My saunter thru all these subjects started with one simple Observer article titled "Revealed: the man behind court attack on Gore film". Finally, as new study by Dr. David Montgomery of CRA International shows, a global emission trading system is not workable.5 Emission trading will work only if all the relevant markets exist and operate effectively; all the important actions by the private sector have to be motivated by price expectations far in the future. Creating that motivation requires that emission trading establish not only current but future prices, and create a confident expectation that those prices will be high enough to justify the current R&D and investment expenditures required to make a difference. This requires that clear, enforceable property rights in emissions be defined far into the future so that emission rates for 2030, for example, can be traded today in confidence that they will be valid and enforceable on that future date.
"Gore" film indeed... a film slasher with truth as the leading victim. Rather than expounding on the Jamie Doward tirade - suggesting that the judge was somehow manipulated by a big oil lobby via Stewart Dimmock's challenge to mandated Gore film viewing in schools - I focused on the general assault by the reporter.
It's nothing new... the ol' attack the messenger playbook used by all sides of debates. But in this case I had to wonder why I should buy into this argument. If it's so danged evil for the man-didn't-cause-global-warming advocates to have lobbys and funding, then why is it so damned holy for the evil-mankind-created-this-mess-with-evil-big-oil to use the same?
This of course turned my thoughts to the joke we call the Nobel Peace Prize, and the top billing winner, Al Gore and his forgotten, non-news worthy sidekick, the IPCC.
So you know where I'm coming from on this personal op-ed, I will disclose the following up front:
1: Yes, I believe there is global warming
2: No, I don't believe man caused the event, nor contributes to it significantly
3: I don't believe man can effectively do much to change the evolution of the Earth geographically.. no more than one can eternally save a below sea level city against hurricanes from failed levees. Nor can it save the homeowner's property who decided to build at the edge of the San Andrea fault. At some point, Mother Nature will claim what is rightfully hers, despite man's best intentions.
4: I'm all for expanding research and using multi-technology for energy and cleaner fuels. However I am not fool enough to believe we can totally eliminate oil based fuels for the reasons of stability. Until capacitance is truly evolutionary, there's no energy generated when the wind doesn't blow, when the rains don't fall, and when the sun doesn't shine.
And I also believe for every alternative energy, there will be an environmental beef... birds killed by windmills (or wealthy Senators [Kennedy] and cooperating Presidential candidates [Romney] refusing them placed in view of the rich); sea animals hurt by tidal energy turbines or legal disputes and security dangers of energy facilities located in international waters; fish deprived in drought years by dams, etc, etc.
5: And the last disclosure? I believe global warming is all about money, power and global control of the masses and all nation's economies. I think it is another way to "spread the wealth". Not to the masses ala Marx. But to the powerful politicos and entrepreneurs who take advantage of the public hysteria generated by the Reverend Al of the enviro world.
Which now brings me to these idiotic carbon credits. Emissions trading is becoming big business. So make note for your stock market advisor. One such business, Generation Investment Management LLP, was founded in 2004 by none other than our latest Nobel Prize winner, Al Gore. Bubba Al, notorious for his high wattage living, not only eases his conscience for his high energy use by buying carbon offsets... but he eases stress on his bank acounts for that high cost of living by buying those offsets from, essentially, himself.
Gore's ownership of this company, paying himself for his energy use, isn't new news. It was reported earlier this year by both Riehl World View and Mark Steyn in Chicago Sun Times. But somehow, in the wake of the politically motivated Nobel Peace prize award to him along with an arm of the corrupt UN, it has to start the brain cells churning - mulling the "whys "of human insanity. In short, exactly, what's the ulterior motive for creating a new tax loophole, or tax exempt, friendly religion ... The Church of Global Warming?
Let's assume Gore is on some bizarre tea supplement, and is genuinely heartfelt in his desires to save the planet from ourselves. That he sets a deplorable example of what he preaches in energy conservation is one story. He also damns himself as a "for the people kinda guy" by setting up a foundation to personally benefit from one of his proffered "solutions" - emission trading - resulting in simultaneously hosing the little guy ... since companies pass those added offset costs along to the consumers.
The above helps him enrich himself and others of the chosen few... but what does it do to "save the planet"?
Which brings us to the largest problem about the global warming debate. Not that anyone denies the planet is warming up. But, if man persists in assuming it's human induced (absurd, but play with me here...), what does man propose to do about it? Is it like so many other cures? Worse than the malady itself? Staving off a certain death, but only by trading it for a daily life filled with doctors, chemical/radiation treatments, nausea and mounting medical bills, followed by bankruptcy? Somewhere along the line, the quality of life starts to suffer for the end goal of continued existance.
Unfortunately, cure worse than malady is the way it's looking. Not only does the "carbon neutral" money scheme do nothing to reduce supposedly toxic emissions, it has a larger economic effect on nations' GDPs. Take the emission trading concept, a step further, add in the Kyoto Treaty, and we find global economic suicide for development and progress. There's alot of hedging on future values in the process. And we're talking waaaaay futures.
The above is an excerpt from the ACCF (American Council for Capital Formation) testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion Hearing. Subject? “U.S.-International Climate Change Approach: A Clean Technology Solution”. And using EU Emissions Trading System as a model, their economic projections were not good.
Further, several different economic analyses show that if the EU were to actually meet its emission reduction targets under the protocol the economic costs would be high. For example, new macroeconomic analyses by Global Insight, Inc. show the cost of complying with Kyoto for major EU countries could range between 0.8% of GDP to over 3 % in 2010. (See Figure 1.)
snip chart... go to link to view please
According to Global Insight, the reason for the significant economic cost is that energy prices, driven by the cost of cap/trade emission permits, have to rise sharply in order to curb demand and reduce GHG emissions. The tighter targets being considered for the post-2012 are also costly, with GDP losses ranging from 1.0 % of GDP to 4.5% for a 3 reduction to 60% below 2000 levels of emissions in the year 2020. Even the EU Commission for the Environment admits that emission reductions could cost as much as 1.3% of GDP by 2030. The fact that the European Environmental Agency projects that the EU will be 7% above 1990 levels of emissions in 2010 (instead of 8% below) demonstrates that the mandatory ETS system as currently structured is not working – and therefore the boost in energy costs noted by the Pew report could well be substantial.
It appears that emissions trading not only drops countrys' GDPs, but also drives up the cost of energy itself. Is that what demi-god Gore has in mind??
Another factor, the bigger corporations have the offset need. The smaller corporation is essentially "subsidized" by selling the carbon offsets they won't be using. Or, to give you more real perspective, third world countries under despotic leadership, incapable of using their carbon allotment, will sell their overage and line their own pockets wtih the payments. We have just given dictators financial incentive to keep their citizens in poverty.
Here's another visual on the same lines... possibly and painfully a viablility, and concocted by Mark Steyn
So in the Reverend Al's case it doesn't matter that he's lit up like Times Square on V-E Day. Because he's paid for his extravagant emissions. He has a carbon-offset trader in an environmentally friendly carbon-credits office suite who buys "carbon offsets" for Al from, say, a terrorist mastermind in a cave in the Pakistani tribal lands who's dramatically reduced his energy usage mainly because every time he powers up his cell phone or laptop a light goes on in Washington and an unmanned drone starts heading his way. So, aside from a basic cable subscription to cheer himself up watching U.S. senators talking about "exit strategies" on CNN 24/7, the terrorist mastermind doesn't deplete a lot of resources. Which means Tipper can watch Al give a speech on a widescreen plasma TV, where Al looks almost as wide as in life, and she doesn't have to feel guilty because it all comes out . . . carbon-neutral!
Sorry.. had to include that. The notion of Al's purchased carbon funds for his house and globe trotting going to a terrorist to use for jihad - AND as a reward for their environmental frugality - just strikes me as a twisted and foreseeable reality. If there's one good thing you can say about a terrorist: by shunning western development enmasse and keeping it only for their leadership to wage jihad, they are most definitely environmental friendly. Until they get their hands on chemical weapons or nukes, at least.
The point to all this? Follow the global warming power and money, and recognize it as the scam it is. We're being taken for a ride, folks. Big time. And, as usual, it's all about money and power to regulate the masses. See it for what it is, and hold off on building that ark.
No comments:
Post a Comment