McKenna said in an interview with Danielle Bochove of Bloomberg TV Canada…
    Translation? Hold on to your wallets…

    We know this from McKenna’s following statement to Bloomberg.
    “Provinces and territories need to decide what they’re going to do with the revenues and there’s different models, (for example) revenue neutral model, where you make investments so you can foster innovation …”
    Except that’s not what revenue neutral means…

    A hint was the enthusiasm McKenna expressed about how major financial institutions support the government’s plan.
    Of course they do — they’re going to make a fortune trading carbon credits — just as major industrial emitters who also support carbon pricing are going to make billions of dollars in subsidies our governments are throwing at them in return for their support.
    Indeed, at the same Toronto Board of Trade event where McKenna spoke, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney predicted global carbon pricing will create a ***$5 to $7 trillion-a-year business in so-called clean infrastructure projects, much of it financed through capital markets.
    Terrific. Except Europe’s 11-year-old cap-and-trade market, the Emissions Trading Scheme, is overrun with carbon credit fraud and the company that was the biggest and earliest supporter of carbon trading in North America was Enron. Ring any bells?
    http://www.torontosun.com/2016/07/16/here-comes-carbon-pricing

    15 Jul: Financial Post Comment: Terence Corcoran: Hail to the Alarmist-in-Chief: The world turns to Mark Carney for climate change salvation
    It’s 8 a.m. Friday. While the world economy flaps in the wind of central-bank imposed zero interest rates, as Brexit threatens the very existence of the European Union, as some banks and nations teeter on the brink of insolvency, as climate skeptic politicians grab headlines in Britain and the United States, there on stage at a Toronto Board of Trade breakfast event sat Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, the world’s Alarmist-in-Chief, basking in Liberal adulation and fielding lob-ball questions in which he is asked to rehash his notes from a speech he gave last September on the subject of climate change and financial stability.
    No Brexit questions, thank you. Nothing about the Bank of England’s latest interest rate incoherencies, and certainly not a word about Prime Minister Theresa May or Boris Johnson, Britain’s new foreign secretary who holds views that are the direct opposite of Carney’s on any number of subjects, from Brexit to climate science…

    And also now, apparently, the world continues to turn to Mark Carney for climate change salvation.
    Looking tanned and fit, Carney then engaged in mutual climate policy admiration with Catherine McKenna, Canada’s minister of the environment and climate change, who felt it necessary to remind the audience that they were sitting in downtown Toronto on territory that belongs to First Nations. Carney’s message, like McKenna’s, is that climate change poses severe century-long risks to the economy that must be addressed now by the world’s corporate leaders…

    Carney’s September speech to Lloyds of London, already viewed by many as inappropriately political climate alarmism from a central banker masquerading as financial common sense, set in motion an international movement to impose long-range climate predictions on short-term investment decisions…

    For example (in case there were any complacent corporate directors in the audience) Carney raised the prospect of directors’ liability over climate change. With no information, he asked, “When would you know with a reasonable degree of certainty about the potential damage of the activities of the corporation?” Would failure to know send directors to jail?…

    The Carney idea, adopted by the G20 and the international Financial Stability Board — of which Carney is chair — is to have all banks, insurance companies and public corporations voluntarily disclose their exposure to potential climate risks — and to climate policy risks.

    A blue-ribbon Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, headed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, has already released a preliminary report. A final report is expected within a year.
    As the world turns through the current economic and political crises, it is hard to imagine that the top agenda item will be preparing corporations to disclose their plans for time horizons that stretch to 2030 and 2050…
    http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/hail-to-the-alarmist-in-chief-the-world-turns-to-mark-carney-for-climate-change-salvation

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  • #
    pat

    comment #12 is in moderation.

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  • #
    Robert R

    Mark Carney denied allegations that the bank of England tried to frighten the British electorate into voting to remain in the European Union by using “phony forecasts and scare stories.” He has also made bearish comments about Brexit that have moved the forex market sharply since the vote. This is unacceptable because the bank of E is meant to be impartial. Comments and statements can cause price movement shocks to the markets, particularly to currencies. This is not helping. How did this guy get this position.

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      Robert R

      The US version of Mark Carney, Janet Yellen, said in March 2015 that she was interested in the example the Bank of England, Mark Chaney, had set before then, in warning banks and insurers about the risks that climate change poses to their viability. These people are not paid to get involved in these issues. There was a day, not so long ago, where central banks were impartial. The left does not believe in this impartiality.

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        Analitik

        The time of the central banks really is over – their usefulness in providing fiat currency for global trading is over due to their utter subservience to business interests. A return to commodity based currencies (where the money is guaranteed to be redeemable for nominated commodity at a known, fixed rate) is well overdue and should be issued by private institutions that are then liable for the value of the currency that they choose to issue.

        But our governments do not have to will to make this change and it will take the total crash of our current global economy before the system that served right up to the start of the 20th century (when government central banks were created) to be restored.

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          Robert R

          Pre oh bummer, they used to make US statistical announcements on Fridays only, so that the financial markets could absorb the shock of the announcements over the following weekend. Now they make government statistical announcements every day of the week because they don’t care about the disruptive shock consequences……..

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    cedarhill

    Climate change is just a real world application of the Golden Rule (those with gold, rule) when confronted with a democracy where the gold to be stolen must be via vote.

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    pat

    whilst Financial Post writes that Carney was basically rehashing his Lloyds of London speech, it doesn’t mention the trillions needed annually:

    VIDEO: 28min42secs: 29 Sept 2015: Bank of England: Breaking the tragedy of the horizon – climate change and financial stability – speech by Mark Carney
    TRANSCRIPT
    http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/2015/844.aspx

    it is more a rehash of his speech to the UN in April this year, as per this Bank for International Settlements’ PDF:

    PDF: 5 pages: BIS central bankers’ speeches: Mark Carney: The Sustainable Development Goal imperative
    Remarks by Mr Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board, at the United Nations General Assembly, High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, New York City, 21 April 2016.
    2. The scale of investment required to achieve the SDGs is immense
    Although moving to a low-carbon future will not necessarily require substantially more
    investment than business as usual,(4) it will require a radical re-focusing of that investment
    from high- to lower carbon technologies.
    Overall, it is estimated investments of between US$5 and $7 trillion a year are needed for infrastructure, clean energy, water, sanitation, agriculture, and the other SDGs.(5) This is significant but achievable…
    NOTES (4) AND (5):
    See New Climate Economy “Infrastructure investment needs of a low carbon scenario” (2014), which
    estimates that there are infrastructure investment needs totalling approximately US$90 trillion between 2015
    and 2030, in the context of a growing population and increasing urbanisation. It is estimated that adopting a
    low-carbon pathway increases these costs by 5%.
    5 See UNCTAD “World Investment Report” (2014), which estimates that this is the annual amount of investment
    required to meet the SDGs by 2030.

    3. Building the financial system we need to deliver this investment
    …Early awareness of the risks and opportunities associated with a low-carbon economy will attract mainstream institutional capital. That impact will be maximised if there are the right vehicles.
    In this regard, green bonds have the potential to align the interests of issuers and investors.
    To investors, green bonds offer a stable, rated and liquid investment with long duration. To issuers, they could tap the US$100 trillion global institutional fixed income investor base…
    https://www.bis.org/review/r160523b.pdf

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    Green investments. My mother used to have an expression – “a fool and their money are soon separated.”

    https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/the-sun-is-setting-on-solar-power-the-moneys-gone-and-nobodys-asking-any-questions/

    Pointman

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    Ruairi

    The numbers are small, but they’re trillions,
    In reality, thousands of billions,
    To fund ‘carbon’ schemes,
    And fulfil bankers’ dreams,
    But disappoint millions and millions.

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    That they believe there is this much economic downside for mitigating CO2 ($5-7T per year wasted on imaginary problems) just means that there is this much upside when the science actually does become settled.

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      delcon2

      If the “Science”really becomes settled,there”Will”be blood in the streets.Eventually,people will wake up that they have been “CONNED”Maybe that why “Little Johnny Howard”took our fire-arms off us.

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    handjive

    [Global Warming] is a multitrillion-dollar business opportunity, according to John Kerry

    These days, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is downright cheery about the economic prospects of addressing [Global Warming].
    In a speech to a business-minded room at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance summit on Tuesday, Kerry insisted [Global Warming] presents an opportunity that could far surpass the tech boom of the 1990s: “This is a multitrillion-dollar market with billions of users worldwide.”
    . . .
    As thick as thieves comes to mind as there is no evidence that sunbeam & seabreeze collectors will control weather nee climate as claimed by Kerry:

    “Acting on [Global Warming] isn’t just about preserving the planet for future generations, Kerry explained, but also recognizing “that clean energy is one of the greatest economic opportunities the world has ever seen.”

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    Amber

    Individual bankers are under a lot of pressure to sell debt and collect fees .

    I love the language ” Fight climate change ” , “Addressing global warming”

    “$7 trillion Opportunity “. Pump and dump slogans from politicians looking to tax more ,

    bankers trying to get a piece of the action and people hoping to siphon off grant money

    for uneconomic renewable businesses .

    Mother Nature runs the show just like always no matter what conmen in the global warming industry

    claim .

    Bankers should stick to ripping people off on credit cards . The planet doesn’t need them .

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      tom0mason

      Amber,

      You are quite correct ” Mother Nature runs the show just like always no matter what conmen in the global warming industry claim.”

      The paper-shufflers and bankers believe that we all are so remote from nature because they are. They are judging us by their own low standards.
      They fail to realize that the vast majority of people live with nature, and that people are a part of nature — from fishermen to farmers to doctors, and I believe so are scientists.
      Bankers and bureaucrats living in their artificial city world of products, consumers, and finance truly believe it is real, and apart from nature. One global natural catastrophe and its game over for them.

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    Gordon

    In plain old layman”s language this means my TAXES will go UP!!!!!!!

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    Amber

    Carney appears to be stepping outside his pay grade while
    promoting so called $7 Trillion opportunities . No coincidence as he
    is nearing the end of his 5 year self proclaimed current job shelf life .
    What are they going to do fire him ?

    Who is the “we ” he refers to ? ” We won’t get our core goal(climate goal ) ” ? Who exactly is he representing ?

    Visiting his brother but just happened to have a few minutes to pump the scary global warming industry .
    And who paid for the trip ?

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    Owen Morgan

    Quite how Mark Carney is still in post, following his outrageous interventions in the Brexit referendum, defeats me. He has both Canadian and Irish citizenship, but seems to treat those as a kind of scouting badge. I don’t believe he has any more loyalty to Canada, or to the Republic of Ireland, than he feels to the UK. He is the epitome of the worst kind of globalisation: the one that preaches free trade, while never practising it, and deliberately forces up prices, where genuinely free trade always has sent them down.

    In essence, he was a bizarre choice for Governor of the Bank of England, quite a bit like the kind the English Football Association makes after every disastrous tournament: fashionable, expensive and completely clueless, apart from his own self-interest. His championing of the Solyndra market is a world away from what a central banker is supposed to be doing. He should have been shown the door on the 24th of June and asked never to come back.

    Incidentally, I’m no mathematician, but I believe a “billion” used to be called a “milliard”, i.e. a thousand million. A “trillion” is what a “billion” used to be: a million million. My point is that the reason for contracting “billion” to merely one thousand million was that these sums were so impossibly huge that there was said to be no point in having an everyday term to refer to numbers as enormous as one million times one million. That was useful for counting stars and light years and nothing much else.

    Now a supposedly respectable banker is asserting that expenditure of “trillions” on a pet project of his is far from impossible, but actually beneficial. How long before “quadrillions” become the basic minimum for such fantasies?

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    As a scientist and a cattle producer, I just want to object to the mention of cows and carbon dioxide production, as free range cattle on Australian rangelands consume only carbon chains constructed by photosynthesis of carbon dioxide already in the air and thus have a net addition of zero to atmospheric CO2, ignoring the small, brief greenhouse effects of any methane CH4. It is the cattle in the USA feedlots that require trucked-in grains that are adding to net CO2 levels. Not that any of that matters much to the climate anyway.

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      handjive

      Prof debunks flatulence as major cause of global warming

      “In 2006, the United Nations concluded that the livestock industry was a big contributor to climate change.

      In its report “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” the U.N. concluded that livestock were contributing 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases — allegedly more than the entire world’s transpiration.

      The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used the report to forecast that Himalayan glaciers might vanish within 25 years.

      Mitloehner convinced the U.N. to recant its claim in 2010.

      The U.N. report estimated the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from every aspect of raising meat.

      The U.N. did not do the same when estimating the greenhouse gases from cars.”

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    pat

    jo, here is Carney’s speech in a Bank of England PDF.
    keep in mind this meeting took place the day before the signing of the Paris Agreement:

    PDF: 8 pages: Bank of England: Speech: The Sustainable Development Goal imperative
    Remarks given by Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, Chair of the Financial Stability Board
    United Nations General Assembly, High-Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, New York Thursday 21 April 2016
    Overall, it is estimated investments of between US$5 and $7 trillion a year are needed for infrastructure, clean energy, water, sanitation, agriculture, and the other SDGs. This is significant but achievable…
    http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2016/speech897.pdf

    check all pics – plenty of the usual suspects.
    note the participation of CNN, yet i cannot find a single MSM piece reporting on Carney’s remarks:

    IISD (International Institute for Sustainable Development): High Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
    21 April 2016 | UN Headquarters, New York
    PHOTO CAPTION: L-R: Barbara Adams, Senior Policy Advisor, Global Policy Forum; Namita Vikas, Group President and Country Head, Responsible Banking & Chief Sustainability Officer, YES Bank; Torbin Möger Pedersen, CEO, Pension Denmark; Izabella Teixeira, Minister of Environment, Brazil; Maggie Lake, Anchor and Correspondent, CNN International; and Mark Carney, Governor, Bank of England…
    http://www.iisd.ca/sdgs/hltd/

    21 Apr: UN: High Level Thematic Debate on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
    INTERACTIVE DISCUSSION ONE Financing poverty eradication and sustainable development
    10:05 KEYNOTE SPEAKER Dr. Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England and Chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB)
    10:15 – 11:45am PANEL 1: The way ahead: Successful frameworks and strategies for financing the Sustainable Development Goals and the paradigm shift towards low carbon societies
    MODERATOR Ms. Maggie Lake Anchor and Correspondent, CNN International
    http://www.un.org/pga/70/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/Detailed-Programme-with-Speakers_20-April-Final1.pdf

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    Alice Thermopolis

    “Perhaps central bankers want to help the poor and save the world, or could it be that the entire financial industry will profit from a fake, forced market and another fiat currency?”

    Jo’s right. It was/is the political class’s intention to dupe the public into imagining carbon (dioxide) credits have an integrity, value and status equivalent to ‘real money’ by creating equivalent mirror-structures – hence the Carbon Bank. Garnaut could still be its first ‘Governor”.

    Jonathan Swift had floating islands and folk trying to extract sunbeams from cucumbers etc. He would have loved the notion of monetizing 0.04% of the atmosphere, not to mention getting paid a Governor’s handsome salary for promulgating such bilge.

    Economically sustainable markets are built on the back of secure property rights. But such rights cannot exist for greenhouse gases. So emissions trading ultimately will unravel because of its structural flaws/fictions unless officially underwritten by governments/taxpayers/YOU.

    From an investment banking perspective, however, what’s not to like about the sheer snake-oil audacity of it all?

    Trading a “commodity” that’s invisible, that’s “stored” in the atmosphere, with a right-to-pollute “storage fee” payable only by developed country governments who are still solvent.

    Almost “creative” enough to make one want to be a Master/Mistress of – if not the Universe – then at least the Carbon Cargo Cult Club. PLus ca change, mais…..

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    michael hart

    Maybe this is actually just Mark Carney sending a signal to the currency markets:

    He doesn’t think the GB Pound is going to do anything interesting soon that needs his attentions, and so he can get back to global-warming, his wife’s favourite topic. A bit like the last UK Prime Minister, who also had a keen interest in the wind-power corporations which may, or may not, have been related to his wife’s father. (Keep it in the family.)

    The currency markets would surely notice that the Governor of The Bank of England has, apparently, got better things to occupy him. It could be a good bluff. I dunno.

    A non-exclusionary alternative is that Theresa May, the new Prime Minister, might actually notice that the Governor of The Bank of England is running around the world talking up the prospects of future employers on the back of global-warming alarmism and not doing his job. She might just take steps to fire him. I dunno.

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    pat

    btw Carney was at the IMF/World Bank Spring meeting in Washington DC on April 14, which was covered by Ed King/ClimateChangeNews:

    15 Apr: ClimateChangeNews: Ed King: World Bank, Bank of England urge speed on climate
    Waiting for the Paris Agreement to solve climate change is not an option, the heads of the Bank of England and World Bank told finance leaders in Washington on Thursday.
    Speaking on the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank Spring meeting, Mark Carney and Jim Kim painted a bleak picture of the level of global climate risk awareness…
    Tapping into the $100 trillion of fixed income assets in the hands of institutional investors like pension funds was critical, added Carney…
    One option discussed was a financial transaction tax to raise funds, while countries also agreed to deliver carbon pricing regimes by 2025 and embed climate costs in public accounts…
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/04/15/world-bank-bank-of-england-urge-speed-on-climate/

    Canada’s Catherine McKenna sits next to Carney in the video:

    2 pages: World Bank: Turning the Paris Climate Agreement into Action
    VIDEO: approx 1hour
    Date: Thursday, April 14, 2016
    Location: Preston Auditorium, World Bank Group HQ & Online
    “This is an absolutely critical issue. We have to move now, because the real losers will be every single one of our children and grandchildren,” said (World Bank Group President Jim Yong) Kim. He spoke at a livestreamed event, Turning the Paris Agreement into Action, with Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change ***CATHERINE McKENNA, France’s Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy Segolene Royal, Morocco’s Minister of Economy and Finance Mohamed Boussaid, and Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England and chairman of the G20’s Financial Stability Board…
    With the price of solar energy still higher than coal, the World Bank Group is working to find ways to help countries like Pakistan and Vietnam put together deals that would make renewable energy cheaper than coal, Kim said…
    ***The cost of renewable energy infrastructure required over the next 30 years has been estimated by the International Energy Agency to be as high as ***$50 trillion, said Carney. The biggest risk is that banks, creditors, and investors get this information too late to make a smooth adjustment, he said.
    Carney added that under the right conditions, huge amounts of capital can be shifted to renewables. He said there is about $100 trillion of fixed-income assets globally, but less than 1% is currently invested in renewables or green finance…
    http://live.worldbank.org/turning-the-paris-climate-agreement-into-action

    ***seems Carney simply upped the trillions needed when he spoke one week later at the UN.

    Watch your retirement funds.

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    Egor TheOne

    Carnival Carney is just another of many Big Bank BSers in urgent need of ‘The Bums Rush Out’!

    Trillions, billions, millions, what difference does it make?

    Even just one dollar towards it is one dollar towards a scam.

    When big banks and big government all round the planet say its a good idea, that’s when you know without any doubt.

    It’s corruption on a scale never seen before.

    Their proof is to roll out actors (professional pretenders), politicians (professional liars), bankists (professional thieves), and the sellout scientific bodies that have to tow the party line whether they want to or not, or it’s no funding and even no job threats!

    Not to mention, the Unelected Nutters’ most high church of CAGW Despot Central….the IPCC.

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    Analitik

    OT – RenewEconomy reckon South Australia’s electricity pricing has been stabilised by wind and solar

    How wind and solar removed major price spikes in South Australia

    I think I’m on the verge of being banned (I had a comment “disappeared” from the Solar Impulse article) there but I have posted up some pricing events from the AEMO site that tend to refute Giles assertion.
    Anyone else want to join in?

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      Analitik

      Yep, another comment “disappeared” by Giles et al.
      All I did was link to half a dozen pricing events for South Australia in the last 3 months.

      AndyG55, how many comments were you able to post before being banned?

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        AndyG55

        3 maybe 4..

        And all I did was state facts.

        But FACTS are an enema to the leftist greenie !

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        • #
          KinkyKeith

          Andy,

          Did you intend, anathema?

          The image of a herbal “anathema” being used by a greenie was too much.

          KK

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            AndyG55

            No. I used the exact word I wanted to use. 🙂

            This will really give the greens the S**TS !

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    Robber

    Breaking news – Greg Hunt moved on from Environment Minister – replaced by Josh Frydenberg – perhaps some hope to stop the rise in electricity prices by restricting the RET, and not proceeding with any ETS.

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    • #
      ianl8888

      Greg Hunt moved on from Environment Minister – replaced by Josh Frydenberg

      A tiny ray of hope, although Hunt seems to have been moved to the Industry portfolio vacated by Pyne’s demotion. Hunt and industry will only mix at the margins.

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        Analitik

        Well it depends on whether you include the renewables industry..

        Frydenberg is a step in the right direction but Turnbull is still playing lip service to the conservative wing
        Election 2016: Malcolm Turnbull unveils ministry with Christopher Pyne, Greg Hunt on the move

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          ianl8888

          Yes, people are wondering if Waffle has set Frydenberg up to fall over in this difficult, sensitive area. SA is utterly dependent on lignite-fired power from LaTrobe Valley in Vic for base load but the dense ideologues in the Vic Govt are trying to close this source down for wind (the bete noir of the SA grid).

          Cassandra is much worried by all this stup1dity. It seems that even sudden, unanticipated (by the ideologues) loss of base load power is insufficient to cause a change in policy. As catastrophic as this may be, perhaps one of their grandmothers being suddenly stuck in a lift between the 14th and 15th floors for an unknown time will be a catalyst.

          The SA establishment is so technically incompetent that they scheduled the critical Vic interconnector for an upgrade (following an earlier “unplanned” loss of base load) during winter, when demand is highest.

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            Analitik

            My wife thought Frydenberg had been demoted when watching the evening news but I said to her that his will quite possibly be the key ministry after Treasurer in this term of government. From the Victorian perspective, at least he’s a local member for the state of stupidity that Daniel Andrews is intent on turning us into.

            The other saving grace for Victoria is that our grid is the crutch preventing the South Australian grid from total collapse. Any meaning reduction in the output from our ageing but still fully functional Latrobe Valley coal plants will yank this crutch on the first hot windless or just very hot (h/t Graeme No3) evening which will swiftly jolt the complacent masses from any belief in pursuing this madness.

            Winter is not the worst time for the Heywood upgrade – the South Australians are desperate for it to be completed and running before the summer heat arrives. Too bad if our inner city latte sippers have rendered it useless by then.

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              ianl8888

              Winter is not the worst time for the Heywood upgrade

              Perhaps not, although I’ve just driven across SA (both ways) and it was cold enough for me to hope the interconnector worked ok.

              But given that summer may be even worse than winter in terms of risk, what’s wrong with either autumn or spring ? Three months is sufficient time for this upgrade.

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      AndyG55

      I wish I could contact these guys and let them know 🙂

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    Robert R

    Sending Kevi to head the UN may be a good way of getting them to manage themselves into oblivion, hey?

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    Rollo

    Yeah Kevin is one of a select few who can out-waffle Lord Waffle,but sadly the UN seems to thrive on obfuscation and incompetence.

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    pat

    novel length…but surprisingly devoid of CAGW despite stating early on:

    “As reporters covering medicine, psychology, ***climate change”…

    14 Jul: Vox: The 7 biggest problems facing science, according to 270 scientists
    by Julia Belluz, Brad Plumer, and Brian Resnick
    As reporters covering medicine, psychology, ***climate change, and other areas of research, we wanted to understand this epidemic of doubt. So we sent scientists a survey asking this simple question: If you could change one thing about how science works today, what would it be and why?
    We heard back from 270 scientists all over the world, including graduate students, senior professors, laboratory heads, and Fields Medalists. They told us that, in a variety of ways, their careers are being hijacked by perverse incentives. The result is bad science…

    Alternatively, researchers in the journal mBio recently called for a lottery-style system. Proposals would be measured on their merits, but then a computer would randomly choose which get funded.
    “Although we recognize that some scientists will cringe at the thought of allocating funds by lottery,” the authors of the mBio piece write, “the available evidence suggests that the system is already in essence a lottery without the benefits of being random.” Pure randomness would at least reduce some of the perverse incentives at play in jockeying for money…READ ON
    http://www.vox.com/2016/7/14/12016710/science-challeges-research-funding-peer-review-process

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      Peter C

      Thanks Pat,

      I am not going to read it. But if scientist want to understand the “epidemic of doubt”: they should first address the issues of Climate Science. It is all laid bare there.

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      TdeF

      What I find odd is the prejudicial naming. “medicine, psychology, climate change, and other areas of research”.
      So why is the study of Climate the study of Climate Change? Is the conclusion in the title? Why is the IPCC the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? In all the games which involve the multi trillion dollar Global Warming industry, now the Climate Change industry, we are given to believe the Climate is Changing. Is it?

      Over half a century of observation, I have to say that the climates I have observed in travels around the world have not changed at all. The weather patterns can change from year to year but well within historical bounds. Some years are hotter, wetter, windier, cooler, dryer. Some have long dry spells and long periods of rain. Severe winters destroyed the armies of Napoleon and Hitler, but no one said then or since that this was Climate Change. That would have been absurd.

      Then in Australia, the land of ‘droughts and flooding rains’ a drought is not Climate Change. It is the climate. So are floods. What I find upsetting is that totally unqualified Australian Chief Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery could claim both floods and drought are the direct result of man made Global Warming and even bushfires were convincing proof of man made climate change? Trust me, I have studied ancient kangaroos?

      Now looking back on fifty years of constant temperatures except for a small +0.5C step which suspiciously coincided with the formation of the IPCC by the world meteorological society and the rapid transition to electronic measurement, there is no evidence at all of this Climate Change. As for the 0.3C since 1900, who said the world thermometer was accurate to 0.3C then? Or can a lot of inaccurate and geographically inadequate readings make a very accurate one by the incredible power of statistics, as seems to be a common belief? Isn’t science wonderful?

      Surely if steadily rising CO2 and steadily rising seas were cause and evidence respectively of man made Climate Change, the temperature at least would have the decency to change in the last 50 years apart from the unexplained step? So it is hard to know why anyone is talking about trillions of dollars to stop the temperature rising when it is not rising at all? Trillions of dollars of Elephant Repellent.

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        Raven

        Trillions of dollars of Elephant Repellent.

        Yep, and it’s working.
        Not an elephant to be seen for miles and miles . .

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    Roy Hogue

    It’s been evident for a long time that money trumps everything else with the ambitious — the wannabe movers and shakers of events who want to be “somebody”. It even trumps honesty. What has CO2 got to do with anything? I think it’s called a scapegoat. I don’t know for sure how apt an analogy that is but they certainly want us to feel guilty and they want to blame it on CO2 — of course, only on CO2 generated by human activity. I’m sure everyone can reach their own conclusion about the role of CO2. And so far, the world has swallowed that nonsense as if they were starving and it was a steak dinner. But now, it’s beginning to change…

    Unfortunately, once money is involved the thing takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And you have almost a self fulfilling prophecy. Or worse, maybe it’s an actual self fulfilling prophecy. And I have no idea where or when it will finally end… …or how, which may be the more chilling question. “How will it end?”

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      Roy Hogue

      Yesterday our son and and daughter-in-law brought our grandson, now 10 months old, here for the afternoon and we had a long visit. It’s a long drive for them or for us so we don’t get together just every other day. And I was surprised at how much that boy has grown since I last saw him. He’s a bright, enthusiastic little guy, curious, wanting to explore everything and as I played with him I couldn’t help wondering, exactly what kind of world will he have to live in for the next 80 plus years?

      By this point in my life I’ve realized that the future was never really a secure thing I could count on. But today it’s 10 or 100 times more likely to be bad than it was just 25 or 30 years ago. And it can keep you awake at night to think about it.

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        Roy Hogue

        Proofread, Roy, proofread. He’s 16 months old, not 10. 🙁

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        KinkyKeith

        Hi Roy,
        Sounds like a good visit.

        I Have the same apprehension about our children and grandchildren making their way through life,

        My childhood was very hands on with chooks to feed and “dress” and grapes, players and sweet potatoes for a snack.
        My future work as an adult was likewise going to be something tangible.

        The horrible mischief that passed for work in the financial world during and after the GFC is unfortunately indicative of a confused future.

        I hope that recent events like the Brexit, Australia’s voter rebellion and the appalling person being swept towards the presidency in another voter backlash in the US may be a sign of hope that change for the better is possible.

        KK

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          KinkyKeith

          Players ,,,, loquats or locuts

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          Roy Hogue

          KK,

          Thank you.

          It was indeed a complete pleasure to have our grandson around for the afternoon. And the best thing of all about grandchildren is that at the end of the day, either they go home or you go home. I did my time as a parent and would not have missed it for anything. But been there, done that. Nuf said. 😉

          That the problem I worry about goes far beyond my family is also very bothersome. You aren’t alone.

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    Gordon

    This also explains why the news media fawns all over Naomi Klein. The media is owned by big business, they see the trillions pile up, Klein is their poster girl. The left supports Klein, all looks good in the news. Banks must LOVE her.

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