One of the most difficult things in writing a blog post is to do research. So often it feels like finding a string, following it and pulling on it and then discovering the ball of yarn. And you just can’t stop.
Global warming is a scam. ( What a treat to have someone like Alec Rawls posting here.) The scam has earned such bad publicity that the phrase “climate change” was substituted for “global warming.”
Barack Obama wanted desperately to impose a Cap and Trade system upon this country. It would have been one of the worst things that could have happened to us. It would little to nothing at a gigantic cost. The underpinning of the system is carbon trading, or carbon offsets or carbon credits.
But let’s look at just how much of a farce this is. From the Times-News Magic Valley (H/T IOTW)
One Idaho wind company has a plan to get more green for each gust.
Idaho Winds LLC, representing eight local wind farms, has petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve its unconventional plan to sell renewable energy credits in California.
In its Dec. 15 request, Idaho Winds proposed to sell wind energy and related renewable energy credits to a third party. The catch was Idaho Winds would instantly buy the power back, leaving just the credits, which the third party would sell to a California utility.
In essence, no energy would be sold — just California credits for wind power sold in another state.
The looney bin that is California has its own Cap and Trade system and a specific law which says:
California, along with most Western states, has a law requiring that renewable sources provide a certain percentage of the state’s energy needs. With every unit of renewable energy it buys or produces, a utility receives a renewable energy credit. At least 20 percent of California’s energy needed to come from renewable sources this year, with that percentage jumping to a full third by 2020.
As it stands, California utilities buy the energy and energy credits together. But after the initial purchase, the credits can be “unbundled” from the energy so utilities can just buy the credit. That’s the loophole Idaho Winds hopes to use.
So Idaho fabricates energy credits out of thin clean air and sells them to California utilities which pass those costs on to consumers.
And the air doesn’t get one carbon molecule cleaner.
And this is just a small piece of the overall scam.
At WIRED, Spencer Reiss notes this about carbon offsets:
A few fun facts: All the so-called clean development mechanisms authorized by the Kyoto Protocol, designed to keep 175 million tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere by 2012, will slow the rise of carbon emissions by … 6.5 days. (That’s according to Roger Pielke at the University of Colorado.) Depressed yet? Kyoto also forces companies in developed countries to pay China for destroying HFC-23 gas, even though Western manufacturers have been scrubbing this industrial byproduct for years without compensation. And where’s the guarantee that the tree planted in Bolivia to offset $10 worth of air travel, for instance, won’t be chopped down long before it absorbs the requisite carbon?
Abd guess who stands to become the first “Green Billionaire” ?
None other than Al Gore.
Al Gore, the former US vice president, could become the world’s first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies.
From Dan Riehl
Former Vice President Al Gore has built a Green money-making machine capable of eventually generating billions of dollars for investors, including himself, but he set it up so that the average Joe can’t afford to play on Gore’s terms. And the US portion is headed up by a former Gore staffer and fund raiser who previously ran afoul of both the FEC and the DOJ, before Janet Reno jumped in and shut down an investigation during the Clinton years.
As Bill Hobbs first pointed out, Gore supposedly pays for his extra-large carbon footprint through Generation Investment Management (GIM) – and if you’re looking to go green, and have your wallet go along with Gore, think again – average people are too insignificant to play – verifiable from this pdf.
Generation is based in London, with its U.S. offices in Washington, DC. The firm will manage the assets of institutional investors such as pension funds, foundations and endowments, as well as those of select high net worth individuals.* Generation expects to make extensive use of long-term performance based fees. Generation will begin its investment management business in early 2005.
So playing in this carbon trading sandbox is limited to the astronomically rich, and not you and me or even those awful people making $250,000 a year.
Riehl lists a number of companies who have invested large sums of money in Al Gore’s control. One of them is General Electric. Jeffrey Immelt is the CEO of GE.
In early 2009 Jeffrey Immelt was appointed to Barack Obama’s Economic Advisory Board. About the same time Immelt chewed out NBC reporters for negative stories about Barack Obama. In April of 2009 Immelt was identified as one of the few Fortune 500 CEO’s who supported Obama.
In 2007 the Climate Action Partnership was formed by several corporations to come up with a solution to curbing greenhouse gases, aka CAP. One of the largest corporations that is part of this organization is GE. GE currently is also the largest manufacturer of clean energy equipment such as windmills, natural gas and nuclear power. Since GE already has the technology that will be required for other companies to purchase, with the sales of its products alone in order for companies to abide by any Cap & Trade laws, GE stands to make billions. GE has spent a cool million dollars the past year alone touting their green energy initiatives in a marketing blitz, as if their corporate policy is ‘caring about the environment.’ Immelt is quoted as saying “I didn’t come to this as an environmentalist, I come to it as an industrialist,” “I’m a capitalist, plain and simple.” While I totally agree with capitalism and think it’s great he wants to earn cash for GE, I don’t agree that it should be on the backs of the American people who will truly pay the price for Cap & Trade.
The trade part of Cap & Trade is where companies like Goldman Sachs come into play. You see, those companies that do not use their entire allotment of emissions, can sell them to other companies who may need more. Yes, Wall Street is also in on Cap & Trade. Wall Street will be trading these ‘excess allotments’ as commodities. The very Wall Street companies that Obama constantly derides and claims consist of greedy people who hurt Americans will be earning billions thanks to his plan. One industry analyst believes that this Cap & Trade trading on Wall Street could turn into a $2 trillion business within five years.
Goldman Sachs. I’ll be getting back to them in a couple of days.
Joe Weisenthal says Obama’s Climate change policy is a gift for GE :
GE needs all the help it can get right now, with its stock hurtling closer towards $0 on a daily basis. The company obviously stands to benefit from infrastructure buildout, and from capturing its share of green (energy) dollars. The more wind-turbines we erect, the better for GE.
But there’s a nexus between its green ambitions and its finance unit in the form of a new venture called Greenhouse Gas Services, which will facilitate the trade of carbon tax credits.
Thus as Tim Carney* notes, GE has been lobbying heavily for a cap-and-trade system, rather than a straight tax system which wouldn’t require a market. And of course they got their wish:
GE — a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which advocates cap and trade — leads the push for greenhouse gas restrictions.
In the fourth quarter of 2008 as the company’s stock fell 30 percent, GE spent $4.26 million on lobbying — that’s $46,304 each day, including weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2008, the company spent a grand total of $18.66 million on lobbying.
Reviewing their lobbying filings, you might think you were looking at Al Gore’s agenda. GE’s specific lobbying issues included the “Climate Stewardship Act,” “Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act,” “Global Warming Reduction Act,” “Federal Government Greenhouse Gas Registry Act,” “Low Carbon Economy Act,” and “Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.”
GE contributed over half a million dollars to Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign.
And that new entity, Greenhouse Gas Services? Guess who else is part of that?
Google to Use Greenhouse Gas Services’ Standard of Practice for Emissions Reduction Project
ARLINGTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Greenhouse Gas Services LLC (GHGS), a venture between GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of GE (NYSE:GE), and The AES Corporation (NYSE:AES), announced today that it has signed a master agreement with Google to co-develop projects that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and produce GHG credits. The initial project will capture methane gas at the Mount Herman landfill in Caldwell County, North Carolina.
“We’re working with Google at the site level to create GHG credits that are certified to our Standard of Practice, ensuring they represent a real and permanent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions”
.As one of the first emissions reduction co-development projects in the US, Greenhouse Gas Services (GHGS) will design, build and operate the facility that will capture more than 120,000 tons of landfill gas over ten years. The project will use the GHGS Standard of Practice to govern the creation, management and retirement of the credits. Google will add these offsets to its carbon portfolio to advance its goal of company-wide carbon neutrality.“We’re working with Google at the site level to create GHG credits that are certified to our Standard of Practice, ensuring they represent a real and permanent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mauricio Vargas, CEO of GHGS.
GE and Google will be seeking control of Renewable Energy Credits market.
Eric Schmidt of Google supported the Presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. Google contributed $800,000 to Obama’s campaign. Google pays 2.4% in taxes.
And now you know the rest of the story. The biggest screwing of your life is coming to a town near you. This has nothing to do with the environment. It’s all about making the very most wealthy even more wealthy with the money of those with less.
Much less.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.