The Green Agenda

[lukin]

just checked back - you made several references to Al Gore but the only question appears to be one of asking, "what I think of Al Gore and all his hypocrisy". As an original symbolic communicator, Gore's work was significant and instrumental... today, he currently holds a much reduced presence or bearing, although he certainly continues to be a target fixation point for... guys like you?

you obviously don't understand... don't recognize... the relative imbalance that anthropogenic emissions have to the equilibrium balance. Perhaps you should take the time to investigate the carbon cycle. Equally, you could step forward and substantiate your earlier claim as to the harmlessness of GHG emissions along with this, your latest claim, that ocean CO2 emission accounts for global warming. Denier blog science won't cut it... substantiate your claims with peer review science - thanks in advance.

Waldo, personally, what are you doing to combat global warming?

[WIP]

How much money has the World Wildlife Fund received from the EU?

Seriously! You're going to compare whatever donations the WWF got from the EU (something I'll have to take your word on) and the bags of money the oil companies have to buy influence far and wide.

Anyone who sees AGW as a scam are paid for by big-oil....that is ridiculous.

Like I said before, if you're carrying water for Big Oil free of charge, you're a fool...there's big money to be made doing their bidding. And I wasn't talking just about AGW either; take the BP situation in the Gulf for example: no BP executives have been charged for criminal malfeasance, and as far as we know, none of them are being investigated by the feds. The U.S. Senate is so heavily in the tank of Big Oil, that they can't even pass the most modest cap and trade bill...not that it would do much good! Cap and Trade would be a bureaucratic mess and taxing carbon should have been the option if corporate lobbyists didn't have their hand at the wheel of government.

There have been Republican hacks embarrassing themselves on camera by bemoaning the unfair treatment of this poor megacorporation. They have destroyed the ecology of one third of the Gulf of Mexico, and yet hard right media and politicians try to shift the blame for the disaster on to the federal government! The feds are at fault for being in Big Oil's hip pocket...aside from that this is a disaster created by an industry that has engineered government and tax policy to benefit themselves, and try to hamper the introduction of all alternatives to coal, oil and gas.

Carbon trading will be a billion dollar industry, and will do nothing to curb harmless greenhouse emissions.

Cap and Trade is a rival corporate scam that is enthusiastically endorsed by the big banks, including the major player in investment banking -- Goldman Sachs; and yet, this modest, do-nothing strategy to reduce carbon emissions has been effectively neutered by the oil industry, because it would take a modest portion away from their profit margins. All we learn from this is that the oil industry is even more powerful, and owns more politicians than the banks -- and that is a scary thought to have to digest!

A real solution to reducing carbon emissions was tried during the last federal election cycle, when the Libs borrowed or stole the Carbon Tax from the Green Party. Shifting taxation from income and other sales, to taxing carbon, works on a very simple, fundamental premise that fiscal conservatives are supposed to understand: you get less of what you tax, and more of what you subsidize. So why not tax the industry that befouls the air that we all have to breathe? Because the industry that wants to use the environment as its free waste dump wants to continue making environmental costs a burden on the public, and not on themselves.

[lukin]

Seriously! You're going to compare whatever donations the WWF got from the EU (something I'll have to take your word on) and the bags of money the oil companies have to buy influence far and wide.

Like I said before, if you're carrying water for Big Oil free of charge, you're a fool...there's big money to be made doing their bidding. And I wasn't talking just about AGW either; take the BP situation in the Gulf for example: no BP executives have been charged for criminal malfeasance, and as far as we know, none of them are being investigated by the feds. The U.S. Senate is so heavily in the tank of Big Oil, that they can't even pass the most modest cap and trade bill...not that it would do much good! Cap and Trade would be a bureaucratic mess and taxing carbon should have been the option if corporate lobbyists didn't have their hand at the wheel of government.

There have been Republican hacks embarrassing themselves on camera by bemoaning the unfair treatment of this poor megacorporation. They have destroyed the ecology of one third of the Gulf of Mexico, and yet hard right media and politicians try to shift the blame for the disaster on to the federal government! The feds are at fault for being in Big Oil's hip pocket...aside from that this is a disaster created by an industry that has engineered government and tax policy to benefit themselves, and try to hamper the introduction of all alternatives to coal, oil and gas.

Cap and Trade is a rival corporate scam that is enthusiastically endorsed by the big banks, including the major player in investment banking -- Goldman Sachs; and yet, this modest, do-nothing strategy to reduce carbon emissions has been effectively neutered by the oil industry, because it would take a modest portion away from their profit margins. All we learn from this is that the oil industry is even more powerful, and owns more politicians than the banks -- and that is a scary thought to have to digest!

A real solution to reducing carbon emissions was tried during the last federal election cycle, when the Libs borrowed or stole the Carbon Tax from the Green Party. Shifting taxation from income and other sales, to taxing carbon, works on a very simple, fundamental premise that fiscal conservatives are supposed to understand: you get less of what you tax, and more of what you subsidize. So why not tax the industry that befouls the air that we all have to breathe? Because the industry that wants to use the environment as its free waste dump wants to continue making environmental costs a burden on the public, and not on themselves.

I'm glad you brought up big banks. Do some reading to learn how the Rainforest Action Network targeted banks to tow RAN's line. It's very interesting.

[JerrySeinfeld]

If you look at the billions in play at Copeenhagen, research grants, government programs, greeen jobs czars, cap n tax, you'd notice the amount of money in which the enviro-activists and biased researchers are wetting their beaks makes the oil-funded counter-lobby look like a pittance.

Get your facts straight: the real money's in warm-mongering, not in fighting against the warm-mongers.

You don't think Jim Hoggan (started desmog blog) is living a great life? His biggest client is The Suzuki Foundation. Hoggan has made a fortune doing PR work for enviro lobbies. I know people who work at his firm, and he is a rich MoFo, enjoying his mid-life crisis motorcycling down the california coastline, throwing lavish partiees at his West Vancouver mansion,, all in the name of "saving the planet".

Certainly nobody should begrudge him for making a buck (even if it means making a living on half truths, fear mongering and crucifying your enemies).

But to create your own reality where the "deniers" are mere profiteers and your side is pure virtue is folly.

Follow the money. And there's a whole lot morre of it on the fear mongers' side than there is coming from oil companies.

Heck, Millor has, by your own accounts, made "thousands" of dollars from oil companies since "the early 90's". Am I the only one that sees that as remarkably small?

Al Gore's a billionnaire for crying out loud.

Edited July 25, 2010 by JerrySeinfeld

[waldo]

Get your facts straight: the real money's in warm-mongering, not in fighting against the warm-mongers.

oh... you have facts - that's different, then. I'd be interested in your facts to support claims that, as you described it, "the oil-funded counter-lobby looks like a pittance".

[bloodyminded]

oh... you have facts - that's different, then. I'd be interested in your facts to support claims that, as you described it, "the oil-funded counter-lobby looks like a pittance".

Well, he did give us two names: Hoggan and Gore.

This carpet-bombing of so many AGW fatcats is a powerful indictment, to be sure.

[JerrySeinfeld]

oh... you have facts - that's different, then. I'd be interested in your facts to support claims that, as you described it, "the oil-funded counter-lobby looks like a pittance".

Here's a start (credit to Chris Booker at UK's telegraph):

A third technique, most familiar of all, has been to fall back on the dog-eared claim that leading sceptics only question warmist orthodoxy because they have been funded by "Big Oil" and the "fossil fuel industry". Particularly bizarre was a story last week covering the front page and an inside page of one newspaper, headed "Oil giant gives £1 million to fund climate sceptics".

The essence of this tale was that Exxon Mobil, the oil giant that is the world's third biggest company, last year gave "almost £1 million" to four US think-tanks. These had gone on to dismiss the Climategate inquiries as "whitewashes".

It was hardly necessary to be given money by Exxon to see what was dubious about those inquiries. Not one of the knowledgeable sceptics who have torn them apart has received a cent from Big Oil. But what made this particularly laughable was that the penny-packets given to think-tanks that have been largely irrelevant to the debate are utterly dwarfed by the colossal sums poured into the army of groups and organisations on the other side of the argument.

Even the big oil companies have long been putting their real money into projects dedicated to showing how they are in favour of a "low-carbon economy". In 2002 Exxon gave $100 million to Stanford University to fund research into energy sources needed to fight global warming. BP, which rebranded itself in 2004 as "Beyond Petroleum", gave $500 million to fund similar research.

The Grantham Institute provides another example. It was set up at the LSE and Imperial College with £24 million from Jeremy Grantham, an investment fund billionaire, to advise governments and firms on how to promote and invest in ways to "fight climate change", now one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative businesses in the world.

Compare the funding received by a handful of think-tanks to the hundreds of billions of dollars lavished on those who speak for the other side by governments, foundations, multinational corporations, even Big Oil, and the warmists are winning hands down. But only financially: they are not winning the argument.

[WIP]

If you look at the billions in play at Copeenhagen, research grants, government programs, greeen jobs czars, cap n tax, you'd notice the amount of money in which the enviro-activists and biased researchers are wetting their beaks makes the oil-funded counter-lobby look like a pittance.

And what happened at Copenhagen Jerry? They couldn't even get the major offenders to bring emission targets to meet a 2% increase in CO2....a level that will still lead to continuing catastrophic climate change. What happened to cap and trade? In case you haven't heard, the U.S. Senate pulled it off the table because Harry Reid says he doesn't have the votes to pass it. And up here, does anyone know what happened to Harper's cap and trade program that he campaigned on in the last election? It seems to have got lost somewhere under all those favours he has to do for his oil executive friends.

Not that I care about cap and trade anyway! The only plan that works is to shift the tax burden to carbon...but after what happened to Stephan Dion, no politician will have the guts to take that up again, even as we find our borders swamped with millions of Americans, Mexicans and other refugees from the tropics over the next 20 to 40 years. And, you forgot to mention one of the big losers with cap and trade's demise -- Wall Street...Goldman Sachs in particular, had been in the process of setting up derivatives and hedge funds based on the trade of carbon credits. And now we know that big oil is even more powerful than Wall Street

Get your facts straight: the real money's in warm-mongering, not in fighting against the warm-mongers.

That's an idiotic statement to make in a year where 7 of the world's 10 biggest corporations are oil companies; and Exxon/Mobil announced a 46 billion dollar profit for last year. "warm-mongering" is pocket change in comparison to that!

You don't think Jim Hoggan (started desmog blog) is living a great life? His biggest client is The Suzuki Foundation. Hoggan has made a fortune doing PR work for enviro lobbies. I know people who work at his firm, and he is a rich MoFo, enjoying his mid-life crisis motorcycling down the california coastline, throwing lavish partiees at his West Vancouver mansion,, all in the name of "saving the planet".

Go on Sourcewatch and have a look at how oil and coal companies are buying the kind of science they want. The so called climate change skeptics get their money from oil and coal front organiations, as do the conservative "think tanks." They fund the building of research facilities in many universities as another way to buy influence, and of course they also buy off politicians....that's why an idiot like U.S. Congressman Joe Barton would get up to the podium and apologize to BP because the government demanded they put 20 billion in an escrow account to cover some of the damages of the disaster they caused through their own criminal negligence.

Al Gore's a billionnaire for crying out loud.

Unless you have a source to prove that, I'm going to assume you got this from a story out last year that Al Gore had positioned himself to capitalize bigtime on the carbon trade market once a cap and trade bill was passed....and where is that cap and trade bill again?

[lukin]

And what happened at Copenhagen Jerry? They couldn't even get the major offenders to bring emission targets to meet a 2% increase in CO2....a level that will still lead to continuing catastrophic climate change. What happened to cap and trade? In case you haven't heard, the U.S. Senate pulled it off the table because Harry Reid says he doesn't have the votes to pass it. And up here, does anyone know what happened to Harper's cap and trade program that he campaigned on in the last election? It seems to have got lost somewhere under all those favours he has to do for his oil executive friends.

Not that I care about cap and trade anyway! The only plan that works is to shift the tax burden to carbon...but after what happened to Stephan Dion, no politician will have the guts to take that up again, even as we find our borders swamped with millions of Americans, Mexicans and other refugees from the tropics over the next 20 to 40 years. And, you forgot to mention one of the big losers with cap and trade's demise -- Wall Street...Goldman Sachs in particular, had been in the process of setting up derivatives and hedge funds based on the trade of carbon credits. And now we know that big oil is even more powerful than Wall Street

That's an idiotic statement to make in a year where 7 of the world's 10 biggest corporations are oil companies; and Exxon/Mobil announced a 46 billion dollar profit for last year. "warm-mongering" is pocket change in comparison to that!

Go on Sourcewatch and have a look at how oil and coal companies are buying the kind of science they want. The so called climate change skeptics get their money from oil and coal front organiations, as do the conservative "think tanks." They fund the building of research facilities in many universities as another way to buy influence, and of course they also buy off politicians....that's why an idiot like U.S. Congressman Joe Barton would get up to the podium and apologize to BP because the government demanded they put 20 billion in an escrow account to cover some of the damages of the disaster they caused through their own criminal negligence.

Unless you have a source to prove that, I'm going to assume you got this from a story out last year that Al Gore had positioned himself to capitalize bigtime on the carbon trade market once a cap and trade bill was passed....and where is that cap and trade bill again?

This question is for WIP and waldo. Please tell me how"global warming" has affected your lives? Please don't dance around this simple question.

[dre]

Waldo is correct about this guy. His schtick is well known and not even worth commenting on, much less devoting a whole thread to.

[WIP]

This question is for WIP and waldo. Please tell me how"global warming" has affected your lives? Please don't dance around this simple question.

It's not a simple question, it's a stupid question! You want to know how an issue that affects the entire planet has affected our lives! It affects your life as well, you either don't care, or you are too blinded by ideology to take an honest look at the world we are living in today.

[lukin]

It's not a simple question, it's a stupid question! You want to know how an issue that affects the entire planet has affected our lives! It affects your life as well, you either don't care, or you are too blinded by ideology to take an honest look at the world we are living in today.

I'm disappointed that you can't answer a simple question. Once again, please tell me how "human-caused global warming' is affecting your day to day life? it's simple. please answer.

[JerrySeinfeld]

The US federal grants for climate research grew from $200 million in 1995 to $10 billion in 2005.

Al Gore is a billionnaire and stands to get even richer through Obama's draconian climate legislation.

Everyone and their dog including the UN, city governments, provincial governments, federal governments of virtually every jurisdiction in the developed world is hell bent on taking "action on climate change", and taxing citizens to pay for it.

As a direct result of this massive social and biological enginneering project, the amount of dollars invested by governments, NGOs, Universities, the UN IPCC measures in the billions and even trillions of dollars.

I would like to see the accounting of "oil funded" climate deniers that comes even close to the astronomical numbers in play on the "climate warm mongering" side of the debate.

It's quite clear to anyone without some kind of eco-axe to grind where the real money is being made.

I think it's such a joke that warm mongers have such blinders on they can't see that people on their side are profiting big time from this whole climate hysteria. Michael Mann, one of the world's leading warm-mongers, has parlayed his fraudulent hockey stick graph of mid-90's fame into millions in research grants for himself and his department. Same goes for Phil Jones of climategate fame at the University of east anglia's climate Research institute.

To not be able to seee that your side is a profiteering group, such willful ignorance stinks of religion, not of science.

Open your eyes, fellows. Open your minds!

Edited July 27, 2010 by JerrySeinfeld

[Guest TrueMetis]

This question is for WIP and waldo. Please tell me how"global warming" has affected your lives? Please don't dance around this simple question.

You didn't ask me, but the winters haven't been cold enough to kill off the damn pine beetles. Doing a lot of damage to the forest around here, which of course effects you to you just don't realize it.

[JerrySeinfeld]

You didn't ask me, but the winters haven't been cold enough to kill off the damn pine beetles. Doing a lot of damage to the forest around here, which of course effects you to you just don't realize it.

Climate has always changed. Warmer winters for a few years doesn't equal human induced warming.

The earth will get by with or without carbon tax. Believe it: thinking you control the climate is egotistical and self absorbed.

[Guest TrueMetis]

Climate has always changed. Warmer winters for a few years doesn't equal human induced warming.

No the hundreds upon hundreds of studies are what show Human induced warming. Warmer winters and the pine beetle infestations are just a result. And this problem hasn't been going on for "a few years" try a decade.

The earth will get by with or without carbon tax. Believe it: thinking you control the climate is egotistical and self absorbed.

Yes the earth will survive until the sun explodes I get it, you know this is exactly like creationists you constantly repeat the same stupid strawmen and talking points.

As for controlling the climate of course I can't but various government have devised and are devising way of doing. Some of those policies are even implemented, China makes it rain for example.

[Bonam]

Climate has always changed. Warmer winters for a few years doesn't equal human induced warming.

The earth will get by with or without carbon tax. Believe it: thinking you control the climate is egotistical and self absorbed.

Humans have been modifying their environments for thousands of years, the scale of these modifications ever increasing. There is nothing to suggest that the extent of our impact cannot be global in scale.

[dre]

Humans have been modifying their environments for thousands of years, the scale of these modifications ever increasing. There is nothing to suggest that the extent of our impact cannot be global in scale.

I get frustrated with both sides in the AGW debate, but that argument is one of the most silly and annoying. This argument that the earth is too big for us to effect

I think thats what fishermen used to tell us when we worried they might deplete stocks

[JerrySeinfeld]

No the hundreds upon hundreds of studies are what show Human induced warming.

Please provide eveidence of this. I challenge you to.

There have not been "hundreds upon hundreds" of studies showing man caused CO2. In fact, there have been exactly zero which have produced a cuase and effect realtionship. There have been a handful that have shown some kind of correlation between CO2 levels and climate, however Al Gore had it completely wrong: CO2 levels have gone up AFTER climate has warmed, suggesting not that carbon drives climate, but quite the opposite: climate drives carbon.

In addition, the IPCC UN report suggesting that "2500 of the world's leading scientists support the theory of AGW" is disengenuous. The vast majority of these scientists never once did research into the human effects on climate. At most, a couple of dozen scientists reached these conclusions based upon cursory and very vague scietific correlations - not on direct causation. Look it up. Read the IPCC reports.

Not to mention the fact that many of these scientists conclusions were based on faulty tree ring data. Leading IPCC contributors, Michael Mann and Phil Jones at the CRU and university of pennsilvania, are on record publically as being extremely selective in deeleting the data from tree rings which did not support their pre-conceived conclusions about carbon and climate. As well, scientists have also been caught in climategate emails as colluding to eliminate data that "hides the decline| in global temperatures, not to mention diliberately ignoring the "heat island" effect which can falsely indicate a "global" rise in temperature simply by measuring temperatures in locations where urban areeas are growing around the thermometer.

You may also be interested to learn that, despite dirre prredictions in 2000, the earth has had no significant warming since 1998, making past predictions of major warming incorrect.

But don't ask me: Ask Phil Jones, at the Climatctic Research Institute, who is one record as admitting that therre has been no significant warming since 1995, "unfortunately" he adds - which is an odd comment coming from someone who is supposed to be an objective scientist, with no dog in this fight. Of course, if there isn't any warming, then the millions in research grants' tap gets turned offf, doesn't it?

Convenient when someone used freedom of information and asked for the data he used to create the famously fraudulent "hockey stick graph" showing a dramatic increase in global temperatures, he deleted the data.

Something's rotten in the state of Denmark.

Michael Moore said Bush used "fear" to induce americans into supporting a false war. It's plainly obvious these guys are using fear to move us to global governance, high taxes, more social control over your lives (after all, if you control carbon, you control virtually every activity of your citizens), and, of course, big bucks in research grants for their little academic fiefdoms.

Ugly.

But the most insipid part of this lie is what it does to the little pople, ie.: YOU.

People love this story, and willfully eat up the lie. Why? Because all of a sudden you matter. We live in a world where you can't even finish a sentence in a conversation before someone checks their smartphone for another email. Nobody pays attention to anyone anymore.

Now, all of a sudden, you proclaim yourself green, buy into the suspect "science", hop on board with the thugs at the UN, chuck some bottles into a blue box, buy a biodiesel car and PRESTO: YOU'RE SAVING THE PLANET!

Doesn't get any more important than that, now, does it?

I feel sorry for those who have bought in, but I do understand their need to matter.

Edited July 27, 2010 by JerrySeinfeld

[waldo]

oh... you have facts - that's different, then. I'd be interested in your facts to support claims that, as you described it, "the oil-funded counter-lobby looks like a pittance".

Here's a start (credit to Chris Booker at UK's telegraph):

oh my! You actually have no qualms in quoting Booker... he of the infamous British tabloid UK Telegraph denier book-ends, Booker and Richard North. Hey now - does Shady know you're butting in on his tabloid source angle?

bu really, you should probably get your points worked out with lukin - Booker's highlighting ExxonMobil & BP's funding for what he/you describe as, "research into energy sources needed to fight global warming", puts you and lukin at odds - hey? Imagine... "big oil" funding lukin's green agenda! (hey now... here's a new term for you... "greenwashing" - look it up?)

[waldo]

The US federal grants for climate research grew from $200 million in 1995 to $10 billion in 2005.

citation request

the U.S. Government Accountability Office report I've just finished reading states that, adjusted for inflation, U.S. Federal funding for climate change increased from $3.3 billion in 1993 to $5.1 billion in 2004... which includes funding for:

- "Technology" (focused on conservation and renewable energy),

- "International Assistance" (focused on providing funds to developing countries for energy efficiency programs),

- "Tax Expenditures" (focused on granting preferential tax treatment to encourage, for example, renewable energy)... and

- "Science" (focused on research and monitoring to better understand climate change)... in terms of this focused science research/monitoring aspect, over the 1993-to-2004 period, funding increased from $1.82 billion to $1.98 billion...

a measly 9% increase; point in fact, the funding allocated to this category actually decreased, as a percentage of total funding, from 56% to 39%.

Hey Jerry, do you think this reduction in %funding can be attributed to... "the science is settled"?

[waldo]

I would like to see the accounting of "oil funded" climate deniers

here, here!

Michael Mann, one of the world's leading warm-mongers, has parlayed his fraudulent hockey stick graph of mid-90's fame into millions in research grants for himself and his department. Same goes for Phil Jones of climategate fame at the University of east anglia's climate Research institute.

nope, sorry... the "hockey stick" is not broken... has not been broken - no matter how hard climate fraudulents try to endlessly seek vindication for their failed messiah, McIntyre. But really, c'mon... even if you could substantiate your "millions" claims concerning specific scientists research grants, isn't that amount just... mice nuts... in relation to the bigger picture - the one you're really railing on? But don't let that stop you from showing your real denier bent and focusing in on the denier's two favoured boogeymen scientists - hey?

[Pliny]

As for controlling the climate of course I can't but various government have devised and are devising way of doing. Some of those policies are even implemented, China makes it rain for example.

Yahoo! Governments are starting to be able to control the climate. True AGCC. Nothing to worry about now.

In your face, Waldo!

[Pliny]

Governments do want to keep the environment clean and do the right thing. Bless their hearts. The problem they have is that if they lose oil revenues they have lost a big portion of their tax base. So they have to somehow resolve the problem of replacing lost revenues before they can introduce workable and efficient energy alternatives.

Oil pretty much drives our global economy. We have to wean ourselves off it. This is the goal. I think most people support it and keeping the planet green and clean but governments dependent upon those royalties and taxes are the hardest ones to get off the bottle. They have to somehow continue to fund themselves. Their solution is carbon taxes.

[WIP]

Governments do want to keep the environment clean and do the right thing. Bless their hearts. The problem they have is that if they lose oil revenues they have lost a big portion of their tax base. So they have to somehow resolve the problem of replacing lost revenues before they can introduce workable and efficient energy alternatives.

Oil pretty much drives our global economy. We have to wean ourselves off it. This is the goal. I think most people support it and keeping the planet green and clean but governments dependent upon those royalties and taxes are the hardest ones to get off the bottle. They have to somehow continue to fund themselves. Their solution is carbon taxes.

You have identified part of the problem, but before you get to politicians taking kickbacks from oil companies, you have to address the fact that Big Oil has decided to double down on going after the last oil reserves. There is just too much money to be made here for them to waste their time on diversifying into other industries....that is btw how Tony Hayward got himself in charge of BP. He knocked off the previous CEO who came up with the Beyond Petroleum strategy. These companies are ruthless operators on the world stage, so trying to focus the attention on their political stooges is a distraction from the big problem.