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Cap and Trade: A Gigantic Scam

George Washington's picture




 

Washington’s
Blog

As I pointed out in December:

James Hansen - the world's leading climate scientist fighting against global warming - told Amy Goodman this morning that cap and trade not only won't reduce emissions, it may actually increase them:

The
problem is that the emissions just go someplace else. That’s what
happened after Kyoto, and that’s what would happen again, if—as long as
fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they will be burned someplace.
You know, the Europeans thought they actually reduced their emissions
after Kyoto, but what happened was the products that had been made in
their countries began to be made in other countries, which were burning
the cheapest form of fossil fuel, so the total emissions actually increased...

See also this and this.

 

Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are also against cap and trade (and see this and this), as is the head of California's cap and trade program for the EPA.

 

Hansen also told Goodman that (notwithstanding Paul Krugman's assertions) most economists say that cap and trade won't work:

I’ve
talked with many economists, and the majority of them agree that the
cap and trade with offsets is not the way to address the problem.

As I have previously pointed out:

  • The economists who invented cap-and-trade say that it won't work for global warming
  • European criminal investigators have determined that there is a tremendous amount of fraud occurring in the carbon trading market. Indeed, organized crime has  largely taken over the European cap and trade market.
  • Former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro says
    that the proposed cap and trade law "has no provisions to prevent
    insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial
    meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their
    derivatives."
  • Our bailout buddies over at Goldman
    Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and the other Wall Street
    behemoths are buying heavily into carbon trading (see this, this, this, this, this, this and this).
    As University of Maryland professor economics professor and former
    Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission Peter Morici
    writes:

    Obama
    must ensure that the banks use the trillions of dollars in federal
    bailout assistance to renegotiate mortgages and make new loans to
    worthy homebuyers and businesses. Obama must make certain that banks do not continue to squander federal largess by padding executive bonuses, acquiring other banks and pursuing new high-return, high-risk lines of businesses in merger activity, carbon trading
    and complex derivatives. Industry leaders like Citigroup have announced
    plans to move in those directions. Many of these bankers enjoyed
    influence in and contributed generously to the Obama campaign. Now it
    remains to be seen if a President Obama can stand up to these same
    bankers and persuade or compel them to act responsibly.

    In
    other words, the same companies that made billions off of derivatives
    and other scams and are now getting bailed out on your dime are going
    to make billions from carbon trading.

One the largest boosters for cap and trade invented credit default swaps
- which were supposed to increase financial stability, but instead were
a large part of the reason that the world economy crashed last year

Jeanne Roberts provides an update at environmental website Celsius:

The
E.U. carbon emissions trading fraud is huge, but perhaps nothing
compared to the potential for cheating that will become available in
the United States once Waxman-Markey, or some similar scheme for
reducing carbon emissions, emerges from the Senate to become law.

 

***

 

As
Bloomberg notes, a carbon trading market organized around derivatives
(sometimes known as credit default swaps, or CDS) is “open to
manipulation,” in the words of billionaire hedge fund investor George
Soros.

 

In fact, some old-school environmentalists see the whole
carbon trading scheme as not a way to curb climate change, but merely a
way to make the rich even richer at the expense of the rest of us. As
Larry Lohmann, the founding member of the Durban Group for Climate
Justice, says, “Dishonesty is rife throughout the carbon offset market.”

 

In
January, investigators from Belgium said that in some E.U. countries,
90 percent of the market volume in carbon trading was based on criminal
activities.

 

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Sat, 05/22/2010 - 18:15 | 368022 Hulk
Hulk's picture

Cap and trade = huge scam. If we are so worried about carbon, why don't we start reclaiming the deserts, which are all man caused anyway (for the most part)

Plant trees in those deserts, create huge forests, and sequester that Carbon. But that would actually work, so we won't go there....

Sat, 05/22/2010 - 18:50 | 368048 AnAnonymous
AnAnonymous's picture

You mean start watering down desert like it is done in Arizona with the energy bill associated?

Sounds like a pretty nice idea. Very US like.

Do you have the Indians to fund the project? Will join as soon as they are guaranteed.

Sat, 05/22/2010 - 19:12 | 368063 Hulk
Hulk's picture

Getting them started would be intensive. Once re-established (many of the present deserts were once forests) normal rain patterns could potentially come back and the equilibrium we once enjoyed returned. Mature trees hold a ton of water and aspiration would help. China, due to massive sandstorms, the aftermath of which one can see in the sf bayarea, is undergoing a massive tree replanting program in their deserts, as is the UK in their treeless plains...

But I would rather see our capitol used in planting trees and reclaiming deserts than giving it to the banksters under the auspices of cap and trade

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 08:00 | 368436 JW n FL
JW n FL's picture

Insdide a Savvis data center outside of Washington, D.C.

http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=25343A2E6F31436AAB32A735DD720F6F

http://www.savvis.net/en-us/company/news/press/pages/savvisannounceskeydatacenterexpansion.aspx

I guess that D.C. and its Fiber Optic does not need to be in Jersey? At any rate Hulky, it looks too me like Wall Street is on "K" Street?

Sorry for the shotty news, my bad on a Sunday... I could have waited until tomorrow to respond I guess.

Try to have a fantastic Sunday any way Hulky, JW

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 09:48 | 368498 Hulk
Hulk's picture

Hulky? Don't make ,me angry JW, you wouldn't like me when I am angry!

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 11:13 | 368609 JW n FL
JW n FL's picture

I Love You Bro! not in a gay way... not that there is anything wrong with two (or more, more is good) hot chicks going at it! I mean... ummmm anything wrong with the whole Gay thing... no offense anyone! sorry...

 

Bro, I dug this up for you...  know you don't watch SNL all the time... but I think this will work for you.. There is more than just this one skit... so if you like it, like I think you will, I will dig around, if you dug it!

 

http://dailyradar.com/beltwayblips/video/snl_the_rock_obama_don_t_get_the_president_angry_video/

 

Have a GREAT! Sunday Hulky!

 

My very best to you and yours as always, JW

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 11:39 | 368635 Hulk
Hulk's picture

That was good. Last night was good too, Tina Fey is very talented.

You too have a great sunday JW! 

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 05:43 | 368393 AnAnonymous
AnAnonymous's picture

Ummmm yes. Somehow funny.

Climate change is about addressing the part resulting from some countries' activity. More about the empire people can exert over themselves than anything else.

Yet in order to be credible, the step should be to try to reverse what is mostly the result of non human activity? Strange logics.

What is done in the western world is another story. When one is able to siphon an environment other than one's immediate surroundings, an option arises: stressing even more the far exterior environment to remove pressure on the immediate environment.

Britain's effort is just decorum. What they no longer do at home, they do elsewhere and at a higher degree. China is another story as they have not inherited a global network from a global colonization era.

Sat, 05/22/2010 - 17:42 | 367995 seventree
seventree's picture

The whole cap & trade scheme is scandalous and insane, and should not be tolerated by any thinking person no matter where they stand on the global-warming issue. If you believe that planetary heat buildup due to industrial CO2 emissions is a threat to civilization, then C&T is an insidious plan to maximize this danger, not contain it. On the other hand if you think the whole idea is a crackpot fairy tale cooked up by scientists for their own benefit, C&T is still a resource wasting fraud and should be stopped in its tracks. Disagreement on climate theory should not be allowed to distract us.

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 05:42 | 368392 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

+++

Sat, 05/22/2010 - 16:56 | 367959 Narcolepzzzzzz
Narcolepzzzzzz's picture

GW. Your hyperlinks need sorting out (half not working).

Sat, 05/22/2010 - 15:17 | 367848 Mr Lennon Hendrix
Mr Lennon Hendrix's picture

One big scam es correcto.  Dead weight de jur.

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 03:20 | 368358 JW n FL
JW n FL's picture

Here’s the plan… Everyone who Trusts in Jesus and his Big Warm Hug for the World… should have faith and Prove to these Non-Believers that Man Made, Refined and / or Purified CO2 is not going to hurt anyone in large amounts… should! Get a Garden Hose, stick on end into the tail pipe of your car and the other into the window of your car and start the motor… That Man Made, Refined and / or Purified CO2 that gets pumped into the car with you… If you really are a true believer! Should not hurt you any more than the Hundreds of Billions of Man Made, Refined and / or Purified Tons of CO2 that gets pumped into the Worlds Air supply every year… take a plant with you in the car as the plant will convert the CO2 into pure clean oxygen… one little motor can NOT! over power one of Gods creations… Man can NOT! destroy what God has Made for us all…

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 00:52 | 368289 DoChenRollingBearing
DoChenRollingBearing's picture

The 1970s, when they said the world would freeze.  Katla in Iceland blowing would mean a year without a summer.

And Gore with his mansion and private jet, Pelosi and her BIG private jet.

Mucho bunko aqui!

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 14:22 | 368862 thisandthat
thisandthat's picture

Hey, don't diss Al "I invented teh internets" Gore; he's as entitled to enjoy his new (and ecological, no doubts, for sure) little crib (just his 4th...) as anyone else:

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/05/exclusive-estimate-carbon-footp...

Jealousy - such a envious feeling... tsk, tsk, tsk.

Sat, 05/22/2010 - 13:59 | 367744 AnAnonymous
AnAnonymous's picture

That story of climate change makes me laugh every time I hear about it.

So funny.

As if people in the western world were able to govern themselves.

Climate change is a too big bit to chew. People will never endure the sacrifice required to prevent it.

Obviously, climate change will have inequal effects on the Earth.

If the effects benefit the areas when western powers lie, well, no issue, just blocking more people at the frontier.

If the effects are detrimental, well, just a bit of land cleansing on places which benefit from climate changes.

This is the well known outcome in case of climate change.

 

Where climate change scratches, it is for the scam named responsibility. Western powers will not accept responsibility in this story. Other people are going to have to soak the negative consequences of climate change for them.

This is the only issue. And where the collapse appears.

People in the Western world are so big on responsibility when actually they are opportunistic at heart.

Of course, cap and trade is a scam. This is simply propaganda to hide where the true collapse lies.

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 02:02 | 368335 ED
ED's picture

F*ck climate change and global warming. As there werent many other fab reasons for getting off hydrocarbons and onto abundant clean sources of energy. But that'll break up the existing 'power' structure - and who wants that?! Just the bottom 99% of the planets population.

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 03:20 | 368357 JW n FL
JW n FL's picture

Here’s the plan… Everyone who Trusts in Jesus and his Big Warm Hug for the World… should have faith and Prove to these Non-Believers that Man Made, Refined and / or Purified CO2 is not going to hurt anyone in large amounts… should! Get a Garden Hose, stick on end into the tail pipe of your car and the other into the window of your car and start the motor… That Man Made, Refined and / or Purified CO2 that gets pumped into the car with you… If you really are a true believer! Should not hurt you any more than the Hundreds of Billions of Man Made, Refined and / or Purified Tons of CO2 that gets pumped into the Worlds Air supply every year… take a plant with you in the car as the plant will convert the CO2 into pure clean oxygen… one little motor can NOT! over power one of Gods creations… Man can NOT! destroy what God has Made for us all…

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 05:55 | 368391 tip e. canoe
tip e. canoe's picture

that's mostly CO that will go thru the garden hose, not CO2.  one oxygen molecule = big difference.  like the difference between water (h2o) & peroxide (h2o2).   if you don't believe me, you're welcome to do an experiment and take a peroxide bath.  feel free to come back and share your results.

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 01:09 | 368303 Hdawg
Hdawg's picture

Cap and Trade is already a recognised failure that's why the Obama administration will no longer refer to the new system as 'Cap and Trade'.  They need to repackage it.

Cap and Trade is a scam just like man made global warming.  For the past 25 years the Establishment have funded well meaning people to bring about their system of global control via the up and coming global carbon backed SDR currency that will replace the USD in global trade. 

Carbon Credit Trading or Cap and Trade is nothing but a way for the Establishment to restrict the use of Earth's finite energy resources.

 

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 12:48 | 368723 G-R-U-N-T
G-R-U-N-T's picture

Hdawg,

This article may interest you...

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Fannie-Mae-owns-patent...

On another note...

Of course it's a scam....CO2 is a nutrient, not a pollutant.

I find it amusing, and tragic that a gullible public actually believe such nonsense.

Let's put "Man Made CO2" which is a trace gas into perspective...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYLmLW4k4aI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBO2IstMi2A&NR=1

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 23:26 | 369439 Hdawg
Hdawg's picture

thanks G-R-U-N-T

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 05:35 | 368390 AnAnonymous
AnAnonymous's picture

Big conspiracy here. The Establishment has only one failure: in its propaganda trying to hide the failure.

Climate change is not a story. What is a story is that it will hit everyone equally and that anyone has a self interest to stop it.

That is the only scam here.

The big lesson of all this story is the failure of people to self govern. They cant. They will do anything that benefit them until they are prevented from doing it,until they are stopped.

In all fairness, people has to be limited to western populations as the others cant be factored in because of them being out of power exercize.

 

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 08:15 | 368442 JW n FL
JW n FL's picture

Carbon emissions fall by steepest in 40 years

(Reuters) - Global emissions of the commonest man-made greenhouse gas carbon dioxide will fall by the sharpest rate in 40 years in 2009 following tumbling factory output, the International Energy Agency said on Monday.

The world must use the drop of about 2.6 percent to drive a global fight against climate change, rather than allow emissions to rise again as after previous recessions, Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist, told Reuters in an interview.

 

"The biggest fall (in about 40 years) was in 1981, at 1.3 percent, after oil price shocks and economic troubles," Birol said. "We estimate this year the fall will be around twice that."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE58K2AN20090921

 

Chapter 8 - Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions 

In 2006, non-OECD energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide exceeded OECD emissions by 14 percent. In 2030, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from the non-OECD countries are projected to exceed those from the OECD countries by 77 percent.   

Because anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide result primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels, world energy use continues to be at the center of the climate change debate. In the IEO2009 reference case, world energy-related carbon dioxide emissions grow from 29.0 billion metric tons in 2006 to 33.1 billion metric tons in 2015 and 40.4 billion metric tons in 2030.44

From 2005 to 2006, total energy-related carbon dioxide emissions from the non-OECD countries grew by 5.2 percent, while emissions from the OECD countries declined by 0.3 percent. The decline in OECD countries’ carbon dioxide emissions is projected to continue through 2010, as fossil fuel demand contracts, in part because of the current global recession. Consequently, annual emissions from the non-OECD countries exceed those from the OECD countries by more than 30 percent in 2010 (Figure 80). Over the 24-year projection period, the average annual increase in non-OECD emissions from 2006 to 2030 (2.2 percent) is seven times the rate projected for the OECD countries (0.3 percent). In 2030, non-OECD emissions (25.8 billion metric tons) exceed OECD emissions (14.6 billion metric tons) by 77 percent.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/emissions.html

 

Bill Gates on energy: Innovating to zero!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaF-fq2Zn7I&feature=PlayList&p=C1B06538A32767DF&playnext_from=PL&index=161

 

The Business of Climate Change Conference 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYuLjGQQ-jg&feature=PlayList&p=C1B06538A32767DF&playnext_from=PL&index=132

 

 

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 08:27 | 368450 AnAnonymous
AnAnonymous's picture

Reducing climate change induced by human activity to carbon emissions is also a scam.

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 03:19 | 368356 JW n FL
JW n FL's picture

Here’s the plan… Everyone who Trusts in Jesus and his Big Warm Hug for the World… should have faith and Prove to these Non-Believers that Man Made, Refined and / or Purified CO2 is not going to hurt anyone in large amounts… should! Get a Garden Hose, stick on end into the tail pipe of your car and the other into the window of your car and start the motor… That Man Made, Refined and / or Purified CO2 that gets pumped into the car with you… If you really are a true believer! Should not hurt you any more than the Hundreds of Billions of Man Made, Refined and / or Purified Tons of CO2 that gets pumped into the Worlds Air supply every year… take a plant with you in the car as the plant will convert the CO2 into pure clean oxygen… one little motor can NOT! over power one of Gods creations… Man can NOT! destroy what God has Made for us all…

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 05:50 | 368394 Noah Vail
Noah Vail's picture

You idiot! Its carbon monoxide, not dioxide that kills.

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 09:44 | 368496 Hulk
Hulk's picture

No Noah, JW is correct. The EPA declared back in December that CO2 is a poisonous gas, and therefore it must be true! The EPA also declared that only man made CO2 is poisonous.Believe it, or not...

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 12:19 | 368678 thisandthat
thisandthat's picture

Yep, sure is - as "poisonous" to plants as oxygen is to animals, they should add...

Sun, 05/23/2010 - 06:52 | 368414 chumbawamba
chumbawamba's picture

Wow, you actually took the time to parse that incoherent babble?

I am an impressed Chumbawamba.

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