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This one is utterly without those most in the know about climate science. Yep, not a celeb to be seen anywhere. Just scientists who have dedicated their entire adult lives to thier fields of study.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

Once again, sorry, no celebs and only one politician. Just dreary old scientists pointing out the blatantly obvious.

   

Excellent! Thank you Wullu.

From the Beeb no less. Must be tough for all the lefties out there to take.

   

Friday, Mar. 16, 2007
Limousine Liberal Hypocrisy
By Charles Krauthammer

Goldman Sachs has been one of the most aggressive firms on Wall Street about taking action on climate change; the company sends its bankers home at night in hybrid limousines.

--The New York Times, Feb. 25

Written without a hint of irony--if only your neighborhood dry cleaner sent his employees home by hybrid limousine--this front-page dispatch captured perfectly the eco-pretensions of the rich and the stupefying gullibility with which they are received.

Remember the Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore global-warming pitch at the Academy Awards? Before they spoke, the screen at the back of the stage flashed not-so-subliminal messages about how to save the planet. My personal favorite was "Ride mass transit." This to a conclave of Hollywood plutocrats who have not seen the inside of a subway since the moon landing and for whom mass transit means a stretch limo seating no fewer than 10.

Leo and Al then portentously announced that for the first time ever, the Academy Awards ceremony had gone green. What did that mean? Solar panels in the designer gowns? It turns out that the Academy neutralized the evening's "carbon footprint" by buying carbon credits. That means it sent money to a "carbon broker," who promised, after taking his cut, to reduce carbon emissions somewhere on the planet equivalent to what the stars spewed into the atmosphere while flying in on their private planes.

In other words, the rich reduce their carbon output by not one ounce. But drawing on the hundreds of millions of net worth in the Kodak Theatre, they pull out lunch money to buy ecological indulgences. The last time the selling of pardons was prevalent--in a predecessor religion to environmentalism called Christianity--Martin Luther lost his temper and launched the Reformation.

A very few of the very rich have some awareness of the emptiness--if not the medieval corruption--of ransoming one's sins. Sergey Brin, zillionaire founder of Google, buys carbon credits to offset the ghastly amount of carbon dioxide emitted by Google's private Boeing 767 but confesses he's not sure if it really does anything.

Which puts him one step ahead of most other eco-preeners who actually pretend that it does--the Goracle himself, for example. His Tennessee mansion consumes 20 times the electricity used by the average American home. Last August alone it consumed twice as much power as the average home consumes in a year. Gore buys absolution, however. He spends pocket change on carbon credits, which then allow him to pollute conscience-free.

What is wrong with this scam? First, purchasing carbon credits is an incentive to burn even more fossil fuels, since now it is done under the illusion that it's really cost-free to the atmosphere.

Second, it is a way for the rich to export the real costs and sacrifices of pollution control to the poorer segments of humanity in the Third World. (Apparently, Hollywood's plan is to make up for that by adopting every last one of their children.) For example, GreenSeat, a Dutch carbon-trading outfit, buys offsets from a foundation that plants trees in Uganda's Mount Elgon National Park to soak up the carbon emissions of its rich Western patrons. Small problem: expanding the park encroaches on land traditionally used by local farmers. As a result, reports the New York Times, "villagers living along the boundary of the park have been beaten and shot at, and their livestock has been confiscated by armed park rangers." All this so that swimming pools can be heated and Maseratis driven with a clear conscience in the fattest parts of the world.

The other form of carbon trading is to get Third World companies to cut their emissions to offset Western pollution. The reason this doesn't work--and why the carbon racket is a farce--is that you need a cap for cap-and-trade to work. Sulfur dioxide emissions in the U.S. were capped, and the trading system succeeded in reducing acid rain by half. But even the Kyoto treaty doesn't put any cap on greenhouse gases in China and India, where billions of these carbon credits are traded. Sure, you can pretend you're offsetting Western greenhouse pollution by supposedly cleaning up a dirty coal plant in China. But China is adding a new coal plant every week. You could build a particularly dirty "uncapped" power plant, then sell hundreds of millions in carbon credits to reduce it to a normal rate of pollution. The result? The polluter gets very rich. The planet continues to cook. And the Gores of the world can feel virtuous as they burn up the local power grid.

If Gore really wants to save the planet, he can try this: Turn off the lights. Ditch the heated pool. Ride the subway. And spare us the carbon-trading piety.


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Gore's Company Says He's Not Profiting from 'Carbon Offsets'
By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
March 07, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Al Gore is not profiting from his crusade against global warming, a spokesman for an investment firm co-founded by the former vice president said Tuesday.

Gore's London-based employee-owned company, Generation Investment Management (GIM), purchases -- but isn't a provider of -- carbon dioxide (CO2) "offsets," said spokesman Richard Campbell.

GIM is strictly an investment firm that considers how eco-friendly corporations are in assessing long-term sustainability, Campbell told Cybercast News Service by phone from London.

After Gore came under fire last week for high energy consumption in his Tennessee mansion, one explanation offered by his defenders was that he pays for carbon offsets.

The Tennessean newspaper then reported that Gore's company invests in projects to reduce energy consumption around the world, sparking accusations in other media outlets that Gore is making money off global warming by essentially paying himself for the "offsets."

(Climate campaigners have established a procedure which allows an individual, business or institution responsible for high levels of CO2 emissions to buy "offsets." They pay a levy that will go towards renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power or for planting trees - so-called "carbon sinks" that remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Thus, according to advocates, high energy users can be considered "carbon neutral," because they are making up for the amount of CO2 they produce by funding eco-friendly projects elsewhere.)

"That's a serious accusation of illegal activity," Campbell said Tuesday of the profiteering allegations.

"We do not invest in any activity of carbon offset. That's nonsense. We are a fund management business that does sustainability research," he added.

The confusion, Campbell said, arose because GIM pays to offset the energy use of its operations and the personal emissions of its 23 employees, including Gore.

So, the firm will cover the cost to offset the energy use at Gore's home, or his global jet travel, as it would the offset cost of any other employee, Campbell said.

GIM, which Gore started with former Goldman Sachs executive David Blood in 2004, uses the Chicago Climate Exchange and the British-based Carbon Neutral Company to cover the high energy use of GIM and its employees.

Just how lucrative the company is for Gore is unclear.

"Mr. Gore, as a private citizen, does not release his private income," Gore spokesman Kalee Kreider told Cybercast News Service in an e-mail response to questions about how much Gore makes from the company. Media inquiries to Gore's office must be put in writing.

The fact that Gore's Nashville home runs up electricity bills averaging $1,200 per month was publicized last week by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

"If the issue is that severe that he fears for his children and grandchildren, he should get his own house in order as far as energy use," the think tank's president, Drew Johnson, told Cybercast News Service.

"I question someone more when he has so much to gain politically and financially by using scare tactics," he said.

'Shaming others into living differently'

Critics question the validity of offsetting emissions, in part because the system doesn't require those wealthy enough to afford offsets to conserve anything.

"I question if offsets are real or a way to get a certificate you can frame that says 'I'm a virtuous person,'" Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), told Cybercast News Service.

"This really is a class thing. Other than the rich, no one else can buy offsets."

Ebell said this means people like Gore "can continue to live exactly the way they want and shame others into living differently."

The conservative CEI has been a leading skeptic of the notion that human activity is causing global warming. But Ebell said that if Gore believes in it, he should act more like a leader.

"A leader leads by example," Ebell said. "A general doesn't pay someone else to lead the charge."

It can be difficult to know to what extent such offsets really work, said Ben Dunham, staff attorney for the liberal U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

"These personal offset companies really do invest in projects somewhere in the world," Dunham told Cybercast News Service. "The problem is you can never be sure a project wouldn't happen anyway regardless of the contribution."

Ted Dodge, executive director of the National Carbon Offsets Coalition, said advocates of this offset industry agree about the need to impose more regulations.

Currently, industry standards are set by the Chicago Climate Exchange - the only carbon offset firm in North America, Dodge said.

"This is not the answer to global climate change, but it's part of the answer," Dodge said.

"These are real offsets. This is a bridge to the future. It's not a real option to shut out fossil fuels now," he added.

Ex-campaign manager

The president of GIM's U.S. operation is Peter S. Knight, who served as Gore's chief of staff in the U.S. Senate and later as campaign manager for the Clinton-Gore reelection campaign in 1996.

Knight is a controversial figure. In 1999, Republicans on the House Commerce Committee asked then U.S. Attorney Janet Reno to investigate whether a $1 million payment to Knight from a Tennessee developer was an illegal contingency fee for helping get the Federal Communications Commission to move to the development.

Knight and the developer, Franklin Haney, said the payment was for legal fees for Knight's work on several projects. Reno declined to investigate.

Knight is traveling this week and isn't available for an interview, according to the Washington office of Generation Investment Management.



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First, Gore sets up a company that will invest in other companies that will benefit from global warming alarmism

Second, Gore gets some Hollywood types to fund and produce a movie designed to scare the c-c-carbon out of the population

Third, Gore travels the world promoting this movie, while pushing the view that a cataclysm is imminent if the world doesn't immediately act

Fourth, an adoring media falls for the con hook, line, and sinker. Rather than debunking the flaws in the theories, the media promote every word of it while advancing the concept that Gore's views represent those of an overwhelming majority of scientists

Fifth, scared governments and citizens across the globe invest in alternative energy programs driving up the shares of companies Gore's group has already invested in

Sixth, Gore and his cronies make billions as they laugh all the way to the bank at the stupidity of their fellow citizens
America -- what a country!

   

   

Same argument vs Strong. I don't see one point that you have raised that shows the alarmism is unfounded or misguided.

Your point is not dismissed out of hand however. The root of all conspiracy thinking is who gains.

   

not my work but it's still all true, algore is not fat he's just full of shit.

   

He was a politician. Harper isn't fat either.

   

yeah ok. he's a big fat pig.

   

Gore is flogging a dead horse.....

Despite his apparent backing from much mass media, he didn't get a warm reception in Washington, where he was treated as the crooked buffoon that he is.

KYOTO treaties are as good as dead. Canada did nothing despite the reign of it's supporters the LIBRANO's......Do not expect Harper to in practice follow KYOTO....mere lip service in the face of a massive, unprecedented, swindling, public relations exercise.
The US senate years past voted 95-0 against KYOTO........
Russia signed on because the current setup requires nothing other than getting paid for "Carbon Credits".
The EEC is failing miserably to meet it's KYOTO targets...the Greens be damned....
Japan is also failing miserably to meet it's KYOTO targets.........
India and China are not involved and have no intention of destroying their economic growth to support what they know is a scam...........
The 3rd World is a spectator, calmly razing their rain forests....looking for AID.....

[marq=left]Farewell thy suite is cold.........[/marq]

   

You know, folks aren't stupid. They can figure out that this latest tactic of ridiculing Gore is just a big smokescreen for the fact that the AGW scetpics don't have much of a leg to stand on, scientifically these days. Go ahead, have fun with Gore, but he isn't the source of your ideological strife--the science is.

And, lo and behold, Gore ahs a company. That's news to me. But the reactionary right apparently don't believe in capitalism. They castigate Gore for--get this--MAKING MONEY. How dare he run a profitable company!

Folks aren't stupid--they can tell who the real alarmists are. Listen to how shrill the tone of all the above posts here. Exactly who is freaking out here? Why, big surprise, it's the reactionary right again. It's not the climate scientists, it's the sasqautches and hwackers of the world who have got their panties in a knot.

Folks aren't stupid. They see the science accumulating inexorably to amke a case for anthrpogenic climate change, and they see the arguments and accusations of the vested interests against AGW become more and more preposterous and ham-fisted.

Go ahead and print your pictures of Al Gore in a negligee. The more ridiculous the reactionary right gets, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

   

ENRON was a profitable company..............


Despite your BS the bottom line is...

[marq=left] KYOTO IS A DEAD ISSUE [/marq]

   

Sasquatch, when you have to use moving, huge-font type to make your point, you should consider brushing up on your debating skills--whihc are pretty deficient. You come off sounding like a rabid chipmunk.

All I can say is that I'm sorry that you hold capitalism and science in such low regard. I happen to quite like them both, and theink they've both been an immmeasurable boon to our lives.

   

Ain't it a **tch to cut and pastE a moving target????? ROTFALMAO

Perhaps you should gain an appreciation of a late COLD WAR term.

REALPOLITIK---Gorbachev did.........

The reality is that KYOTO is dead and any further debate is purely academic. Perhaps now spin will be removed from science again.

   

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