Shadowy Figure, Maurice Strong, Behind Global Warming Swindle

[jbg]

A little known, highly wealthy financier, Maurice Strong, and people associated with him, including such people with checkered careers as Paul Desmarais, Jean Chretien and Tongsun Park (not sure of spelling on that one, and do google those names) and some more illustrious types like Paul Volcker, and you'll get a picture of the slimy activities in promoting the GW fraud.

Excerpted below is one of the results of this search, on Foxnews, a mainstream source.(link to source) So this is not limited to the right-wing press. Please note, I have highlighted the sections about the Rio Conference of 1992 for a reason. That was the conference that eventually spawned the 1997 Kyoto Treaty.

This indeed appears to be part of a swindle.

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Thursday, February 08, 2007

Foxnews

By Claudia Rosett and George Russell

At the United Nations, the Curious Career of Maurice Strong

NEW YORK — Before the United Nations can save the planet, it needs to clean up its own house. And as scandal after scandal has unfolded over the past decade, from Oil for Food to procurement fraud to peacekeeper rape, the size of that job has become stunningly clear.

But any understanding of the real efforts that job entails should begin with a look at the long and murky career of Maurice Strong, the man who may have had the most to do with what the U.N. has become today, and still sparks controversy even after he claims to have cut his ties to the world organization.

From Oil for Food to the latest scandals involving U.N. funding in North Korea, Maurice Strong appears as a shadowy and often critically important figure.

Strong, now 77, is best known as the godfather of the environmental movement

, who served from 1973-1975 as the founding director of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi. UNEP is now a globe-girdling organization with a yearly budget of $136 million, which claims to act as the world’s environmental conscience. Strong consolidated his eco-credentials as the organizer of the U.N.’s 1992 environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro, which in turn paved the way for the controversial 1997 Kyoto Treaty on controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

But his green credentials scarcely begin to do justice to Strong’s complicated back-room career.

*snip*

Along the way, Strong has also been caught up in a series of U.N. scandals and conflicts of interest. These extend from the notorious Oil-for-Food program to the latest furor over cash funneled via U.N. agencies to the rogue regime of North Korea, which involves, among other things, Strong’s creative use of a little-known, U.N.-chartered educational institution called the University for Peace. Above all, the tale of Maurice Strong illustrates the way in which the U.N., with its bureaucratic culture of secrecy, its diplomatic immunities, and its global reach, lends itself to manipulation by a small circle of those who best know its back corridors.

*snip*

South Korean diplomats have downplayed any connections between Ban and Strong. But one of Ban’s first acts when he took charge at the U.N. last month was to appoint as his head of management a Strong protégé, Alicia Barcena, a Mexican environmentalist. It was Strong who brought Barcena into the U.N. orbit, in 1991,

to help organize the Rio summit on the environment, which he chaired in 1992

. To prepare and then follow up on the Rio agenda, Strong founded a network called the Earth Council Alliance, in which Barcena served until 1995 as the founding director of the flagship chapter, based in Costa Rica. She then moved on to jobs inside the U.N. system, including work with UNEP and UNDP. When Strong took charge of the University for Peace along with his other projects eight years ago, he invited the Costa Rica Earth Council to move its offices onto the university campus, where it was absorbed into the U Peace structure and curriculum.

*snip*

Means to an End

*snip*

The U Peace report concludes, for example, with proposals for a $1.4 million energy project for North Korea, one third of that supported in cash and in-kind by the government of North Korea, and the rest to be funded by $150,000 from the UNDP and $750,000 from a U.N. outfit called the Global Environment Facility, or GEF.

The GEF, spawned by the 1992 Rio conference (which Strong chaired) is a joint effort of UNEP (which Strong founded) and the World Bank (where Strong was appointed in 1995 as a senior adviser to the president) and the UNDP (run from 1999-2005 by Strong’s former World Bank colleague, Mark Malloch Brown, and from 2005 to the present by another of Strong’s former World Bank colleagues, Kemal Dervis).

*snip*

All this is just a sampling of the tangled nest of personal relationships, public-private partnerships, murky trust funds, unaudited funding conduits, and inter-woven enterprises that the modern U.N. has come to embody—and which Maurice Strong has done so much to create. Yet another potential conflict of interest involves a company called Zenon Environmental Inc., a manufacturer of water purification equipment, which in April, 2000 was registered as an approved Canadian vendor to the U.N. procurement department. Six months later, Strong joined Zenon’s board, and remained there through at least 2005, while also serving as a special adviser to Annan. Zenon was acquired last year by General Electric, and the board was dissolved.

To clean up the U.N., Ban has called for auditors to work their way through the offices and agencies of the system one by one, starting with operations in North Korea. That circuitous approach is unlikely to work. To cut to the core, the real starting point could well be for Ban to launch an investigation into the past and current career of Maurice Strong himself.

Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. George Russell is executive editor of FOX News.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250789,00.html

[stignasty]

A little known, highly wealthy financier, Maurice Strong, and people associated with him, including such people with checkered careers as Paul Desmarais, Jean Chretien

That's where I stopped reading.

[jbg]

A little known, highly wealthy financier, Maurice Strong, and people associated with him, including such people with checkered careers as Paul Desmarais, Jean Chretien

That's where I stopped reading.

Why?

[madmax]

A little known, highly wealthy financier, Maurice Strong, and people associated with him, including such people with checkered careers as Paul Desmarais, Jean Chretien

That's where I stopped reading.

Why?

Maurice Strong is well known.

That said, I have a difficult time separating Fox News and Saturday Night Live.

[B. Max]

This indeed appears to be part of a swindle.

Long before Rio strong was quoted in Alberta report magazine as saying their objective was to collapse the economies of the western industrialized countries.

I would like to see him brought back to this country where he could charged with treason.

[geoffrey]

That said, I have a difficult time separating Fox News and Saturday Night Live.

You should work on that problem. Fox News is no higher in bias than watching 'The Hour' or 'The Lens.'

[jbg]

Long before Rio strong was quoted in Alberta report magazine as saying their objective was to collapse the economies of the western industrialized countries.

Could you get me a link to that, or a copy of the text? I don't doubt it, but I think it's something that people should know.

People should also know that the selection of 1990 as the Kyoto "base year" from which to measure GHG reductions was hardly arbitrary. It is a baseline year that is grievously unfair to the US, Canada and Australia, since that was a recession year for us. By contrast, Europe was at a peak, and immediately after end of 1990 Germany was re-unified, closing many factories in the former East Germany. Similarly, without subsidies, many factories in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic closed, placing Europe immediately well under the 1990 baseline. Also, some countries have base years other than 1990. Countries with base-years other than 1990 are Hungary (average 1985-1987), Poland (1988) and Slovenia (1986) (link). I cannot believe that those variations give these countries more ambitious targets. If a year such as 2000 were picked as the US's base, it would be a fairer treaty. There's also not a chance in h*ll that European countries would have ratified such a treaty. Any government actually proposing to lower living standards to try to change the weather would be laughed out of office.

Seeking to add insult to injury, apparently (or to ensure that at least some countries would vote to ratify the treaty), the Kyoto sponsors are so serious about the environment </ sarcasm> that they granted Iceland a free pass to emit more GHG's. Clearly, Kyoto's a tilted deck that has nothing to do with science, climate or environmental betterment, and made an exception for Iceland (link), specifically, some aluminum smelters it wanted badly to develop. Excerpts below:

February 4, 2007

Smokestacks in a White Wilderness Divide Iceland

By SARAH LYALL

NORTH OF VATNAJOKULL GLACIER, Iceland —

*snip*

This is the $3 billion Karahnjukar Hydropower Project, a sprawling enterprise to harness the rivers for electricity that will be used for a single purpose: to fuel a new aluminum smelter owned by Alcoa, the world’s largest aluminum company. It has been the focus of the angriest and most divisive battle in recent Icelandic history.

*snip*

They are also allowed to pollute:

another Kyoto exception gave power-intensive industries that use renewable energy in Iceland the right to emit an extra 1.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year until 2012.

[jdobbin]

Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. George Russell is executive editor of FOX News.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250789,00.html

[/indent]

First, Maurice Strong might be little known to you but he is well known in Canada and still contributes articles to major newspapers in Canada. FOX and others might act like he is hiding in China but he is regularly in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

I think this falls under the conspiracy threads.

As for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, it is headed up by Robert James Woolsey Jr, former CIA director who first said Iraq was responsible for September 11.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Woolsey

If he can be wrong about that, he can be wrong about this.

I personally don't have much use for Strong. He is throwback to another era when conflict of interest seemed to have no meaning. I don't think he is guilty of a crime though and no court in the world has even tried to indict him on such.

[B. Max]

Could you get me a link to that, or a copy of the text? I don't doubt it, but I think it's something that people should know.

I actually used to have the copy with the quot in it, but I gave it to someone years ago. However you could try contacting Link Byfield or Lorne Gunter, Gunter, who may have even did the interview with Strong. Gunter now writes for the Edmonton journal and has a blog on the national post.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/info/co...er&Subject=Blog

[geoffrey]

The former CEO of Petro Canada is worried about Canada's oil and gas polluting the world. Good to know where Trudeau's motives really lay with the NEP and nationalisation of oil. It was all about shutting it down. Then again, the world was getting colder (apparently) back then, so maybe Maurice was on his latest quest to raise world temperature by running the least efficient oil company in Canada?

Maurice represents everything that makes me not want to vote Liberal. The idea of that guy having such a close relationship with the Liberal leadership is frightening. He's a piece of work that should have had his order of Canada revoked many years ago, at least for his deep ties with the oil for food scandal, if not the myraid of other controversies he's been involved in.

[Argus]

People should also know that the selection of 1990 as the Kyoto "base year" from which to measure GHG reductions was hardly arbitrary. It is a baseline year that is grievously unfair to the US, Canada and Australia, since that was a recession year for us. By contrast, Europe was at a peak, and immediately after end of 1990 Germany was re-unified, closing many factories in the former East Germany. Similarly, without subsidies, many factories in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic closed, placing Europe immediately well under the 1990 baseline. Also, some countries have base years other than 1990.

The more I see things like this the more I think the whole Kyoto global warming thing is little more than a big scam propagated by morons and idiots.

[jbg]

People should also know that the selection of 1990 as the Kyoto "base year" from which to measure GHG reductions was hardly arbitrary. It is a baseline year that is grievously unfair to the US, Canada and Australia, since that was a recession year for us. By contrast, Europe was at a peak, and immediately after end of 1990 Germany was re-unified, closing many factories in the former East Germany. Similarly, without subsidies, many factories in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic closed, placing Europe immediately well under the 1990 baseline. Also, some countries have base years other than 1990.

The more I see things like this the more I think the whole Kyoto global warming thing is little more than a big scam propagated by morons and idiots.

....and thieves.

[fellowtraveller]

However you could try contacting Link Byfield or Lorne Gunter, Gunter, who may have even did the interview with Strong. Gunter now writes for the Edmonton journal and has a blog on the national post.

Please do not mention these two in the same sentence.

Byfield is a hardcore Christian whackjob, further to the right than Attila the Hun and the target of much deserved ridicule.

Gubter is a moderately conservative writer who is correct at least as often as he is wrong.

[madmax]

You should work on that problem. Fox News is no higher in bias than watching 'The Hour' or 'The Lens.'

I enjoy comedy. I just don't have the time for it.

[B. Max]

Please do not mention these two in the same sentence.

Byfield is a hardcore Christian whackjob, further to the right than Attila the Hun and the target of much deserved ridicule.

Gubter is a moderately conservative writer who is correct at least as often as he is wrong.

Why is it kinda like sun light shining on vampires.

[jbg]

Why is it kinda like sun light shining on vampires.

Good analogy.

[August1991]

jbg, Maurice Strong is no "shadowy figure".

What of Paul Desmarais?

Has Stephen Harper ever met Paul Desmarais?

Link Edited June 1, 2011 by August1991

[gutb]

Climate Change as a result of human activity is real. The data has been checked numerous times by parties that have nothing to do whatsoever with the UN, including a Republican congressional study that threw every serious attempt at debunking it they could scrape together in 2005-2006(?), and was only able to find mild criticisms. THAT is why there has been no serious legislative debate about it since then, and it has nothing to do with the UN. There has been plenty of debate on awful treaties like Kyoto and stealth tax schemes like carbon trading, but these are only attached to the science of global climate change by political association.

Give it up already. Science is not a left-right issue, it's simply data points quantifying a certain aspect of reality. If it makes you feel any better, those melting ice shelves are finished and we are getting hit with the results no matter what we do or don't do -- and it's going to be a gradual change, plenty of time for human civilization to adapt. The end of the world will have to wait for something better to come along.

[TimG]

There has been plenty of debate on awful treaties like Kyoto and stealth tax schemes like carbon trading, but these are only attached to the science of global climate change by political association.

The only people to blame for that are alarmists who constantly claim that if you don't support their pet political cause then you are 'denying the science'.

Complaining that the science should not be in a policy debate is fine. But you need to remember who is responsible for making it part of the debate in the first place. It wasn't the Republicans.

[Michael Hardner]

It seems to me that we're debating the science less on MLW - mostly nitpicking. When it comes to policy, though, there is still a lot to discuss.

[noahbody]

Climate Change as a result of human activity is real.

Global warming is real. Global cooling is real. Climate change has always happened.

Human activity is an unknown variable. I would like to think that when Earth enters a cooling phase that we will be able to make it warmer by driving Hummers, but that's not going to happen.

The data has been checked numerous times by parties that have nothing to do whatsoever with the UN, including a Republican congressional study that threw every serious attempt at debunking it they could scrape together in 2005-2006(?), and was only able to find mild criticisms.

In 2007, Nasa admitted its data was flawed. In 2009, there was Climategate. Data aside there is no evidence that man can model and predict climate accurately.

If it makes you feel any better, those melting ice shelves are finished and we are getting hit with the results no matter what we do or don't do -- and it's going to be a gradual change, plenty of time for human civilization to adapt. The end of the world will have to wait for something better to come along.

If it makes you feel better, The Washington Post ran an article about Arctic ice disappearing in 1922. An ice age was looming in the 70s.

Edited June 2, 2011 by noahbody

[Michael Hardner]

In 2006, Nasa admitted its data was flawed. In 2009, there was Climategate. Data aside there is no evidence that man can model and predict climate accurately.

If it makes you feel better, The Washington Post ran an article about Arctic ice disappearing in 1922. An ice age was looming in the 70s.

Hi Noah. Actually, everything you posted here has pretty much been debated to death. There are few posters here that argue that human activity has no effect on warming. Go to the top skeptic scientists - Richard Lindzen argues that the degree of human influence is less, that's all.

[PIK]

When all planes were forced to the ground during 9/11, did any test show that it had helped?

[Michael Hardner]

When all planes were forced to the ground during 9/11, did any test show that it had helped?

There is a study that looked at the effects of the plane grounding at that time. I'm not sure how it was received by the scientific community, though.

David Travis' Study

[Michael Hardner]

There is a study that looked at the effects of the plane grounding at that time. I'm not sure how it was received by the scientific community, though.

David Travis' Study

And to be clear - temperatures went up not down, as the reflective quality of contrails was what was studied.