Why Cap and Trade

We will soon be seeing the Cap and Trade fiasco coming before Congress and the usual rush, rush to get it passed will be pressed by the administration with the usual contrived crisis situation for explanation at hand. This has been a contrivance of the UN and the IPCC from the day one and those who spoke against the need for such were silenced, ignored, or called kooks and were said to be in denial of the consensus of other well known scientist.

My purpose is to show just how this all began and that nothing about Cap and Trade is based on science but on MONEY and control. I began to question and to write about Cap and Trade as far back as 2007, long before I had my own blog site. I researched European news articles, Australian, New Zealand and of course the usual propaganda being put forth by the UN and swallowed and passed along as the pure Gospel by the new High Priest of Global Warming, Al Gore, former VP of the US.

Science played no part in the contrivance of Carbon Credits, at least no real part other than to use the scare tactics put forth by the IPCC and Al Gore ,it was all economic based as I will show.

The individual to blame for this convoluted mess is one Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank. He is not a scientist nor in any profession related to climatology. He paints a bleak portrait of future environmental degradation costing lives and money and ushering in a global financial catastrophe as horrible as the Great Depression. Pay very close attention to the fact that he is not saying that global warming is going to cause a great environmental catastrophe as much as he is calling it a financial catastrophe. Of course he uses the environmental situation to further preach his cure which has been accepted by the IPCC of the UN and by the orator and preacher of climate doom and gloom in the US ,Al Gore Jr., former Vice President of the US. As in anything which has become political it is always wise to follow the money trail for there is where the final battle is to be fought. Sir Nicholas brands the climate change to "market failure" while still calling for a market-based solution to fix the problem. His cure is a money making scheme, nothing more , nothing less. His solution is to "sell" or "trade" carbon shares to offset the need for money to expand technology for "curing" global warming.

Great Britain’s Prime Minister, Gordon Brown made the comment before becoming PM that GB they must get a head start in cornering the market on Carbon Credits and become the prime player in this market and controlling influence in order to control the economic climate of the world. He stated that they would be more valuable than the Pound Sterling, the Currency of GB.

Britain's Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, David Miliband, (at the time of the article) a climate change crusader and a leader of the political revolution sweeping Britain and Europe announced last week that Britain will become the world's first nation to legislate a climate change bill setting legally binding timetables for a low-carbon economy. It will put into law the target of 60 per cent emission cuts by 2050. This decision will affect every British industry, business and household. Miliband is not just environment minister, he worked in Tony Blair's office at Downing Street as a New Labour strategic thinker. Now he is recasting social democratic philosophy and practice for the coming century. Miliband's discussion paper sees the greenhouse challenge as "similar in scope to the first industrial revolution".

Since becoming Prime minister, Gordon Brown has explained this transformation in relations between state and citizen. He aims to have all new homes rated carbon zero within a decade. For existing homes he wants meters to give an energy efficiency rating that feeds into mortgage and home design policies so that energy-efficient homes have a higher market value. Miliband wants an energy performance certificate for all homes up for sale. These ministers espouse a personal carbon calculator so individuals are able to measure their own carbon footprints. What are the implications of this?

It seems that the current administration has bought into this contrivance and stated at the recent G-20 Summit that they were in agreement and would work to push through the Cap and Trade in this country in order to “save the world”. What the administration didn’t tell you is how much this is going to cost you not only in energy cost but in overall cost. What will be the cost when you also have your own personalized carbon meter so that your footprint can be measured and be sure it will be and will be taxed. Taxation is what the entire scheme is all about. A way to pay for all the rest of the socialist schemes set forth by this administration.

This administration agreed that Rich countries must commit to cutting carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 and developing nations must agree to set targets by 2020. This is the same message that Stern and Gore were preaching over a year before the G-20 Summit. The same message was repeated at the Summit and most of the Stern plan was agreed to. Stern has said the only way the world could defeat the climate crisis was by ensuring that global carbon emissions peaked within 15 years, were then halved from 1990 levels to 20 billion tons a year by 2050, and cut to 10 billion thereafter.

“There is a real hurry for this. The developed world must lead by example,” Professor Stern told a meeting to publish his latest work on global warming, Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change. The Chief Occupier also picked up on this same rhetoric and we have heard the very same words come form this own mouth via the Teleprompter.

He said the global carbon market had to be expanded and improved, there had to be massive investment in research and development in low carbon technologies, and rich nations had to bear the brunt and help the poorer world leapfrog into a low carbon era.

Professor Stern, and more recently the Chief Occupier has said” the developing world, where emissions are booming as economies grow, should be given time to prepare to sign up to caps and cuts but that time should have a strict limit and by 2020 they too should be reducing emissions.”

The emission target was based on the goal of halting the temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels.

That in turn meant achieving global average carbon emissions of just two tons per head - 20 billion tons divided by the anticipated world population of nine billion people - from the current average of seven tons per head according to Stern’s formula. “Everything flows from the figures. That is the simplicity of the argument. If you buy into stabilization at 500 parts per million (atmospheric carbon - equivalent to two degrees rise) the rest is arithmetic,” Professor Stern told an audience at the London School of Economics.

As emissions in the US already stood at 20 tons per head, with those in Europe and Japan between 10 and 12 tons, that meant the bulk of the efforts had to come from the rich world.

But even China, whose economy is growing at 10 per cent a year and which is building a coal-fired power station a week, was already emitting 5 tons of carbon a head and India was close to 2 tons and would soon exceed that.

That meant that they too would have to slow, halt and reverse their emissions.

Of course these figures have been used by this administration to sell this scam but the numbers don’t really tell the truth and have been skewed to create the crisis. Based on population it is not the rich nations that are at fault but those who are not going to take part in the scam and sit by laughing at those who do.

China population 1.3 billion people (1,321,851,888

India Population 1.13 billion

US population 300 million people (303,500,000 in early 2008)

Regardless of all the hype and the fact that numbers and facts do not support the need for Cap and Trade it will be forced upon this country in order that we may become like other nations.

Just an added note: You might consider questioning the underlying assumption that CO2 is a problem and hence whether an ETS(aka Cap and Trade) is necessary at all, a common knowledge consensus that is rapidly unraveling when exposed to proper scrutiny. The big oil companies love an ETS because they have the financial muscle to make money out of trading credits. The big oil companies also love an ETS because they have a virtual monopoly on subsurface geological and geophysical expertise so can make zillions out of carbon capture and storage projects. The merchant banks love an ETS because they see an opportunity to quietly make massive money on an opaque derivatives style market that nobody understands. The governments love an ETS because they can tell the electorate that they are "doing something" about climate change. The greenies love an ETS because it acknowledges their end is nigh, doom laden paradigm as the truth. Only problem is that the whole concept of carbon reduction in the name of climate control is starting to look like utter hogwash when viewed from a disinterested scientific perspective. So in the end, all pain, no gain... and us poor consumers get to pay the bill for all this folly.