climate scheming

As reported by the BBC, hackers target a lead climate research unit's server to capture files and private emails. They successfully downloaded a number of very damaging emails where scientists were discussing topics such as: ouster the scientists who don't agree with them, hiding climate study results that don't agree with their conclusions, altering data to support their perspectives, etc.

The University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) hacked email system included emails from a veritable "Who's who" of AGW climate scientists, so says the climategate web site. So this brings into question the work directly contributed to the IPCC report very much at the center of the AGW debate.

The site climate gate has also reported the story has been in contact with individuals who were included in the list of hacked emails willing to confirm that the emails matched emails they previously authored. At the same time both climate gate and the BBC have reported that the hacked group is willing to verify that they were hacked but were unwilling to address any specific questions about the contact of the emails or documents.

I think it is reasonable to demand more verification of the facts, and it is not reasonable for this group to simply be unwilling to face the accusation posed by their own hacked emails. At the same time I am not surprised that they are willing to simply not address those very disturbing emails. In one of the emails they are completely honest (privately with each other) about refusing to provide all of the supporting data and models associated with one of their "scientific" conclusions.

Four of the biggest posed cover-ups in those emails have everything to do with [1] screening comments on the supposedly neutral RealClimate.org website to ensure a pro-AGW message, [2] "fixing" data to make the historical record appear to consistently rise in temperature over the industrial revolution period, [3] altering land and ocean temperature difference data to hide the reasonable conclusion that the models do not take into account the amount of "urban island" warming heat measurement effect and [4] hiding the fact that measured temperature trends for the last entire decade breaks their trend and invalidates their trending models' conclusions. These three pieces of evidence, acknowledged by these AGW advocates who's science found the results and are now scheming to hide the evidence, would be a significant and reasonable breach in the armor of the AGW initiative.

What does that mean for average Americans?

It means that AGW as a factor in making political decisions is now reasonably in question and that AGW skeptical science results aren't just coming from skeptics but from the models of pro-AGW scientists. We can now put our carbon-tax checkbooks away and ask people like Al Gore to go sell crazy somewhere else.

The Cap And Trade Market Is The New Wallstreet

The word on the street is that the Carbon Pollution (still only a theory and disproved more and more everyday by observed non-anomilic science) “Cap and Trade” is poised to make certain folks into quick billionaires. GE is one of those companies. There are many others. Here is how this will work.

For some time now a number of companies organized as a group called “USCAP” have teamed up to recommend how cap and trade works. The gist is, based on recommended levels for carbon pollution, companies in the US would be awarded credits. If you are beating the cap then you get credits and if you are exceeding the cap then you need to go out and buy credits due to your credit deficit. Over the course of the next 50 years those credits would be progressively reduced lower carbon pollution numbers (wait for it.) Here is the problem.

1. Carbon pollution is not science nor are the standards. They are manufactured "Caps" (I will explain how these Caps came to be in the next point.)
   
2. The USCAP group is recommending standards that stack the deck in their favor. If the government adopts their recommendation, then since those companies have a head start on adhering to the standard they would be awarded an inequitable number of credits.

As a result many other companies would have to go to them to buy credits. And companies like GE are then awarded in the billions of dollars. Years later after politicians are willing to agree with the current science debunking AGW and proving we are on a new cooling trend, rather than returning all of our money they will only claim we've now solved AGW at a globally and ecologically infeasible speed and now we can stop doing Cap and Trade and energy taxes... wait a minute, WHO AM I KIDDING?

If the government can crank up personal energy taxes, why would they EVER STOP? And if companies can OWN the Cap and Trade system before it even gets going, how hard will they lobby Congress to keep that cashcow alive long after Anthropogenic Global Warming pseudo-science is debunked publicly?

Well, the answer is, they won't stop. This is a new industry they are creating. And we are not talking about companies trading billions based on carbon credit trading alone. Here is where you are I come in.

Carbon Cap and Trade laws would very quickly affect the average American household at the rate of over $3,000 per year. This is already all over the news based on the plan being proposed. If you think you have a tight budget now, imagine finding another $3,000 per year to handle trickle down Cap and Trade economics. If you are single with a roommate renting a home, well then it will only be $1,500+ for you, but I am sure you are now doing the math. As energy costs go up, also due specifically to energy taxes, it is being estimated that people will retire older electronic devices and from who will they purchase those new devices? Two letters: G.E.

This also affects companies and communities. G.E. is not only a major participant in crafting the Cap and Trade recommendations to the US Government but it is the largest manufacturer of the purported consumer AND company AND community level “solutions”. Where will people buy windmills from? New generator? Updated "low polution" arcraft engines? G.E. And this is only one company in the mix.

Let's talk about oil. Since the beginning of AGW theories ExxonMobil has been quit public about disputing the science behind the claims. And while they have not publicly changed their position, they are surprisingly getting involved in USCAP to help shape those policies before they become laws. So they aren't debating the fact that they don't believe in AGW anymore today than they did yesterday. They are only reading the writing on the wall and grabbing a seat at the big table so they can be one of the key families in the new enviro-mafia.

So (like usual) let’s do the math:

Cap and Trade doesn’t solve any problems, it creates a new trade market.

Moreover it creates or IMPLEMENTS a scheduled problem for average Americans to which that same group “creating” the problem will then be the very group providing the solution. The last time I heard a storyline like this I think I was watching the movie “The Godfather.” I am just starting to really understand those funny new “Tea Parties” in the news these days. You know? Those blips in the news where the media tells you that a few people got together to complain about taxes? Well, historically, people got pretty pissed because England wanted to get more money out of the colonies, so while England controlled the tea being exported to the colonies, they saw an opportunity in controlling the taxes associated with them. To be fair, Cap and Trade is just a new Tea Tax. But in this case it isn't tea they are taxing, it is carbon - the most prevelant element in the known universe. Said another way, if America could tax you for breathing, comparitively they couldn't raise as much funding as the AGW carbon "polution" taxation market will be able to do.

So, am I nuts? Where do I get the guts to call Cap and Trade a planned ploy to create a problem and then pimp the only solution? Well, just follow the story for yourself…

OK, be a good American and read these two articles:

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em: Industry owns Cap and Trade rather than really being about Green Legislation

…and…

Cap and Trade Slumlords: If going green is so altruistic, how did Al Gore go from a net worth of $2 million at the end of his vice presidency to over $100 million in only eight years due to the new green market?

...and if you prefer to watch video instead then check out...

Al Gore Buys Offsets (Good Conservationist?)

The winner in the Anthropogenic Global Warming debate is the conservationist lifestyle (but I am a little more worried about the losers than the winners.)

A poll by the New York Times about fuel taxes implies that Americans are somewhat welcoming to the idea of higher fuel taxes if (and a mostly BIG "if") those dollars go directly to investment in sustainable reasonable fuel alternatives. In other words, the population is willing to consume less and pay more in hopes that they will dodge the doom of a global meltdown. This reminds me of press that seemed to come out at about the time the IPCC and another gentleman won the Nobel prize for their AGW movie and research.

In fact, recall when the IPCC co-won the Nobel prize and the UN that supported it started to more vocally promote carbon taxes as the key solutions, other long time conservationists starting to jump ship from the "global warming" momentum. To date they treat anthropogenic global warming (AGW) like the noisy slightly slow cousin who keeps stirring up the right interest, just not quite in the right direction. I am going to agree with that. I love the idea of promoting conservation through responsible moderation. I however hate it that AGW gets to run wild in the streets dumping its pseudo-science everywhere, fearing-mongering the population into redistribution of wealth through taxation. It's a fundraiser powered by fear that doesn't result in fixing anything.

Well, the first benefactor of these get-financial-redistribution-quick schemes is none other than the individual who was the co-winner of that Nobel Prize, Al Gore.

Some of you might recall that soon after the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" came out it was revealed that Al Gore's Tennesee home consumes 20 times the power as compared to the average American home. His response... I (Al Gore) invest in carbon offsets.

Now regardless of what you are I think about carbon offsets, maybe that is still admirable. At best, carbon offsets are ensuring that while you personally waste, you are paying to ensure that someone else doesn't (or rather bears the burden of maximizing their conservation so you don't have to.) At worst, ideologically, carbon taxes and cap-and-trade and buying offsets equals giving people the right to buy an increase in pollution. ie. "I am beating up the planet, but at the same time I am making donations into the DON'T BEAT UP THE PLANET fund, so we're good, right?"

I wish this story ended there! Recently, it has come to my attention that Al Gore actually buys his offsets from General Investment Management. The problem: Al Gore co-founded General Investment Management (GIM)!

So, do the math. His movie, his prize, his company, and if the laws and taxes are all successful, then his profits!? So his offsets are really an investment in an offset resource company that will make him more money?

For one, you have to admit that this is questionable at best. At worst, he is fear-mongering for cash! And so all of the "settled science" claims, his unwillingness to debate with reputable scientists who would like to discuss the science behind AGW just simply buy time as our government is swindled into forcing American companies to buy his GIM company services because we got into bed with the UN to redistribute wealth across the planet.

The most horrible part of all of that: none of it stops or slows down the "big problem" that is carbon emitions (remembering that just about everything on this planet is carbon-based ... they are setting up a tax plan for the most abundant element in the known universe). Why are we pursuing it? Good question.

But regardless, people intuitively know the right answer to this wrong question. The answer is personal responsibility to own a more conservationist lifestyle. There is no good reason to waste resources or over consume (step one should be changing the advertising monster that roams the planet psychologically demanding that we replace our perfectly good funiture and kitchen appliances with more stylish ones, just because) and so while people are still mostly confused about the science and reality of AGW, they are really hoping for answers that lead to Christian values like "intentional awareness of moderation." The funny thing about that NYTimes poll on rising fuel costs: less than half of the people who said they would be fine with rising fuel costs if it would help said they would continue to be OK with it if the revenue didn't reall help better the situation.

I am hopeful that the world pays attention and learns moderation and reasonable conservative living. I am however afraid that it might be at the expense of allowing a myth to continue and worse yet promote a secondary agenda at the expense of the planet. If you think that the myth is mostly harmless, read this review that anticipates something more like global bankruptcy if we follow through with this and other UN-based redistribution of wealth initiatives.

A few last videos to review:

Have An Abortion For The Environments Sake!

Many of you who know me know that I watched “An Inconvenient Truth,” read the summary to the U.N. report on human factors on Climate Change and it pretty well freaked me out more than any movie I had seen come out of Hollywood for the last, well, for my entire life. I am sure this is because “An Inconvenient Truth” was meant to freak us out into action. Because of that reason alone, assuming a good cause at the back end, I was willing to endure a little alarmism created to call us to action. As long as the majority of facts are right, then I will give the claims the benefit of the doubt. Right? Who wants to damage the planet for lazy selfish reasons, right? How in the world does anyone benefit from saving the planet, except for the obvious benefit of, well, saving our planet, right!?

Since that time I watched a few documentaries on climate change from the antagonists perspective, challenging not the concept of global climate change, but the science about human factors versus other factors. There were a few videos out of the U.K. on the origins of human “CO2” contributions arguments. I watched a few national geographic videos and read NASA studies.

Why would I do this!? (You might ask) If all of our best scientists are declaring the threat (are they all? Who's on that list? Are they the best? Who isn't on that list?), why waste time reading up on it especially from an antagonist’s perspective rather than just doing stuff to help? In a word, marketing! A short while back I wrote about the concept of “greenwashing,” which in quick summary is the act of a company (or politician or government) “marketing” various ideas about how environmentally responsible their goals / products / taxes are and will positively affect this need to save our planet. The problem, it seems to me, is that “going green” is expensive, but more importantly all efforts to “go green” aren’t close to equal. Some efforts are completely effective and helpful and responsible while some are nothing short of snake oil being sold to an attentive public!

What I find is that non-alarmist global warming science reading has helped me to see and understand global warming better (not completely, only better), but at the same time helps me differentiate between the science of global climate change and the mythical fog that has descended on the topic of human causes of global warming. This is important if we as individuals are going to do the responsible thing and be good stewards of our planet.

Back to marketing. I mention marketing because of the first paragraph above. If I am going to be fair then I want to know if and where the benefits of fighting human causes of global warming rest. If a car company claims that they are environmentally more responsible than their competition because they make their seat cushions out of soy-based foams, I have to examine the enviro-benefit of driving a car that was manufactured in an eco-responsible manner versus are car with a smaller carbon footprint over the life of the car. It is less about “costing me more right now” and rather “costing all of us and the planet more in the long run.” But this isn’t easy to determine by reading a short three page article in Better Homes and Gardens Magazine (are they still around?) It takes a real investment. “Going green” isn’t about ideologically joining the “green club” but rather doing our part where it matters: less what we say (greenwash) and more about what we do (go green). Some might argue that being a proponent is at least an investment in the right direction. I completely disagree. It is literally no investment, to do nothing but just talk about it.

Recently I noticed a book at a local Border’s Bookstore and so I picked it up. The title was “Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmist Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed.” Again, this is an antagonistic book that helps to divide that line between real climate science and the foggy myth that creates unscientific momentum around human causes of global warming (for whatever reason.) I bought the book and am patiently reading through it. Responsibly enough, it contains analysis and appropriate references scattered throughout that validate its various points. It is a short history of the handling of the topic and anyone who wants to be educated on this topic would find this book to be a great reference for drawing a line between what is worth paying attention to and what is just alarmist.

This is the part where many bloggers would write stuff about propaganda of leftist media, but I don’t think the author (or I) believes that the media is so well organized or ideologically in tuned to a single well managed conspiracy. No. Rather I think that journalists and politicians are generally not well educated on environmental science and skim one report on a topic, highlighted by someone else for them, and then they perpetuate some new under-analyzed misunderstood perspective that gets even more distorted down the foodchain. This, coupled with watchdog groups (outlined in the book) that keep the climate change momentum spinning at full velocity by regularly contesting reports and statements that don’t seem alarmist enough (great examples in the book) keeps the public generally misinformed about not only the facts, but misinformed as to what we can truly do to help.

I think we generally want to help. My guess would be that if we were to ask a perfect stranger on the street, “If you could be given 5 proven things to do that would make a good contribution to doing your part to be a responsible steward of the planet, would you do it?” my guess is that most individuals would say “Sure.” Here lies the problem. The government seems to be the new clearinghouse on this information and what they are promoting is incredibly close to a greenwash. Let’s take an example that is very close to my heart. The global greenwashing of abortion.

First read this transcript from a TV news talkshow:
http://tinyurl.com/5cme9d

This is the author of the book I am reading. He shares that the world via the United Nations is already deciding how to hand out carbon credits. (The basic idea here has to do with “cap and trade”, meaning that countries will agree to put a cap on country-based carbon emissions and then if they exceed that cap as a country, then they can buy the right to “pollute” by purchasing carbon credits from a country that is doing so well that they have a surplus of positive carbon credits.) In this discussion the book author explains that China is likely being offered additional carbon credits because they are willing to “cap” their population (via abortion) and as a result would then have a smaller carbon footprint as a country because they are killing all of these future-people who would likely increase the carbon footprint. China argued for this, and European members of the Kyoto agreement along with the U.N. all agreed that China should get carbon credits because they are killing future polluters. So, in summary, population control is now a significant activity in reducing human factors for climate change enough that the U.N. is ready to cut virtual checks if countries endorse this sort of population control. What? So abortion is eco-responsible? Please! This is getting ridiculous and absurd. Did I mention that the U.N. is already implementing carbon taxes on a global scale and that America is already in debt to the U.N. in the billions of dollars at this point (remember that we get no say in how that money is spent… will it benefit the environment really?)

It seems clear to me that the government is little to no help in solving eco-responsibility issues outside of very local governments (i.e. your personal community government protecting the planet through local legislation that specifically targets unquestionably harmful behavior.) It seems that we will have to educate ourselves and “bailout” the government from their crazy solutions by getting involved locally and federally AND if we are going to save the planet, then we have to do it. Creating a new global-abortion-market-for-eco-credits is just a crazy notion and we have to save ourselves both from our politicians as well as save the planet as a result of this offensive line of thinking.

For those of you who advocate for pro-choice ideals or at least are not completely in agreement with me about the genocide that is abortion, consider the idea that when the U.N. creates this kind of eco-incentive that it isn’t happening in a vacuum. The U.N. Millenium agenda also outlines on-demand abortion as a part of their defense of woman (something Mexico is being harassed about by U.N. because their predominantly Catholic population doesn’t favor promoting on-demand abortion.) Put the two of these ideas together and (here comes a prediction) abortion could become less about “choice” in America and more about eco-responsible population control via abortion (once the U.S. demands the U.N. gives us our carbon credits for the 50,000,000 babies we have killed via abortion since 1973.) Abortion could become the next eco-fundraiser. If we can’t stop polluting, then maybe we can offset our carbon deficit by up-ing our abortion head count? The thought makes me sick!

Back on point. The book is not about abortion. That was just my personal rant. In any case, go buy the book and educate yourself. If you have ideas about how to “go green” in legitimate ways, I recommend writing those ideas here by making some comments or sending me emails. I will take a moment to blog out some of our ideas!