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Healing Inch by Inch?
Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse.
Earlier today I watched the movie Any Given Sunday with Al Pacino. I've seen it before and love it because I use to play football in high school.
It was the summer of '87 when my high school football coach called me to tell me he needed me on the team as an offensive lineman. I was short relative to the others on the line, but was strong and fearless. I was so happy and honored he called me to be part of the team.
My job on the offensive line was simple. Protect the QB at all times and run a sweep play where I took out the defensive end to clear the path for my running back. We must have run that play hundreds of times and I remember that as painful as it got on my body, I loved the game and the team spirit.
Football was a big deal during my high school years. It still is as the Notre-Dame Cactus were crowned champions last November. One memory that stands out in my mind is a whopping victory we had over Lindsay Place high school.
I can't forget it because we annihilated them and acted cocky throughout the whole game. Our coach, Jacques Gauthier, wasn't pleased with our unsportsmanlike attitudes. The day after, he brought us to the University of Montreal field, which unlike our field was hard AstroTurf, and made us sprint the full length of the field about 40 or more times. It was cold and raining that night.
And boy did we sprint. When everyone started collapsing, puking, sucking up air, the coach whistled us in for a huddle. "The next time you guys want to act like arrogant jerks, remember this practice because I won't be as easy on you". Needless to say, we won lots of games, lost the championship, but never acted like arrogant idiots ever again.
The last time I saw my high school football coach was a few years after I got diagnosed with MS. He was fighting his own battle with cancer and we chatted about life. He died a few years later but I'll never forget what he told me, no matter how hard it gets, you keep moving forward. He was a great coach and a great man.
I don't know why I'm sharing this story but just like football, life is a game of inches. As world leaders get ready to meet in Copenhagen this week, it's unbelievable how much skewed coverage 'Climategate' is receiving.
I happen to agree with Tom Friedman who recently wrote this in an op-ed column, Going Cheney on Climate:
Frankly, I found it very disappointing to read a leading climate scientist writing that he used a “trick” to “hide” a putative decline in temperatures or was keeping contradictory research from getting a proper hearing. Yes, the climate-denier community, funded by big oil, has published all sorts of bogus science for years — and the world never made a fuss. That, though, is no excuse for serious climatologists not adhering to the highest scientific standards at all times.
That said, be serious: The evidence that our planet, since the Industrial Revolution, has been on a broad warming trend outside the normal variation patterns — with periodic micro-cooling phases — has been documented by a variety of independent research centers.
As this paper just reported: “Despite recent fluctuations in global temperature year to year, which fueled claims of global cooling, a sustained global warming trend shows no signs of ending, according to new analysis by the World Meteorological Organization made public on Tuesday. The decade of the 2000s is very likely the warmest decade in the modern record.”
This is not complicated. We know that our planet is enveloped in a blanket of greenhouse gases that keep the Earth at a comfortable temperature. As we pump more carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse gases into that blanket from cars, buildings, agriculture, forests and industry, more heat gets trapped.
What we don’t know, because the climate system is so complex, is what other factors might over time compensate for that man-driven warming, or how rapidly temperatures might rise, melt more ice and raise sea levels. It’s all a game of odds. We’ve never been here before. We just know two things: one, the CO2 we put into the atmosphere stays there for many years, so it is “irreversible” in real-time (barring some feat of geo-engineering); and two, that CO2 buildup has the potential to unleash “catastrophic” warming.
When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is “irreversible” and potentially “catastrophic,” I buy insurance. That is what taking climate change seriously is all about.
If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent.
But if we don’t prepare, and climate change turns out to be real, life on this planet could become a living hell. And that’s why I’m for doing the Cheney-thing on climate — preparing for 1 percent.
Friedman reiterated this message with CNN's Campbell Brown, drawing an interesting connection between climate crisis and the financial crisis:
They are both based on the same faulty accounting. What we call the great recession has actually been an environmental crisis and an economic crisis coming together. How so? In the financial world, we allowed people to massively underprice risk (risk of subprime mortgages), we allowed them to privatize gains from selling those mortgages, then when it all blew up, we allowed them to socialize the losses...We are doing the same in nature. We allow people to massively underprice the risk of emitting carbon molecules, we allow them to privatize the gains from cheap coal and electricity, and we are socializing the losses by charging all those CO2 molecules on our kids' Visa cards which they will pay for in the form of future climate change.
One other thing on the financial crisis caught my attention this weekend. It seems there is a movement to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act. Of course, while this amendment makes perfect sense, the banksters will fight it tooth and nail, effectively killing it before it sees the light of day.
But the inches we need to make a difference in this world are everywhere around us. I urge world leaders, corporate leaders, pension leaders, banking leaders and everyone else to listen to Al Pacino's inspirational speech below and carefully think about doing what's best for the common good. If there was ever a time we needed to band together and forge ahead, now is that time.
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Bravo!
Great post and well said. I am copying and pasting into my scrapbook.
Well written....but Ken Lay is not in prison. He's dead.
"The founder of failed energy trading outfit Enron had been convicted by a Texas jury of conspiracy and fraud for his role in the 2001 collapse of the company six weeks before his death. The judge in the case ruled yesterday that because Lay died before having a chance to file for appeal, the conviction had to be set aside." Not sure why they would do that, and there were some claiming they saw him.
Wherever he is, he is in a prison of his own making - from Creed:
"My Own Prison"
A court is in session, a verdict is in
No appeal on the docket today
Just my own sin
The walls are cold and pale
The cage made of steel
Screams fill the room
Alone I drop and kneel
Silence now the sound
My breath the only motion around
Demons cluttering around
My face showing no emotion
Shackled by my sentence
Expecting no return
Here there is no penance
My skin begins to burn
(And I said oh) So I held my head up high
Hiding hate that burns inside
Which only fuels their selfish pride
(And I said oh) We're all held captive
Out from the sun
A sun that shines on only some
We the meek are all in one
I hear a thunder in the distance
See a vision of a cross
I feel the pain that was given
On that sad day of loss
A lion roars in the darkness
Only he holds the key
A light to free me from my burden
And grant me life eternally
Should have been dead
On a Sunday morning
Banging my head
No time for mourning
Ain't got no time
leo, what if the global population, were to decline significantly, in the next several years? that would equate to much less demand, overcapacity of production, price competition, if oil stays cheap, or gets cheaper, if people can't afford to instal solar, if geopolitical conditions are in turmoil, goodbye chinese solar. right now they produce some reasonably priced panels, just like PM's I would say get the physical. we live in a different world now leo, most people see the change after it happens, some recognize it while it is happening, few see it coming. good luck
I agree their will be a shift in energy in the coming decades, but I disagree as to the reason it will occur. Simply put, oil is a national security risk for the US, and the existence of imported oil as a primary source of energy doesn't allow the US to debase its currency enough to pay off all the bad debts. Further, the banking sector needs another bubble to blow, and to do it all under the guise of climate change is perfect political cover. Carbon trading is just an indirect tax on people and corporations in an effort to create inflation and dilute debts.
Other than that I have no problem with you posting your recommendations and opinions. If you think solar is the play, then go for it, as it seems you already have.
John,
Thats why I would not bet against the idea that Venezuela becomes the 51st state and all the Americas (including the shelf off Cuba) become part of the trading block free of protectionist barriers.
Oceania versus Eurasia with Oceania behind its shields as Eurasia depopulates and has a century of resource wars. I also would not bet that the Chinese have to find adequate aquifers in Siberia
Umm, okay so thanks for clearing that up:
I am putting my long-term money where my mouth is - solar stocks.
(Not that we did not figure that one out already...)
You're still sexy in my book, although I am a bit disappointed in how you went about this. You should have disclosed your position in the first place, not outed it later in an angry Pacinoesque rant.
Ummm, I've been disclosing my solar positions for a while now. This post isn't about talking up my book, or anyone else's book, but about where we are heading and the tough decisions that need to be made in climate and financial policies.
Hey, thats just my opinion, given your conclusion on this issue is rather convenient to your solar positions, I just think it should have been mentioned to readers who don't follow you every day and don't really have a background on what your positions are.
Personally, I think some of the comments here about you are a little over the top, but as you well know, ZH is a tough crowd and although I am sure the peer review is not exactly "politely rigorous", they sure will call a writer out when they feel like it.
Ps- don't worry, I am sure I will get flamed far worse when my gold confiscation ideas piece comes out in several weeks (Based on the US Supremes recent eminent domain rulings)
Gold will slump in 2010 as US fundamentals improve. By the way, I should have also disclosed that MS patients ar every sensitive to heat, so I have vested interests not to see this earth get any warmer in the future. Take care.
I would advise you to sell your Chinese solar Stocks and buy all of the DBA, and DBC you can get your hands on. We almost whiffed the U.S. corn seson due to wet and cold weather, this will force a late planting this spring and with another cold year scheduled for 2010, a real potential for failed harvest in North america is very real. I believe Canada had some faied harvest this year already.
It's all about the sunspots my friend. The sun and where are positioned in the galazy is in control of our weather
I am in the business, and you are an idiot. The future is not in a commodity such as polysilicon that will see incredible margin compression, think micro chips. You better find the one stock that will own the world, and if you think the west is going to allow China to suck off their tax subsidies long term, you are naive.
The market is already changing with the Feed in tariff laws in CA. You will see alot more solar thermal than solar panel facilities? More efficient land use, and you do not get the depreciation in output like you do with panels. Plus solar thermal allow for better energy flow into the evening hours.
Leo, if you dare to do a "technical analysis" on ice core temperature data for the last 500,000 years, based on Greenland or Antarctic ice core data, you'll be frightened to discover that, very probably we are living at the end of a very short (i.e. 10k years or so) =interglacial period= between much longer periods of heavy glaciation, the sort that covered Canada kilometers thick in ice?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/12/historical-video-perspective-our-c...
What then? If this graphic including 500k years of temperature data were a stock market of some sort, you'd be forced to talk about the current period as being a bubble that must burst, after which temperatures will plunge to their historic low, low support levels, then trade in a narrow range for the next 80 thousand years or so. The temperature equivalent of helicopter Ben maybe ought to be encouraged to engage in climatological QE like their was no tomorrow...because their might actually be no tomorrow...
really interested in your solar alt energy ideas
Behold! The "logic" of a man-made "climate change" supporter. Agree with me, or you're a fool.
Nice. Typical. Fail.
Personal attacks plus pseudo-religious hysteria - all the hallmarks of the church of climatology.
And for disclosure purposes, where do you work? Big oil? As an energy analyst? Please be forthright. I post my real name and put my money where my mouth is. Show me the facts and only the facts. If you think that a cold winter snap disproves global warming then you mind as well invest in stocks or drive your car forward looking at your rear view mirror.
I work in technical marketing for a Rhode Island based software company.
So no, Leo. No ties to "Big Oil". None. Zip. Zilch - precisely your credibility on the "science" here.
I just deal daily with people who, like me, have advanced degrees in Engineering (PhD, myself), Math (ScM, myself) and physics who, unlike me, are disciples in the church of climatology. And their arguments on the science are as unconvincing - and obnoxious - as are yours.
Hope you make a killing on solar though (people make fortunes on scams eveyday, afterall). BTW, I happen to like solar - just like I like wind, nuclear, and all other "green" power. Being an avid hiker (nothing like taking your kids out in the woods for a weekend on a brisk, New England fall weekend), I'm a very big fan of a clean environment.
So bite me, Leo. Not everyone who has the stones to call BS on this scam is a member, or even a fan, of "Big Oil".
Bring what on? You're now on everybody's ignore list.
There are some Hispanic variety/entertainment shows that play on the many Spanish language TV stations in SoCal. I can't understand what they are saying, but the one I like has musicians, dancing bikini girls and a dwarf who provides comic relief.
You are the dwarf of ZeroHedge.
"You're now on everybody's ignore list."
I don't agree with much of anything he writes, but he did give me one of my new favorite terms: the Kolivakis "filth gear".
Filth gear: (n.) the turning point at which the media is solely a propaganda machine and the semblance of any objective reporting is abandoned; often precedes a step market drop.
Absolutely spot on B9K9. The article started with a great story but unfortunately devolved into promoting the fantasy of "climate change" nonsense.
And who the hell are you? Another pension pussy or dimwhit invesment banker with his head up his ass?
Nicely done Leo. Spoken like a true hack who needs to attack when the facts aren't on your side.
Something about being labeled a "dwarf" by an anonymous coward doesn't sit well in my stomach. And where are your hard facts to support the case against shifting to renewable energy?
Ooh, that will leave a mark. Mosquito bites do that, you know.
Do you own TAN or FAN any other areas?
Leo, love the speech....thank you
Margin for error is so small....
What a bizarre, self-serving opinion piece. Talk about fitting results to meet your objectives. You cover all the bases: appeal to authority (Friedman of all people!), confirmation bias, statistical manipulation, etc.
As to the last point, Steve McIntyre @ http://climateaudit.org/ began evaluating global weather/temperature collection stations a few years back. You see, he was/is a retired analyst who was intellectually curious about the process. (Steve just happens to be a court recognized statistical expert who was a key factor in prosecuting a major fraud in Canada.) What he found, and continues to find, about base-line data collection is just astoundingly bad science.
McIntyre also happens to be the very same guy the CRU fraudsters are so concerned about regarding hiding data, blocking alternative analyses, etc. Starting with the poor data collection, he began to look at the overall work product. Check out his site if you want to be shocked.
Like ZH itself, I tend to judge information & people based on their own merits - they are only valid based on continuing relavence. Give me a reserved, disinterested person who has demostrated past expertise and I tend to consider what they are saying with a bit more credibility than a shill writing for a long established propaganda organ.
http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/737357--portrait-of-a-local-...
So why is a retired mining analyst living near Broadview and Danforth Aves. – a squash-playing grandfather who prompted a U.S. congressional hearing by crunching global warming research on his home computer – not invited to the party?
Because Stephen McIntyre is an enemy of climate change believers, a man who, essentially, double-checks the math behind research accepted as green gospel. Though his painstaking "hobby" has exposed flawed data supporting studies like the "hockey stick" graph – it claimed the 1990s was the millennium's hottest decade – he's considered a denier by those who fear the planet is burning up.
...
He asked Mann for the data in an email – and was stunned by the answer. The climatologist wrote he'd "forgotten" where the data set was but would get an assistant to find it.
"Here's a guy in his mid-30s, this is his claim to fame, the biggest paper of his life, probably the biggest paper of his career, it's been used on the front page of a UN study and sent to every household in Canada – how the hell could he not know where the data was?" McIntyre said.
"Nobody had ever checked this stuff with any sort of due diligence,'' he said.
And here's where the business and academic worlds collide.
Mann's study was peer-reviewed, a time-honoured method of academics – challenging another's work for substance and fault. McIntyre's business background told him a statistical audit was a better gauge, especially after reading the "overblown language to describe what, in mathematical terms, are very simple operations.
"What I find that is far too prevalent among climate scientists is that if they don't persuade somebody of something, they blame the audience, not the presentation," said McIntyre, who said mining investors would walk away if he couldn't recruit them with solid facts.
"I was...strong and fearless."
You'd have to be strong and fearless to be long this phony market or investing 90% of one's portfolio in Chinese solar stocks. When did ZH start condoning motivational posts? Sounds like something Tony Robbins would post. Or maybe we could change the post title to, "The Audacity of Hope".
leo, when you were playin football, did you ever take a really hard hit to the head? just wonderin.
+1
Being skeptical about climate change makes me "funded by big oil"?
lolwut?
See, it's things like that that make people leery of global warming. If you're not willing to have an open and honest debate based on the scientific evidence and insist on politicizing the debate, shutting out skeptics, demonizing and misrepresenting their detractors (and this is a perfect example), and using the political process to stifle others and push an Byzantine and draconian regulatory agenda, then I dare say you undercut your own credibility.
Heh! If Leo and the True Believers™ actually bothered to read the CRUtape Letters, they would see that "Big Oil" has been playing both sides of the money fence for years. Hey Leo, isn't Hypocrite! the ultimate crushing insult for lefties? Have some.
Big Oil: working with the alarmists, not the 'deniers'.
From: "Mick Kelly"
To: m.hulme@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Subject: Shell
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 13:31:00 +0100
Reply-to: m.kelly@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Cc: t.oriordan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, t.o'riordan@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Mike
Had a very good meeting with Shell yesterday. Only a minor part of the agenda, but I expect they will accept an invitation to act as a strategic partner and will contribute to a studentship fund though under certain conditions. I now have to wait for the top-level soundings at their end after the meeting to result in a response. We, however, have to discuss asap what a strategic partnership means, what a studentship fund is, etc, etc. By email? In person?
I hear that Shell's name came up at the TC meeting. I'm ccing this to Tim who I think was involved in that discussion so all concerned know not to make an independent approach at this stage without consulting me!
I'm talking to Shell International's climate change team but this approach will do equally for the new foundation as it's only one step or so off Shell's equivalent of a board level. I do know a little about the Fdn and what kind of projects they are looking for. It could be relevant for the new building, incidentally, though opinions are mixed as to whether it's within the remit.
Regards
Mick
______________________________________________
Mick Kelly Climatic Research Unit
University of East Anglia Norwich NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom
Tel: 44-1603-592091 Fax: 44-1603-507784
Email: m.kelly@xxxxxxxxx.xxx
Web: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/tiempo/
that would be ROYAL DUTCH SHELL
Until the people who are pimping this "climate change" hysteria start changing their own behaviours (you know, by, for instance, flying commercial - rather than in private jets - to "climate change" summits) I can't for the life of me undstand why we should believe they even believe their own BS.
Or is it that behaviour changes to save the planet are just for "little people" - while for the elites it's business as usual?
Money, power, and a boot on our necks forever. Pretty much all this scam is about.
1200 limos pressed into service...
+1000
Reinstatement of Glass-Steagall will only get legs after an audit of the Fed. The public outrage accompanying the findings of an honest Fed audit would force the issue of reinstatement.
BAC/Merrill and JPM/Bear marriages in '08 were enabled and encouraged by Uncle Slam. Unwinding the commercial-investment banking alliance created by the Critters, Fed and UST will be difficult without overwhelming populist outrage. Especially in 2010.
Economic growth has been bad for the environment. It's plain to see for all those who want to see. The images coming out of China illustrate this. The costs to the environment are rarely factored into the growth equation. They are longer term, much like the debt overhang. Parallels to the financial crisis exist. Just as the math of exponential debt will exert itself if not dealt with immediately, so will the degradation of our planet. I appreciate the few posters who have highlighted how we are simply passing the buck onto the next generation when it comes to cleaning up the environment as well. I'm not getting hung up on the global warming issue as there is a plethora of other very real environmental problems that need to be reckoned with as well, habitat destruction for one.
http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/.
Wow. My first junked post for stating the obvious fact that we are trashing the planet. Look beyond the CO2 debate boys.
Polar Bear - You will be happy to know that polar bear numbers are increasing not decreasing by drowning as Al Gore's movie would have you believe.
Your argument is weak because 1. China and India have refused to sign on to this, so we would only make ourselves less competitive (think NAFTA raised to the power of 3) 2. CO2 is not pollution, it is naturally occuring and he who controls CO2 like water controls the world.
Pollution is real, let's fight it. Global warming (naturally occuring cycles) is a hoax - I promise you that I have the best bullshit meter on the planet.
+10000!
watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stij8sUybx0
(Thanks Apocalypse!)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/
http://www.altenergyaction.org/Monckton.html
It appears Lord Monkton has done his own share of manipulation. It one thing to be a maverick scientist who credibly challenges dogma, but it's quite another to wander off on tangents and be ridiculed and largely ignored by the scientific community. There's enough doubt on both sides to pause before making assertions about highly complex natural systems.
I've worked on the Hudson Bay coastline for the past twenty years and I have seen my fair share of Polar bears. Well over a thousand. I readily agree that populations are not suffering substantially, if at all at the moment. I see more now than in the past. Partially due to the timing of the breakup of the ice sheets. They are coming on shore sooner (warming trend?), as such I see more when I am up there flying over the coastline. Overall they look in decent shape but the bear biologist has found that the body condition is worse than in past studies.
I never addressed the CO2 issue directly, instead I believe pollution and habitat destruction is the real fight. I trust my own eyes and I have seen enough to know what is going on in that respect. I don't have the time to become a climate change expert.
I value your insights to the financial bullshit by the way.
"simply passing the buck onto the next generation when it comes to cleaning up the environment as well"
No dude - the West *exported* it, in a horrendously cynical arch-capitalist ploy. Now it has come back to roost, screwing both East (environmentally) and West (economically).
We've already traveled some miles in regards to environmental protection.
http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=1642
No problem with keeping it clean but an oxygen tax on citizens is where this is heading. Be careful with how you try to fix things, the elite have twisted this issue in an attempt to achieve global tyranny. Clean air for the gulags!
The same psychopathic characters that brought us financial innovation now want to impose solutions for the environment. No Thanks!
Sorry LEO not Len
Steve Keen's Debtwatch has some stunning charts on debt and carrying costs.
Man made Global Warming is an industry and doesn't have much to do with actually reducing temperatures (not possible anyway) - Global Warming (or cooling) is also a financial industry and political necessity. Have you ever noticed how some politicians (no matter what the question) drift into the global warming file.. It's so much easier to deal with problems that are 5 election cycles away than tackle real issues that need immediate and perhaps unpopular changes.
I don't know a single person that has made any major change in his or her life to reduce any kind of footprint. They may do "feel good" stuff like buy a Prius without thinking about the battery-pack. They forget the energy it took to make the car and don't realise that their foot-print would have been much lower by simply driving the old one for 10-more years. The heat or air is pegged at 72F, the big screen is in the den, I could go on but many people talk but talk is a political move not real action. Climate changes - you'll have to live with it - lets go fix Malaria or bad water or bad financial and political decisions.
Enjoyed the item Len.