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The Real Copenhagen Fraud?
Submitted by Leo Kolivakis, publisher of Pension Pulse.
Johann Hari reports in the Independent on the truths Copenhagen ignored (hat tip Tom Naylor):
So
that's it. The world's worst polluters – the people who are drastically
altering the climate – gathered here in Copenhagen to announce they
were going to carry on cooking, in defiance of all the scientific
warnings.
They didn't seal the deal;
they sealed the coffin for the world's low-lying islands, its glaciers,
its North Pole, and millions of lives.
Those of us who watched this conference with open eyes aren't
surprised. Every day, practical, intelligent solutions that would cut
our emissions of warming gases have been offered by scientists,
developing countries and protesters – and they have been systematically
vetoed by the governments of North America and Europe.
It's
worth recounting a few of the ideas that were summarily dismissed –
because when the world finally resolves to find a real solution, we
will have to revive them.
Discarded
Idea One: The International Environmental Court. Any cuts that leaders
claim they would like as a result of Copenhagen will be purely
voluntary. If a government decides not to follow them, nothing will
happen, except a mild blush, and disastrous warming. Canada signed up
to cut its emissions at Kyoto, and then increased them by 26 per cent –
and there were no consequences. Copenhagen could unleash a hundred
Canadas.
The brave, articulate Bolivian
delegates – who have seen their glaciers melt at a terrifying pace –
objected. They said if countries are serious about reducing emissions,
their cuts need to be policed by an International Environmental Court
that has the power to punish people. This is hardly impractical. When
our leaders and their corporate lobbies really care about an issue –
say, on trade – they pool their sovereignty this way in a second. The
World Trade Organisation fines and sanctions nations severely if (say)
they don't follow strict copyright laws. Is a safe climate less
important than a trademark?
Discarded Idea
Two: Leave the fossil fuels in the ground. At meetings here, an
extraordinary piece of hypocrisy has been pointed out by the new
international chair of Friends of the Earth, Nnimmo Bassey, and the
environmental writer George Monbiot. The governments of the world say
they want drastically to cut their use of fossil fuels, yet at the same
time they are enthusiastically digging up any fossil fuels they can
find, and hunting for more. They are holding a fire extinguisher in one
hand and a flame-thrower in the other.
Only
one of these instincts can prevail. A study published earlier this year
in the journal Nature showed that we can use only – at an absolute
maximum – 60 per cent of all the oil, coal and gas we have already
discovered if we are going to stay the right side of catastrophic
runaway warming. So the first step in any rational climate deal would
be an immediate moratorium on searching for more fossil fuels, and fair
plans for how to decide which of the existing stock we will leave
unused. As Bassey put it: "Keep the coal in the hole. Keep the oil in
the soil. Keep the tar sand in the land." This option wasn't even
discussed by our leaders.
Discarded Idea
Three: Climate debt. The rich world has been responsible for 70 per
cent of the warming gases in the atmosphere – yet 70 per cent of the
effects are being felt in the developing world. Holland can build vast
dykes to prevent its land flooding; Bangladesh can only drown. There is
a cruel inverse relationship between cause and effect: the polluter
doesn't pay.
So we have racked up a climate
debt. We broke it; they paid. At this summit, for the first time, the
poor countries rose in disgust. Their chief negotiator pointed out that
the compensation offered "won't even pay for the coffins". The cliché
that environmentalism is a rich person's ideology just gasped its final
CO2-rich breath. As Naomi Klein put it: "At this summit, the pole of
environmentalism has moved south."
When we
are dividing up who has the right to emit the few remaining warming
gases that the atmosphere can absorb, we need to realise that we are
badly overdrawn. We have used up our share of warming gases, and then
some. Yet the US and EU have dismissed the idea of climate debt out of
hand. How can we get a lasting deal that every country agrees to if we
ignore this basic principle of justice? Why should the poorest restrain
themselves when the rich refuse to?
A deal
based on these real ideas would actually cool the atmosphere. The
alternatives championed at Copenhagen by the rich world – carbon
offsetting, carbon trading, carbon capture – won't. They are a global
placebo. The critics who say the real solutions are "unrealistic" don't
seem to realise that their alternative is more implausible still:
civilisation continuing merrily on a planet whose natural processes are
rapidly breaking down.
Throughout the
negotiations here, the world's low-lying island states have clung to
the real ideas as a life raft, because they are the only way to save
their countries from a swelling sea. It has been extraordinary to watch
their representatives – quiet, sombre people with sad eyes – as they
were forced to plead for their own existence. They tried persuasion and
hard science and lyrical hymns of love for their lands, and all were
ignored.
These discarded ideas – and dozens
more like them – show once again that man-made global warming can be
stopped. The intellectual blueprints exist just as surely as the
technological blueprints. There would be sacrifices, yes – but they are
considerably less than the sacrifices made by our grandparents in their
greatest fight.We will have to pay higher
taxes and fly less to make the leap to a renewably powered world – but
we will still be able to live an abundant life where we are warm and
free and well fed. The only real losers will be the fossil fuel
corporations and the petro-dictatorships.
But our politicians have not chosen this sane path. No: they have
chosen inertia and low taxes and oil money today over survival
tomorrow. The true face of our current system – and of Copenhagen – can
be seen in the life-saving ideas it has so casually tossed into the
bin.
You can watch Johann
explaining some of the appalling loopholes being smuggled into the
Copenhagen treaty below.
You can watch Johann explaining some of the appalling loopholes being smuggled into the Copenhagen treaty below. Also, listen carefully to this CBC interview with James Hansen.
He's widely regarded as the most influential climate scientist in the
world and rightly dismisses cap & trade as pure "gimmickry".
It's a shame but it looks like Copenhagen was
another climatic bust, just like Kyoto and Rio were. Next up, the
global pension bust.
»
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Here's my investment recommendations:
-Trust in God
-Love
-Faith in God
-expect surprises
-learn how to survive
These are the things that will get you and the ones you love through. Everything else is conjecture and intendedly mis- leading.
Rise above the mis-information.
Here's my investment advice:
http://www.suntech-power.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&i...
Plus
http://www.teslamotors.com/performance/perf_specs.php
Equals
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTgMW_aYGQA&feature=related
And that's a 244 mile range when the average drive in the US is 40 miles, that's 6 times what the average person needs. So most everyone could trivially make this switch for their most used car. Keep a backup combustion car for the long drives and you'd still cut emission by many orders of magnitude by only driving combustion which you really need to.
But of course then you could tell your electric company, your oil company, and all those that wish you to be their financial slave, to FUCK OFF.
That's what Copenhagen is really about, denying the investment and evolution of technology that allows us all to be free and independent. We need to tell these jokers controling our lives to shove the bikes, scooters and whatever up their asses. Tell them to drink their own cool aid, don't take a drop of it.
Yes, solar and electric cars are expensive, and that's purely a scaling issue, an issue of will. Switchover to mass production, versus building these cars by hand (as well as a family car versus a "pasta rocket" wannabe), and low volume solar panel sales, and again, prices will come down dramaically ... And you'll never have to do an oil change again, and you'll enjoy the service free lifetime of electrics versus combustion.
At $24 trillion in bailouts and growing, and using $2.5 per watt solar panel price from ebay for a 200 watt panel, that 10 trillion watt hours. Multiply that by the typical 6 hour daily operationl time and that is 60 trillion watts per day. Typical current us electic generation is 350 trillion watt hours:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
but that is for one month. So multiply the 60 trillion for solar by 30 and we get 1,800 trillion watt hours or 5.14 times the current total US electric generation by all means per month - Or 20% of the bailout, down to $4.8 trillion. Ignoring the cost reduction of production at such a high level and improvement of conversion effiency over time. And it ignore all the other options, like solar hot water which is very cheap today and has a pay back of just a few years = Zero emissions.
Take what ever numbers you want and run them, it's allways the same. That thermonuclear furnace in the sky is what controls weather ... And it's begging us to use it for all our energy needs.
This is about keeping the slaves as slaves, denying freedom and independence while they still can. That is where the real will is. Saving a single person, or even a micron of beach, is no where on this agenda, period.
Careful that in your frenzied condemnation of everything that isn't yours that you don't overlook something and cut your nose off...
Those roads that you're looking to travel over with your fantisized car are primarily the result of oil. And, as more and more people are able to make sufficient wages to pay the taxes necessary to keep YOUR roads going, well, good luck on that one! Economies of scale, in reverse!
Technology as salvation. I laugh at this every time. Technology is like a cooking recipe, looks and sounds good, but is worthless without the ingredients.
I've actually suggested to people that they buy pickups, as when they finally roll to a stop they can be used as planters. Those fancy flying cars, oh, wait, sorry, I got mixed up on the fantasies, I've got to think of the future!, wiz-bang zero-emission cars (just like a good capitalist, externalize the costs, forget about those roads or anything else that isn't staring you in the face- dump Those costs on the liberty-stealing "socialists"!) won't be of much good when they finally roll to a stop. I've spent enough time out in rural areas to have a pretty good idea of what happens to technology...
Laugh at bicycles (perhaps don't want to admit that you're not in good enough shape to ride one more than a block), but they happen to be the world's number one transport vehicle (after one's feet of course); they power most of the world and will continue to do so long after the next craze of flying cars passes.
Thanks for playing!
oh f***, here comes the GW trolls.. dude you have been responding to every f***ing message today.. touched a nerve or what ?!!
"That's what Copenhagen is really about, denying the investment and evolution of technology that allows us all to be free and independent."
exactamundo, they're trying to prevent the same mistake made with the internet and put the control systems in place before pandora's box is opened for the general public. (notice the legal language that was at the crux of the copenhagen conflict between the U.S. and China, et al.) unfortunately for them, pandora has already opened her box.
And we can put an even finer point on it:
Once this Copenhagen world tax get implemented EVERYTHING gets more expensive.
In other words rather than using a couple of years of oil to transistion off of oil, that "CO2 tax" artificailly INCREASES the cost of solar, geothermal, etc.
In other words,
1) Every part made has a tax increase that provides nobody any benefits except those the ta is paid to. It takes "CO2" to produce the part.
2) Every part shipped has a tax increase that provides nobody any benefits except those the ta is paid to. It takes CO2 to ship the part.
3) Every assembled has a tax increase that provides nobody any benefits except those the ta is paid to. It takes CO2 to light the building and move the workers from home to the factory.
Switch to solar, and in each case, you acheive the same result LESS the CO2 usage.
And that cycle repeats many times from the basic materials until the complete installed product. Thus this CO2 tax is a wonderfull way to increase the cost of alternative energy and make the payback even harder. Thus there is fsar less investment in alt energy, the tax kill is and the tax is increase as the alt energy tech reduces in cost over time.
If this CO2 tax were a benefit, it would show up by providing clear proof the above analysis is wrong. However it shows clearly that the analysis is correct and this tax is about furthering economic slavery, in fact by adjusting the tax rate it serves as a very powerful bookend to prevent further inceases in alt energy.
Instead, collect the tax but put that CO2 tax into a pool and pay it out as a tax benefit by percentage for those switching to clean energy (just one of many possibilities, I don't suggest this is the best way, just one of many) ... But then the tax itself would end since this NEGATIVE FEEDBACK results is solving the problem .... Again proving the current goal is not to solve the problem, but make it worse for financial gain by those receiving the tax and providing ZERO beneifts! == Make alt energy even more expensive and control the increased cost via manipulation of the tax rate as needed.
Leo;
Here is the main man at IPCC please read this and give me one good reason why I should trust him.
A busy man
Posted by Richard Monday, December 14, 2009 IPCC, Pachauri
Seek and ye will find, as Bishop Hill notes. Our friendly part-time chairman of the IPCC, Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, is quite a remarkable man. As well as his onerous post with the UN's IPCC, it seems he has a considerable number of other interests.
Dr Pachauri's main day job is, of course, Director-General of The Energy Research Institute (TERI) - which he has held since April 2001, having become its Director and head in 1981 when it was the Tata Energy Research Institute.
Intriguingly, for such an upstanding public servant though, he is also a strategic advisor to the private equity investment firm Pegasus Capital Advisors LP, which he became in February of this year. However, this is by no means Dr Pachauri's only foray into the world of finance. In December 2007, be became a member of the Senior Advisory Board of Siderian ventures based in San Francisco.
This is a venture capital business owned by the Dutch multinational business incubator and operator in sustainable technology, Tendris Holding, itself part-owned by electronics giant Philips. It acquired a minority interest in January 2009 in order to "explore new business opportunities in the area of sustainability." As a member of the Senior Advisory Board of Siderian, Dr Pachauri is expected to provide the Fund and its portfolio companies "with access, standing and industry exposure at the highest level."
In June 2008, Dr Pachauri became a member of the Board of the Nordic bank Glitnir, which that year launched the The Sustainable Future Fund, Iceland, a new savings account "designed to help the environment." Then, the fund was expected to accumulate up to €4 billion within a few years, thus becoming one of the largest private funds supporting research into sustainable development. That same month of June 2008, Dr Pachauri also became Chairman of the Indochina Sustainable Infrastructure Fund. Under its CEO Rick Mayo Smith, it was looking to raise at least $100 billion from the private sector.
The previous April 2008 was also a busy month. Dr Pachauri joined the Board of the Credit Suisse Research Institute, Zurich and became a member of the Advisory Group for the Rockefeller Foundation, USA. Then, in May he became a member of the Board of the International Risk Governance Council in Geneva. This, despite its name, is primarily concerned with the promotion of bioenergy, drawing funding from electricity giants EON and EDF. But, not content with that, Dr Pachauri also became Chairman and Member of the Advisory Group at the Asian Development Bank that May. At some time, he also became a Member of the Climate Change Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank AG.
Dr Pachauri also keeps some ties with his roots. In his capacity as a former railway engineer, he is a member of the Policy Advisory Panel for the French national railway system, SNCF and has been since April 2007. Long before that, Dr Pachauri became the President of the Asian Energy Institute, a position he took on in 1992.
One of his most interesting - and possibly contentious - positions, however, is his previous directorship with and current post as "scientific advisor" to GloriOil Limited. This is a company he set up himself in late 2005 - two years after he had become chairman of the IPCC. He is described as its "founder". It was set up in Houston, Texas, to exploit patented processes developed by TERI - of which Pachauri is Director-General - known as "microbial enhanced oil recovery" (MEOR), designed to improve the production of mature oilfields. It now has annual revenues of $2.5 to 5 million.
A few eyebrows were raised in June 2007 when Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm that preaches the need to invest in green technologies and reduce global warming, invested in GloriOil.
The firm had joined with TERI - Dr Pachauri's employer - and private equity investor GTI to invest $10 million in the company. Yet Kleiner's leading partner John Doerr had led a crusade to "stop the damage caused by global warming" and had publicly broken down in tears over the issue.
Investing in oil exploration, it was observed at the time, makes it possible to drill oil more efficiently, and produce greenhouse emissions in even greater amounts, and stands in contradiction to the firm's stated public mission. No one mentioned Dr Pachauri's founding role in the company – or that he was currently chairman of the IPCC.
Interestingly, Doerr had first met Pachauri (along with Gore) at the San Francisco Four Seasons in May 2006, at a meeting of 50 environmental "thought leaders" organised by Kleiner so that the partners could "brainstorm with them about opportunities." A year later, Doerr was investing in Pachauri's company.
Like Doerr, running with the hare and the hounds, Pachauri also serves as Director of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Japan. And, crucially, he is a Member of the External Advisory Board of Chicago Climate Exchange, Inc. This exchange is North America's only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects world-wide, brokering carbon credits.
Yet Dr Pachauri is also a member of FEOP (Far East Oil Price) Advisory Board, managed by the Oil Trade Associates, Singapore, from April 1997 onwards. This is part of the so-called ForwardMarketCurve - a "ground breaking, all-broker methodology for achieving robust and accurate price discovery in forward commodity markets" - especially, as the name would imply, oil and petroleum products.
Very much in an allied field, he served as a Member of the International Advisory Board of Toyota Motors until 31 March 2009.
That cleared the way, presumably, for an announcement in March 2009, when Pachauri also accepted a post as head of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute (YCEI). We were told than Pachauri has chaired the IPCC since 2002 and has been director general of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) since 2001. "He will retain these positions while taking up his new half-time position at Yale," said the university. Er?
Still, this will make a change from his illustrious past. From 1989 to 1990, he served as Chairman of the International Association for Energy Economics. He served as an Independent Director of NTPC Ltd (National Thermal Power Corp), from 30 January 2006 to January 2009. This is the largest power generation company in India. Before that, he served as non-official Part-time Director of NTPC Ltd, from August 2002 to August 2005. He was also a Director of the Indian Oil Corporation - India's largest commercial enterprise - until 28 August 2003. Dr Pachauri then served as a Director of Gail India Ltd, India's largest natural gas transportation company, from August 2003 to 26 October 2004.
However, Dr Pachauri currently serves as Member of National Environmental Council, Government of India under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister of India. He also serves as a member of the lobbying organisations, the International Solar Energy Society, the World Resources Institute and the World Energy Council. He has been member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India since July 2001 and also serves as Member of the Oil Industry Restructuring Group, for the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India.
Dr Pachauri also served as Director of Consulting and Applied Research Division at the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. He served as Visiting Professor, Resource Economics at the College of Mineral and Energy Resources, West Virginia University. He was also a Senior Visiting Fellow of Resource Systems Institute, East - West Center, USA. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at The World Bank, Washington, DC and McCluskey Fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University.
One wonders how he finds the time to save the planet. James Delingpole wonders too.
Isn't this where Al Gore steps forward and proudly states that he's simply putting his money where his mouth is - by "investing" in "green technologies?"
Hmm, why would anyone look askance at Al Gore or Dr. Pachauri? Follow the money and then you'll understand a good part of the motives.
Just as when George W. Bush initially ran stating that he wasn't in to nation building (now the US is trying to nation build the entire middle east- neoliberalism is a great spear for capitalism!). Same guy, he being of oil pedigree, that told us that there were WMD in Iraq. If one were to substitute "oil" for "WMD" then it all makes sense!
There is profit in lying. And there's no mechanism more effienct at leveraging such lying as capitalism.
Thanks for playing!
It is so cold this year, acutally record low for the past 50 years.
Man, I am going to fire up all my fireplaces and burn all the firewood I can afford to warm up.
Global warming? What global warming? If CO2 can warm up the earth, then, man, we need burn more, not less.
Global warming is not, and never has been about "temperature;" it's about pollution, acidification, ozone.
Scientists & environmentalists lobbied for decades via public & governmental avenues regarding the danger of over-toxifying our environment; but for whatever reasons, the messages never really hit the required home-run necessary to create a paradigm change of action. Global warming struck a chord, and since reducing greenhouse gasses also reduces many of the major culprits associated with direct pollution & co., all concerned parties jumped on the bandwagon.
Of course, when the money-men devised a way to make shit-loads of dough off the message, that's when the wheels started coming off the tracks. Scientists were bought; the science was "fudged;" the media hype became too hyperbolas, etc.
Climate change is for real - has been since the dawn of the earth; in fact, we owe our existence to it. The BS in Copenhagen is NOT for real, as most of you realize. It's about money & control. But we are still faced with the issues of pollution, acidification of our water & soil, and ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere. And there are others. It's very hard to be optimistic for our immediate future.
Thank you for injecting a moment of real sanity!
Discussing climate change with a true believer like Leo is like trying to convince an Isalmic zealot that the 13th Mahdi is not hiding in a well, just waiting for the destruction of Israel to return.
Leo, what do pension fund watchdogs and environmentalists have in common? They both care about the long-term. That caring used to be ordinary responsible adult behavior. Not any more. Not in the modern privileged western world. There, we are taught that "smart guys" make quick scores and retire to secluded island paradises. The joke will be when the secluded island paradises go underwater, or fill up with furious natives. We reforested about two-thirds of our small yard, and added a small vegetable garden. We planted about 30 trees (mostly small trees). Anybody could do this. Whether or not global warming is occuring, planetary deforestation is absolutely occuring, and fisheries are absolutely disappearing, and topsoil is absolutely getting washed out into the oceans where it can do nothing. The results will surely be environmental holocausts of various sorts. Well, all you can do is live your life to be an example of what you think responsible adult behavior should be. You can't make anybody else do anything, or think anything. Thank you.
And thank you.
Just reinforces the fact that most problems cannot be discussed in a calm , rational way. Reminds me of my 1st marraige. How can you solve the problem when it just keeps being changed?
“The chief cause of problems is solutions.”
- Eric Sevareid
But... as long as it's profit-driven then an issue cannot be so easily dealt with: the bigger the issue, the bigger the potential profits and bigger the clash. In a perfect world we'd be able to all sift through the raw data ourselves and figure things out. A problem is, though, that we can't possibly know the complete picture of things well enough to make a forceful and accurate decision. Throw in lots of talking heads, who profit off of yakking, and it just gets murkier and murkier (they are usually discussion assassins, paid to kill a debate).
I don't know why our societies don't instill in us the notion of "first do no harm" (which is often attributed to the Hypocratic Oath). Shouldn't be just doctors who should operate that way (pardon the pun).
Regardless of the speaker or of the forum, a given message should be listened to. And I always reflect back on Dr. David Suzuki's daughter's speech at the UN(?) when she was 13 years-old; she pleaded with the adults to not break things if they didn't know how to fix them. Before the attack dogs come out I'd like so say that this message, just as the "first do no harm" calls for a higher morality.
If we are, according to the Bible, all sinners, then I suppose that we can't be free of harm. However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to operate that way. And when many of the world'd poor are clearly negatively impacted by what we do I find it hard that many can take such a hardened stance of discounting their suffering.
Have costs come down such that solar projects can be built and operated without subsidies - and if not shouldn't we wait until they can?
Ah yes, the subsidy bogeyman.
Show me an energy source that isn't heavily subsidized in some way or other. Fossil fuels are considered "market cheap" because the subsidies and tax breaks and handouts are so hardwired into the system that people don't even notice them. Energy markets have always been driven by political choice as much as economic ones. You can bet if the cost of military action in the Middle East was fully price into gas, the US would have more bike commuters than China.
It's funny that people are so quick to laser in on proportionately minute tax credits for wind turbines or solar panels as governments shovel huge amounts to fossil fuel interests.
Transition to a new energy infrastructure won't necessarily be easy or cheap in the short-term, but neither was building (and defending) a globe-spanning fossil fuel production and distribution infrastructure.
Yes that's right.
Shouldn't we price fossil fuels at their marginal cost to society?
Simply charge excise taxes on the fuels as high as is appropriate, and levy fines on those that pollute excessively, again calculated at society's marginal cost.
Subsidies only hide true costs. The problem with saying that we have to do something so that in the future our children will benefit is mostly a smoke screen to hide today's profiteering.
I don't believe that we should "collectively" commit to new energy sources or infrastructure until we first revisit our need to propel ourselves all over the place (in the entire course of human history such actions are a mere blip; and, I'd add, nature doesn't support excess energy consumption).
I've debated many altenative energy folks on this very issue, myself not agreeing to subsidies. More money thrown somewhere would only mean less money for the existing status-quo controllers (oil folks), who would then lobby to get MORE for themselves! (corporate welfare queens!) The ONLY solution is a clean slate- NO subsisides. And yes, Gromit, the real costs to oil consumption have to be realized.
Thanks for playing!
No. Leaders lead. They don't wait until others lead them.
Man-made global warming is a political exercise. A democrat and a republican that speak the same language and share (sort of) the same culture can't agree on anything. Does anyone think people from 50 different political stripes, dozens of cultures and a half gross of languages are going to come to terms and spend billions on a questionable thesis. I'd be happy if they could just agree to make balanced budgets the law - BUT, that's too simple..
A democrat and a republican that speak the same language and share (sort of) the same culture can't agree on anything.
Not correct. In reality there's very little that they don't agree upon. Both are ardent backers/supporters of big busines (and, based on the way that the lot of them [GPO had total control for several years]), big government and militarism (to secure the resources for big business).
Thanks for playing!
all this discussion aside, what exactly did this president agree to over there and how will it affect the amerikan people? i think when people realize what this man has done, there will be rebellion here.....
You must be joking? You expect a rebellion by a bunch of overweight, intellecutally stunted, corporately-controlled people, the very same ones that swallowed WMD, financial collapse etc. to all of a sudden rise up and rebel against something as incomomprehensible as all of this? Ha! No, what you're commenting on is YOUR desire to rebel, only you can't do it yourself, you're just trying (as you've been programmed of course) to get others to do it! (like "supporting the troops" as they die in their attempts to secure "America's way of life").
Thanks for playing!
Holding the conference in a cold climate country (Denmark) in December was not the best planning. Next time you have a conference hold it in a desert during 110 degree F weather, or hold in in China or India near the worst sources of pollution. That will help to get the press and public on your side.
Earth has been in a cooling cycle since the 60's
Global Warmers are the Wall Street banksters/fraudsters of Science
earth has been in a cooling cycle since the last 60's
Global Warming people are the wall street banksters/fraudsters of science
It's been the case that those with eyes of profit have always sought to jump on the next big thing. This neither means that they do or don't agree with the "big thing," just that they believe that they can "profit" off of it. Politicians always pave the way for this profit-seeking. Savings and Loan, Dot com, real estate etc etc... beacuse things got so distorted with these things doesn't mean that the things in themselves were bad (savings and loans are OK; computing OK; real estate OK).
As someone who is not a proponent of centralized power (people OR energy [except the sun]), I shy away from any centrally-non-democratic-sanctioned solution (the US is NOT a democracy).
If renewable energy makes me feel good does it matter what it costs?
Absolutely not. Cost is no concern where your feelings are involved, Gromit.
Especially if you can get the NWO to buy you renewable energy using someone else's money.
World evolves...costs have come down dramatically.
before this, it was the hole in the ozone layer. whereare the champions of that cause now? oh yeah they are the AGW/peta/stop the whaling crowd oh lets not forget the rainforest, and endangered species. If we are to attempt to solve any of these issues, the approach, has to be credible, not psuedo-science solar, prices, have come down, costs, not so much. set your stops leo, you can oversleep, and lose a lot in a short time. sit on those shares, like a mother hen. and when the time comes, let them go, and move on, everyone makes mistakes. solar is great, just not profitable right now.
The ozone thing was a hoax?
Yeah (and this is in reply to Leo too), "costs always come down," until they don't... Poke your head out the window. Mortgage defaults and bank closures still climbing. Everything is under the gravitational pull of diminishing energy sources, of diminishing growth agents. Economies of scale also unravel.
solar is great, just not profitable right now.
What? If I have you work and expend more energy than you take in would you call That "great?" I thought that all the capitalists out there lived and died for profit? If something isn't producing a profit, according to capitalism, it's a dead-end. What, you say, we should subsidize it? Don't let the anti-socialists out there hear That or they'd call that "socialism [when they really want to say communism, but then again they really aren't smart enough to differenciate]).
Thanks for playing!
Leo- listening to other people telling you about global warming while the world is cooling is just crazy. Good luck. 95% of the heat comes from the sun, water vapor is the strongest green house gas. CO2 is virtually a non player in the global warming scenario. Work with those facts. You post is about your opinion of someone else opinion concerning something that they have no proof exist. Good luck with reality.
I read a lot. I don't know when I have ever read anything as utterly stupid as this.
Anthropogenic global warming is a fraud.
Its proponents are socialists (including those "brave Bolivians").
Should they ever get what they really want, middle class Americans will find themselves stripped of everything they have and sent to a gulag.
That's it, push that hate... Another product of defective, or, depending on your point of view, (esp corporate view) successful programming! (thank you Edward Bernays!)
Society IS social. The US and every other united entity IS social.
I suspect that you are confusing socialism with central planning/control, that of the late great (sorry, just some tongue in cheek humor there!) Soviet Union, like the US has become? Given that the US government is really run by lobbyists and that the most powerful lobbyists are, well, capitalists (Financial, Insrurance Real Estate [and Defense, which would make the acronym FIRED :-) ]) hardly sounds like the stuff of commies now does it?
Oh, and news flash!: thanks to FIRE(D) the middle class is disappearing (well, that and the fact that there's not enough growth agent to sustain a middle class anymore- ooh, bad model!); it/they like you to lash out at something else other than them- pay no attention to that man behind the curtain (suckers! thanks for keeping another genration of the wealthy elite afloat!)...
Thanks for playing!
First I believe the photo above is depicting water vapor and not CO2, which is appropriate given that the dominant "green house gas" (i.e. >95% of all green house gases) is water vapor.
The loopholes that the article highlights include failure to agree on:
-carbon reduction targets that will "be policed by an International Environmental Court that has the power to punish people"
-legislation to "Leave the fossil fuels in the ground"
-allowing developing nations to have "the right to emit the few remaining warming gases" and in addition offer compensation to those developing nations far greater than the $100b announced by Hillary.
I am sure to environmental purists (who believe in global warming and that the politicians have the best interest of the planet in mind) that this is somewhat disillusioning.
I would not be so quick to dismiss Copenhagen, after all Obama has been clear on his commitment to the reduction of CO2 (along with not bailing out fat cat bankers) and he has declared that the science of global warming is settled. If Obama said, as he did that there was a "meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough" at Copenhagen then that must be the case. There is no doubt that this breakthrough ties in nicely with H.R. 2454 (American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009) and its progressive ideas such as cap and trade and the sweeping new powers it gives the executive branch (section 707).
Do yourself a favor and start reading H.R. 2454 ( http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2454 ) and as posted on a different thread an excellent video featuring Matt Taibbi (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12182009/watch.html) .
Do yourself a favor an listen to real experts like James Hansen in that CBC radio interview I posted above. He takes on Paul Krugman and calls cap & trade a "gimickery" which is great for Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan that stand to make huge profits in carbon trading.
Leo how do you explain HR 2454 and Obama - has the president betrayed his followers or has he simply fallen prey to special interests - (I agree that cap and trade is pure gimeckery - and a masterful con job)
Note that the Taibbi link above is incorrect (its on the health care debate - funny how all of these issues seem to merge in to one murky pit of compromise where there is huge $$$ behind the political decisions for special interests)
Politicians always pander to special interests, and the Obama administration is no different. They're taking care of their Wall Street buddies just like "W" took care of his oil buddies. Politics is all a scam, full of lies and smokescreens. But on climate change, I trust experts like Hansen. Listen to that interview very carefully.
Leo.
have you ever stopped to think that Hansen maybe a complete swine like Mengles. He has over-ridden his supervisor at NASA, a far more educated and intelligent man than Hansen. So, he must have high level political clout. He was put into NASA for a purpose. A part of Goreman Sachs's business model. Create a big scare, (like Iraq), make it global then put in place a global tax. When your working for a former VP of the USSA its easy.
regards
(why didn't the world flood when the Vikings were living in GreenLand?? Why didn't the world flood when the Arctic was navigatable in 1905 & 1922 & 1942?? do you ever leave your leftwing politics at home & think clearly when at work??)
Reading Jared Diamond's Collapse tells that the Greenland Norse arrived at Greenland in a decade marked by an historically warm period and that after settling their environment cooled. Fascinating read.
But, picking out one or two events out of thousands/millions of years does not the picture paint.
All of this is in fact a distraction, a distraction from the fact that our current warm period (inter-glacial) is running out. Some may say "ah ha! global cooling!' and they'd be right, but there are transitions, and, as many scientists have suggested, the transition is one of higher temperatures triggering the eventual outcome. What would our lives be if everyone knew the REAL truth? Hm, how big was that Ark? So, all of this is just busy work as our world changes, for the worse.
Thanks for playing!
on those points Leo (up to the global warming comment), we share a great deal of common ground - I will let you know my thoughts on CBC vid once I get a chance to view it - thanks
The Current for December 16, 2009
It's Wednesday, December 16th.
Billboard Magazine has named Alberta's Nickelback the group of the decade.
Currently, and that was enough for Canada to win fossil of the decade in Copenhagen.
This is the Current.
Climate Science
If there's anyone anxious for a global climate treaty, you'd think it would be James Hansen. He's widely regarded as the most influential climate scientist in the world. He has spent 30 years studying the earth's climate systems and perfecting models to predict the effects of climate change. And yet, he says the kind of deal that is likely to come out of the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen would be worse than no deal at all.
James Hansen is a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Studies at Columbia University and the Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA. And though he has authored numerous papers, he has just published his first book. It's called Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. James Hansen joined us from New York City for a rare interview.
Listen to this excellent interview of a real expert on the subject:
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2009/200912/20091216.html
One scaremonger doesn't a truth make. How many people have led countless thousands to an unlikely end in the name of "the end of the world"?
Jim Jones wasn't one - but he did start something called "drink the Kool-Aid". Which, when combined with stuff like what the preceding post is, becomes deadly.
It's an excellent interview to you. Heaven's Gate Cult to me.
He's a professional, that's clear based on your insistence on showing his credentials. Interestingly, there are few climatologists who disagree with him. Why? Because if you do, you can't get your degree nor can you find much of a job anywhere. In fact, a friend of mine (studying climate change in grad school) showed me his available grants. None were designed to improve skeptical views of climate change, all called for "proofs" of climate change. He is not a believer, but would like to provide some evidence of his views. Nobody will provide him grants or academic support.
As a result, this academic disaster is leading to monoculture in climatology. Sure, the guy you pointed to is a "leader" in the field. But it's a rigged game, too. So what are we to do in order to promote good science?
Simply believe all the scaremongers?
Leo, really, I know you believe, and there's nothing wrong with that. But what do you know of the skeptics views? Have you really looked at them? Many are well respected scientists and physicists (in fact most are physicists). Climatology is not widely held as a "hard science". Too much conjecture and meddling is involved.
A great question was asked earlier - what is the IDEAL TEMPERATURE of the earth? Not even a climatologist can answer this because there is no ideal number. It is a broad range. We are still well within that range.
Another great question, which I ask frequently, is - if we cannot get a decent 5 day weather forecast, how can we be expected to believe in the forecasts 10, 15, 30 years out? Isn't there much still to come into play?
Let's say AGW is real.
Ice caps melt, cold water alters the Gulf Stream and other currents. The currents themselves don't go away, they simply shift.
No model has provided the full impact of these alterations. It could be that cloud cover will increase dramatically to reduce the warming - in fact some models show this (they are among the ones NOT provided to journalists). Another item worth noting is precipitation. EVERY model shows increased precipitation. But precipitation is a COOLANT. What is the net result of this?
The item of precipitation is one I found particularly interesting, because several NASA scientists have mentioned how poorly precipitation is understood with regard to its impact on AGW....and these men were supporters of AGW.
There simply is no real science yet. Even HIGH PRIEST GORE has said the "science is not settled" (after he said it was, of course). But he knows it isn't. It's just making him rich.
you left out the part that Hansen is not a climatologist
Hansen is a two-bit showman like Gore.
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmIyM2VmYmVhNGU1NTJlZWI1ZTE...
Yeah, I thought Gore did an excellent job of propelling the nuclear industry (via An Inconvenient Truth).