NOTE: See updates below, it appears a green group, Climate Justice Action claims responsibility and apparently attacked ECX.eu in a tiff over carbon credit policy.
The Independent Media Centre of Australia is reporting that the sister website of the flatlining Chicago Climate Exchange, the European Climate Exchange (ECX), had it’s main page hacked and replaced with the image above. I’ve confirmed this with Google cache of the ECX website available here, Screencap of the cached page here. [Update: Wikipedia now has a larger screencap online here]
While they have since taken down that image, video, and text, the main page and the rest of the website appears to still be mostly nonfunctional (as of this writing) as you can see in the next screencap.
Indymedia writes:
In a protest against carbon trading as a method for acting on climate change, on Friday, July 23 at just before midnight, the public website of the European Climate Exchange (ECX), the leading marketplace for trading CO2 emissions in Europe, was targetted by hacktivists of the autonomous tech collective *decocidio* (#?).
In a public act of digital direct action, the ECX website was taken offline and replaced with a message in an effort to try to raise awareness about carbon trading as a dangerous false solution to the climate crisis, in support of the grassroots activists aiming to oppose the power structures and companies profiteering from the dysfunctional Cap & Trade scheme.
The hacked page shows the embedded video of The Story of Cap and Trade with links to activist groups Earth First, Climate Justice Action, and the Hack Bloc. The purpose of the hack was to expose carbon trading as a scam:
According to the hack message:
“The Cap and Trade system (as implemented in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme) has a whole range of issues:
* It’s main purpose is not to reduce emissions, but to help polluters meet “reduction” targets in the cheapest way possible, in a business-as-usual scenario.
* Leaves room for unverifiable manipulation.
* Generates outrageous profits for big industry polluters, investors in fraudulent offset projects, opportunist traders and new ‘marketplaces’ such as the European Climate Exchange.
* It distracts attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken to tackle climate change and it’s fundamental root causes.”
In 2009 Friends of the Earth UK released a report warning that carbon trading could trigger a second ‘sub-prime’ style financial collapse and fail to protect the world from global warming catastrophe. A copy of the full report, ‘A Dangerous Obsession’, is available at: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/dangerous_obsession.pdf
IndyMediaAU full story here, h/t to Tom Nelson
=====================================================
In other news, if you are interested in Carbon Trading, there’s a manual for it:
Above: thanks to Kate at smalldeadanimals.com
=========================================
Update: For the record, to prevent some from jumping to conclusions, I don’t condone hacking of websites. I also don’t condone carbon trading as I think it is indeed a recipe for easy abuse and “gaming” of the system.
=========================================
Update2: The hacker or hackers identifies on Wikipedia:
Excerpt:
Decocidio #ϴ is an anonymous group of hacktivists describing themselves as an autonomous tech collective. They take action in the spirit of Climate Justice Action, pursuing the same goals.
In a bizarre twist, it appears that one group of greens (CJA) attacked another (ECX.eu).
h/t to WUWT reader Neil
=========================================
Update3: It appears that the ECX website is back to normal now, but look at what is on the main page:
It’s worse than we thought.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Barak Obama was part of the founding of CCX.
I assume WUWT is appalled at such acts of cyber-vandalism. I would certainly denounce any effort to disrupt your website. But instead it appears you are encouraging it.
You accuse climate scientists of being part of some crazy conspiracy,but hacking is a conspiracy.(NOTE: As noted below, and in Mike’s comment further down, he is unable to cite, because it doesn’t exist, thus stricken. -AREPLY: I’ve added a clarification so that other people would not jump to the same incorrect conclusion as you.
As for your other assertion I reject it. Hacking may or may not be a conspiracy. It depends on the situation. If one person does a hacking, it can’t be a conspiracy. Further, show a citation where I specifically said, in my words, not words or interpretation of others “climate scientists of being part of some crazy conspiracy” or withdraw your claim. – Anthony
You sure its been hacked!!! it looks more accurate to reality than it normally does 🙂
Another Pleasant Valley Sunday in the land of green.
Mike says:
July 24, 2010 at 11:14 pm
I assume WUWT is appalled at such acts of cyber-vandalism. I would certainly denounce any effort to disrupt your website. But instead it appears you are encouraging it. You accuse climate scientists of being part of some crazy conspiracy, but hacking is a conspiracy.
Where in this article is there any encouragement to hack a Carbon Trading site or any other site ? , you should be more worried that its actually supporters of AGW that hacked the site and you have some strange bedfellows.
I’m pleased to see Anthony has clarified his position for those like Mike who seem to confuse reporting with supporting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Damhert/Decocidio#The_hacking_of_the_European_Climate_Exchange_website
…well, that didn’t take very long..
It was just a matter of time before the environ-mentals began to see how the AGW politicians and businessmen undermine their ideals and turned on them. It warms the heart. Too bad they’ll never give up on trying to control the weather/climate and put their energy into controlling real pollution and real conservation solutions.
OMG, Lets hope Obama don’t go pressing the internet shutdown switch for this flagrant abuse…
Sounds like the radical greenies have gone crazier than usual. I agree with Mike (#2) – this sort of thing should be denounced, not encouraged. By posting the hacked page on WUWT are you not encouraging it implicitly?
REPLY: Let’s see, by a news paper or TV reporting news such as robberies, embezzlement, vandalism, computer virus creation, or hacking, etc do they condone it? Do they need to put a disclaimer on every story saying they don’t agree with it? I think not, and they don’t.
Take http://slashdot.org/ for instance. That website reports on hackings regularly. Your don’t see disclaimers or denouncements posted with each story. – Anthony
Did anyone else catch the south park reference with steps 6 and 7?
OK – so we are agreed then that this hacking was a bad thing (in the same vein as other bad things like robberies, embezzlement, vandalism, computer virus creation).
Mike says:
July 24, 2010 at 11:14 pm
But instead it appears you are encouraging it.
I don’t see any encouraging of it. I didn’t see any encouraging of it at all when I first read it. And I still don’t now as I read it again.
At the risk of having “Godwin’s Law” invoked…hands up those who would have hacked into Hitler’s website?
All right, it was wrong, but a part of me has a tiny little smile,because I am convinced that carbon trading really is a scam and it distracts us from real environmental problems and causes needless expense to the common man.
Leaves room for unverifiable manipulation.
I think any stock market has room for this. In America some big bankers shorted housing stocks just before the housing market crash happened a couple years ago. There’s lots of things going on in stock markets that average people don’t understand. It’s about as safe for people who don’t know what they’re doing to get involved in stocks as it is to go to Vegas.
Being mindful of the amount of stick sceptics have been given over the “illegal hacking” of the UEA/CRU computers (almost certainly either incompetence or a whistleblower), it will be interesting to see if the MSM pick this story up and run with it.
Of course, if they did, they might have to (a) point out how flawed is the whole concept of crap and trade and (b) the fact that the alarmists aren’t just serious scientists and concerned altruistic “student” types.
My guess is that the media will avoid this like the plague. Nothing for them here. But, if it IS reported, don’t expect to see commenters lambasting them for not making it clear that they don’t approve of the hackers! Sheesh! Whatever next!
Given the going price for carbon credits on the CCX, I wonder:
Could this be a case of:
Eu CX hacked.
Nobody cares. . . .
Johnh
It could indeed have been someone pro carbon tax e.g. Australian Green party appear not to like an emissions trading scheme but prefer a carbon tax. Even though I don’t agree with it I think it is a better option because it will be easier to roll back should it prove unnecessary or ineffective than cap and trade or any ETS scheme.
David Davidovics says:
July 24, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Did anyone else catch the south park reference with steps 6 and 7?
————————————————————
Didn’t the south park reference come from EncyclopediaDramatica?
Oh, yeah- I’m appalled at their security.
I find myself wondering if I could buy a carbon credit at rock bottom prices just so I can keep the certificate as a souvenir of these crazy times
This post should have been titled ‘red vs. green’
;-0
Maybe (?) the commies did it (this yesterday from the International Committee of the Fourth International, respecting ETS down-under):
In the 2007 election campaign, Rudd appealed to people’s concern over the environment and opposition to the former Howard government’s indifference. However, Labor’s policies, including the ETS, were never about resolving climate change and were instead aimed at benefitting big business and finance capital. The proposed carbon trading mechanism was to involve the handover of $123 billion in compensation to business, including to the worst corporate polluters, while establishing a national market in pollution credits. The Australian financial sector hoped to reap the benefits of establishing Sydney as the regional hub of an East Asian carbon market, potentially including China, Japan, and Indiia.
Looks like opposition climate idiocy has forged common ground with the communists for the first time since 1945 (sounds like a quote that some at WUWT would like!). It must be because a Global carbon cabal is indeed ACTUALLY worse than Hitler.
The report here has probably given both groups more media cover than they’ve had in the last year. No such thing as bad publicity, I guess.
Don’t buy ’em John A when you can get ’em for nothing.
http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com/home.do
“Leaves room for unverifiable manipulation”
Just like CruTemp, GISSTemp etc, etc!
(Where’s a big smiley when you need it?)