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Copenhagen Framework Demands Huge Amounts of Spending, But Allows Enron-Style Accounting Tricks So That Carbon Isn't Actually Reduced
The UN and other agencies calling for a war on global warming say the price tag will be trillions.
But
- according to top experts on climate and cap and trade - the
regulatory framework being rammed through in America and
internationally won't actually reduce carbon to any meaningful degree.
See this, this, this and this.
Now, the Independent notes that the Copenhagen framework uses Enron-style accounting tricks to give the impression of cutting carbon, without really doing so:
The
first week of this summit is being dominated by the representatives of
the rich countries trying to lace the deal with Enron-style accounting
tricks that will give the impression of cuts, without the reality. It's
essential to understand these shenanigans this week, so we can
understand the reality of the deal that will be announced with great
razzmatazz next week ...
A study by the
University of Stanford found that most of the projects that are being
funded as "cuts" either don't exist, don't work, or would have happened
anyway. Yet this isn't a small side-dish to the deal: it's the main
course ...
Trick one: hot air. The nations of
the world were allocated permits to release greenhouse gases back in
1990, when the Soviet Union was still a vast industrial power – so it
was given a huge allocation. But the following year, it collapsed, and
its industrial base went into freefall – along with its carbon
emissions. It was never going to release those gases after all. But
Russia and the eastern European countries have held on to them in all
negotiations as "theirs". Now, they are selling them to rich countries
who want to purchase "cuts". Under the current system, the US can buy
them from Romania and say they have cut emissions – even though they
are nothing but a legal fiction.
We
aren't talking about climatic small change. This hot air represents 10
gigatonnes of CO2. By comparison, if the entire developed world cuts
its emissions by 40 per cent by 2020, that will only take six
gigatonnes out of the atmosphere.
Trick two:
double-counting. This is best understood through an example. If Britain
pays China to abandon a coal power station and construct a
hydro-electric dam instead, Britain pockets the reduction in carbon
emissions as part of our overall national cuts. In return, we are
allowed to keep a coal power station open at home. But at the same
time, China also counts this change as part of its overall cuts. So one
tonne of carbon cuts is counted twice. This means the whole system is
riddled with exaggeration – and the figure for overall global cuts is a
con.
Trick three: the fake forests ... the
Canadian, Swedish and Finnish logging companies have successfully
pressured their governments into inserting an absurd clause into the
rules. The new rules say you can, in the name of "sustainable forest
management", cut down almost all the trees – without losing credits.
It's Kafkaesque: a felled forest doesn't increase your official
emissions... even though it increases your actual emissions.
There
are dozens more examples like this, but you and I would lapse into a
coma if I listed them. This is deliberate. This system has been made
incomprehensible because if we understood, ordinary citizens would be
outraged. If these were good faith negotiations, such loopholes would
be dismissed in seconds. And the rich countries are flatly refusing to
make even these enfeebled, leaky cuts legally binding. You can toss
them in the bin the moment you leave the conference centre, and nobody
will have any comeback.
"THE DANGERS OF ALLOWING THE PURSUIT OF SOMEWHAT IMPERFECT SUSTAINABLE CARBON ZERO HOUSING AS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE IN CERTAIN 'POCKETS OF FREEDOM' THROUGHOUT THE LANDS ARE NOT NEARLY AS GREAT AS THE DANGER OF NOT PURSUING IT AT ALL."
- Michael Reynolds
Earthship Biotecture
www.earthship.com
biotecture@earthship.com
I thought there was a peeing section in a pool...it is anywhere you happen to be standing at the time of release, just like carbon.
Kinda like having a smoking section in a restaurant or a peeing section in a pool.
FOAB and MOAS (Father Of All Bubbles and Mother Of All Scams) in the making. Fallout from subprime and dotcom bubbles will seem small compared to Green Bubble as Hiroshima and Nagasaki exposions were small compared to this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxD44HO8dNQ Czar Bubble would seem an appropriate name as a result if someone doesn't stop it.
Did anyone expect something else? After all, they are crafting this con in the capital of the very place that has mastered the art of CO2 fraud.
http://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/88-national/47643-denmark-rife-with-...
scam, nothing but scam
only place we can bitch about it is the net
nothing but net
The source of all warming is the sun. We should be taxing the sun? building big umbrellas. No longer use asphalt for roads! Global warming if is exists is a phenomena of Solar activity we are just along for the ride and should calm down.
And I thought we are all evolutionists (at least all of the Democratic primary presidential candidates raised their hands on that question). So if things get hotter, won't the human species (which is morally no different than dogs or cock roaches according to a good evolutionist) just "evolve" to handle the hotter temperatures?? Or if humans get wiped out, why will that be viewed negatively in the eyes of an evolutionist?? Are we happy or sad that dinosaurs got wiped out? Why are we different??
I hate when contradictions are not seen.
This...is...SO...wack
I'm a flaming pinko-liberal but can't support any climate initiatives because of junk like this. I can't support financial reform given the horrific bill about to be voted on by the House. And I certianly can't support the President, with Taibbi's new article just scratching the surface as to why. I wonder if those dumasses on the streets of Copenhagen today have half a clue about all this.
It's just like the healthcare debate. We're all busy calling each other inhuman instead of telling the insurance companies that routine visits to the doctor will all be paid in cash. No more copays for the predictable. It's like having to pay for insurance everytime you need to fill the gastank. Isn't insurance for big ticket 'repairs'?
So what is this really about? Not cleaning up the planet - that's beyond us little guys; our only real vote anymore is with the wallet. But those that would control us want us to feel bad about what the corporations are doing, and will continue to do - talk about psychopathic.
Orwell would not be pleased to know that his books are widely read and revered, yet not absorbed and applied.
What's interesting about the healthCare "debate" is that it is nothing but a head fake and a distraction. It's all hyperbole and smoke and mirrors to convince the populi that something is going on. Nothing is really going on. It's the same as the flag burning issues that come up evey election. The entire healthcare episode is Barnum and Baily. It's bullshit being promoted as ice cream. Consider this. I saw the healthcare expense at $350 billion at one point, and I don't know what they are saying now about the cost of healthcare, but defense spending overruns are yearly $296 Billion and nobody raises an eyebrow. No investigations. Nothing. Defense spending has doubled since 2000 to $698 Billion yearly and it was signed by the president. Most people don't even know it happened. No discussion whatsoever in Congress. Rubber stamp and back to the "threat to the deficit" caused by healthcare as the the government (I don't use "we" when speaking of the United States anymore, because it's no longer "we", it's "them", make no mistake about it.) pay for a phony-baloney war to promote big oil on the backs of ordinary citizens. I have often thought about how the $trillion spent so far in Iraq, might have supported health care, or maybe research and development into truly renewable energy methods and not the next criminal syndicate called cap and trade. We live in the world of the mad hatter and it keeps getting more insame
Trillion is the new billion. Makes me wonder if we'll make it to quadrillion. What if food stamping becomes the norm over the next decade, like social freaking security. The only thing that will stop this is enough people actually getting angry - but this slow slide is boiling a frog: we'll see.
AVNER MANDELMAN over at the Globe and Mail sums it perfectly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~THESE ARE HIS WORDS NOT MINE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~From Dec 5~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~Don't Let "Climategate"melt down your portfolio~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've said before that you are more vulnerable to skillful rhetoric than you think. Well, the past week proved it.
You've probably read about “Climategate” – how thousands of hacked e-mails from climate scientists revealed that they colluded to fudge their conclusions about global warming, told each other to destroy incriminating e-mails and perhaps even dumped raw data to mask the fraud.
Why did it work? Because the falsified conclusions appealed to people's good nature, and because the conspirators co-opted above-average rhetoricians to deliver their message.
Now why am I going on about this? For two reasons: First, because global warming is an investment theme that a few brokers are pushing; so, if you are a theme investor, be careful. Second, this sort of revelation is a perfect teaching moment of the madness of crowds.
Similar irrational manias included global cooling in the 1970s (when investors were urged to invest in thermal insulation, and the like); the Club of Rome's fear that we're running out of resources; the Internet dot-com bubble, when insane stock prices for companies without revenues were the norm; and others of the same ilk: mass hysterias that allowed a few media-savvy promoters to take the money of the many, by preying on their credulity, their emotions or both. Like global warming now.
If you think that calling global warming an irrational mania is a bit harsh, consider this: Say that a pharmaceutical company's researchers were caught fudging their tests to make their drug look effective; then, when found out, conveniently lost the non-fudged data. If a doctor prescribed for your child the fraudsters' drug, would you let her take it? If you said yes, would we not be justified in saying you are acting irrationally?
This, in effect, is what's happening now: global warming has become a near-religious test of civic virtue, just as being invested in Internet stocks became a test of investment savvy in 2000. Which is why many investors dazedly held on to Nortel all the way down to zero, even after its accounting issues had been revealed. And now, even though you can't trust the climate change data, the Copenhagen conference still goes on and promoters including Al Gore are out begging the public to give the scientists the benefit of the doubt. This is the same Mr. Gore who is profiting from tax credit-based environmental investments.
Do you still wonder why I see elements of mass madness here?
If there's a key lesson here for you, it's this: learn to resist the lure of popular fads, whether market-related, or ideology-based. If you don't, you're likely to find yourself investing in the next Nortel, Bre-X, or Madoff fund, or windmills supported by tax credits.
Oh, yes, tax credits. If there's one area to watch out for, it's a virtuous industry needing tax credits to make it viable. In the 1960s, the Club of Rome concluded (based on some other dodgy data) that the world was running out of resources. So, the Canadian government gave inventory tax credits to mining companies. The result was overproduction, bankruptcies and low resource prices for years. There was a similar panic about oil in the '70s, so huge tax breaks were offered for drilling the polar icecaps. The drillers went bust, as did some RRSPs for the credulous who fell for it.
Honest scientists can fall prey to manias, too – especially investment scientists. Remember modern portfolio theory? It, too, was a popular mass-mania that came replete with math and famous professors, who got Nobel prizes for the silly notion that risk is equivalent to the squiggliness of a line, not ignorance of the fundamentals. This theory ushered in derivatives and the Basel I and II banking rules, which helped undermine the global banking system.
How could you know that modern portfolio theory was a popular mania, and that its science was bunk? Why, Warren Buffett warned you for years. The main supporters were professors and derivatives salesmen – all of whom, like Al Gore (another Nobelist), benefited from the foolishness, while the masses lost.
So how can you ensure you're not harmed in future by slick rhetoric? First, by forcing yourself to admit, when the first signs of fraud appear, that you have been duped. Don't let your pride stand in the way. Get out. This way, you avoid staying on to the grim end with future Nortels.
Second, whenever you see a talking head pushing a stock or a fashionable disaster on TV, ask yourself: “Who pays him?” Everyone in the market is talking up his book, yet once a mania starts, everyone has the same book, and so they all push the same thing higher until it all unravels.
How close are we to the unravelling of the global warming fad? I think it has started.
There are already calls in the United States and Britain for probes into Climategate, and dragging out all the lies and airing them in public will be the end of global warming.
So don't get stuck with investments tied to it, either directly, or via tax credits.
I'm glad you stay active on this issue, GW.
This entire carbon credit scam is rife with fraud and manipulation and accomplishes nothing except the creation of another climate-style derivatives market. It's also harnessed with a subtle scheme to fuel international wealth redistribution.
Assuming this scheme somehow comes to be, imagine just the singular fate of the worldwide airline business. Or freight shipping .
If you think the derivatives scam is the #1 weapon of financial mass destruction, cap and trade comes in a solid #2. Hiroshima meet Nagasaki.
oops....sorry for double post. This issue makes me trigger-happy.
I'm glad you stay active on this issue, GW.
This entire carbon credit scam is rife with fraud and manipulation and accomplishes nothing except the creation of another climate-style derivatives market. It's also harnessed with a subtle scheme to fuel international wealth redistribution.
Assuming this scheme somehow comes to be, imagine just the singular fate of the worldwide airline business. Or freight shipping .
If you think the derivatives scam is the #1 weapon of financial mass destruction, cap and trade comes in a solid #2. Hiroshima meet Nagasaki.
Watermelons: green on the outside, but Marx red on the inside.
Green. Its the new Red.
green is the new gold
I also like Traffic Light People:
Those who call themselves green
because they are too yellow
to admit they're red.
You never know when those four electorial votes from West Virginia will be needed again....Better safe than sorry.