The fatcat ecocrats exposed: Web of ‘green’ politicians, tycoons and power brokers who help each other benefit from billions raised on your bills
- Four of nine-person Climate Change Committee, official watchdog that dictates green energy policy, are, or were until recently, being paid by firms that benefit from committee decisions
Other industries would stand accused of damning conflicts of interest but when it comes to global warming, anything goes…
The Mail on Sunday today reveals the extraordinary web of political and financial interests creating dozens of eco-millionaires from green levies on household energy bills.
A three-month investigation shows that some of the most outspoken campaigners who demand that consumers pay the colossal price of shifting to renewable energy are also getting rich from their efforts.
Enquiries by this newspaper have revealed:
- Four of the nine-person Climate Change Committee, the official watchdog that dictates green energy policy, are, or were until very recently, being paid by firms that benefit from committee decisions.
- A new breed of lucrative green investment funds, which were set up to expand windfarm energy, are in practice a means of taking green levies paid by hard-pressed consumers and handing them to City investors and financiers.
- £3.8 billion of taxpayers’ money funds the new Green Investment Bank, set up by the Department of Business and Skills. One of its biggest deals involved energy giant SSE selling windfarms to one of the new green funds, Greencoat Wind. The Green Investment Bank’s chairman, Lord Smith of Kelvin, is also chairman of SSE. The bank says it ‘provided expertise’ to enable BIS to take a £50 million stake in Greencoat, which helped fund the SSE sale.
- The same bank’s chief executive, Shaun Kingsbury, is one of the UK’s highest-paid public sector employees. His £325,000 salary is more than twice the Prime Minister’s.
- Firms lobbying for renewables can virtually guarantee access to key Government policy-makers, because they are staffed by former very senior officials – a striking example of Whitehall’s ‘revolving door’.
Among the most astonishing features exposed by our investigation is the way in which vehement advocates for radical policies designed to curb global warming are making huge sums of money from their work. Here are some of the key figures among the new breed of fat-cat Ecocrats…
One story about potential corruption.
Doesn’t seem like much at first.
But then, the Watergate scandal started with a single story too.
The specifics are of interest and it is good this information is being made public.
However, “follow the money” is a common refrain on WUWT and other such places so I doubt the general aspects of this will surprise anyone.
Surely only the tip of the iceburg…..
I don’t believe it! Alarm heads would never try to make a profit from global warming. Would they? So much for being better than the rest of us.
David Rose is reporting this? My, this is serious …
Anthony has been blocking me ever since I asked him to put up a post for me.
He refuses to admit his PhDs have lied to him.
This is only one more “screen shot” to verify I am now blocked.
Thank you.
[Reply: Anthony doesn’t do a lot of moderating any more. This comment was in the spam folder. Rescued and posted now, as you can see. — mod]
EUreferendum.com broke this story about Lord Deben 26 August 2012 – here is the original text – it is a tale of complete and utter corruption: http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=83087
Put the bozos in jail.
Correction Lord Deben – not Denham who is innocent. Mod please correct my post above – thanks
[Fixed. -w.]
Let’s see if this story of global warmist / green energy corruption is indeed true. It does seem plausible.
Consider this:
When people start shouting that “the science is settled”, you just KNOW you are being scammed.
Realistically, I suggest that nobody of even average intelligence is THAT stupid.
Regarding the impact of increasing CO2 on global warming:
If climate sensitivity even exists, it is clearly very small, much less than 1C / (2 x CO2) …
… but CO2 LAGS Temperature (in time) at ALL measured time scales …
Hypothesis:
Based on the preponderance of evidence, temperature drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature, so climate sensitivity may not exist at all at the “macro” scale, and may be utterly irrelevant to climate science except at the “micro” (and materially insignificant) scale.
There may be others significant sources of CO2 that contribute to its increase in the atmosphere, but increasing CO2 just does not have a significant or measureable impact on global warming, which is almost entirely natural in origin.
I therefore suggest that the oft-fractious “mainstream debate” between warmists and skeptics about the magnitude of Climate Sensitivity is materially irrelevant. Climate sensitivity to CO2, if it exists at all, is so small that it just does not matter.
Wait 5 to 10 more years – I suggest that by then most serious climate scientists will accept the above hypo. Many will claim they knew it all along…
Regards, Allan
geran says:
December 14, 2013 at 5:35 pm
Anthony has been blocking me ever since I asked him to put up a post for me.
He refuses to admit his PhDs have lied to him.
This is only one more “screen shot” to verify I am now blocked.
Thank you.
[Reply: Anthony doesn’t do a lot of moderating any more. This comment was in the spam folder. Rescued and posted now, as you can see. — mod]
>>>>>>
The question is: How did I all of a sudden get put into spam, after commenting here for years?
Only after I showed Anthony’s “math expert” was a phony?
(Yup, screen shot here also.)
[Reply: Make all the screen shots you want; you are here as a courtesy just like everyone else. No one is entitled. Moderators also do not have access to the WordPress algorithm or keywords/phrases that determine which posts are automatically approved, and which ones are held for approval. This mod’s suggestion is to comment on the article and try to leave personal feelings and suspicion out of it. Enjoy the science, that’s what this site is about. — mod.]
Americans need to put the biggest scammer of all-Obama in jai along with Al Gore. I hope Al runs to Russia.
Another wheel on the AGW wagon starts to rattle…
The Porkoisie at work, as someone recently referred to them.
Corrupt warm-mongers, eh? Whoever would have thought…
geran says:
December 14, 2013 at 6:02 pm
Forget the screenshots and then, purposely misspell our gracious host’s name to get past the filter, quickly. See the immediately previous thread where many people tried that trick and posted without issue.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t hurt your case to calm down a bit.
David Rose rips UK climate change committee for being on the take
Gomer says: “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”
Absolutely no one who has been paying the least bit of attention is surprised by this.
I am shocked to learn that people who are trying to “save the world” would do such a thing.
Reblogged this on wwlee4411 and commented:
Who would have guessed?
Given the degree of suffering in Britain because of high energy prices, the people described in the article above are seriously worse than greedy. There cannot be so much as one sense of guilt among them. I hope that they can be prosecuted for corruption, at least, and for some more serious crimes. The Church of Global Warming needs to defrock some Bishops.
[Reply: Make all the screen shots you want; you are here as a courtesy just like everyone else. No one is entitled. Moderators also do not have access to the WordPress algorithm or keywords/phrases that determine which posts are automatically approved, and which ones are held for approval. This mod’s suggestion is to comment on the article and try to leave personal feelings and suspicion out of it. Enjoy the science, that’s what this site is about. — mod.]
>>>>>>
Correction, “science” was what this site USED to be about. Don’t get “holier with me” there bubba mod, I got the evidence.
The key word is “phony”.
[No. mod]
dbstealey says:
December 14, 2013 at 6:41 pm
Can you do the accent? I can. My sons do it all the time. I wonder how many other readers will get the reference.
Here you go, D. B. …
15 Dec: AFP: French carbon crook on run after bracelet fails
PARIS— A Frenchman convicted of carbon trading fraud that cost the state some 1.6 billion euros ($2.2 billion) has gone on the run, a judicial source said Saturday, admitting that his electronic tracking bracelet had stopped working.
Police have issued an arrest warrant for Michel Keslassy, 50, who was given a three-and-a-half year sentence in June for buying untaxed carbon credits abroad and adding on value-added tax (VAT) when he traded them in France.
The VAT was never declared.
A French court ordered Keslassy’s release from prison in November for health reasons on condition that he was monitored electronically using the bracelet.
But after “a few days”, the device “stopped working”, the source said…
Carried out in 2008-09, the carbon fraud was one of the biggest ever registered in France, authorities said, and cost Europe some 5.0 billion euros, according to the EU’s law enforcement agency Europol.
Keslassy was fined 65.5 million euros—equal to the amount of unpaid VAT. He has appealed and the case is due to be heard in February next. year. http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/french-carbon-crook-run-bracelet-081823265.html
Gomer’s surprise.
Well, it looks like someone learned something from Al Gore afterall……….
Wahl, Mistah Goodwin, ahv cow-erce ya’ll cane. Ya’ll grew up down they-yer. #(:))
(and a most delightful accent it is — hope my characterization isn’t offensive)
Ben U. — Surprise! (heh) But, you “win.” Your version is the better one.
Hip, hip, hurrah!
Hip, hip, hurrah!
Hip, hip, hurrah!
WAY TO GO, DAVID ROSE!!
Wish mainstream U. S. journalists were even half as good as you.
Well… Dare i say it?
We have our own group doing exactly the same as those in Britain only here they are called the EPA. A group of unelected bureaucrats who make regulations which levy fines and taxes. A good number of which are directly connected to green corporations.. But then others elected Obama who’s cronies are being spoon feed with a gold spoon… It starts at the top..
Well, this will raise the blood pressure of those on the committee and many others in the Green ranks.
Of course this news is no surprise to us, but how wonderful to see it in the news and not just in the opinion column, out where everybody can see it. Facts and figures and photographs. This will get the general public fuming, and I hope it does! The general view some years ago seemed to be “Why would they lie?” Well, now [they’re] finding out!
Dare I say, maybe some ministers will wake up to how they are being used?
Hopefully, too, this will trigger other countries to look into their own climate change committees. More of this exposure is essential.
(And here I was thinking Sundays were slow-news days.)
note it’s still being spun as if the victims were being “ethical” & doing their “bit” to “save the environment”:
6 Nov: Guardian: PA: Carbon credit fraud firms closedInsolvency service winds up companies that sold older people worthless certificates for millions of pounds in total
Nineteen firms that attracted investments of nearly £24m from more than 1,500 people by offering “worthless” carbon credits – or certified emission reductions (CERs) – were wound up by the Insolvency Service in the last 15 months…
(Consumer minister, Jo)Swinson said: “This is a particularly contemptible scam as it not only preyed on older people trying to maximise their savings but also targeted their sincere desire to make ***ethical investments…
***”Salesmen played on people’s keenness to ‘do their bit’ to save the environment while making an investment at the same time,” a spokesman for the service said.
“Investors were promised huge returns by selling these credits to corporate giants such as Marks and Spencer and British Airways. But instead most found there was no market for the relatively small amounts they held as companies that trade CERs only trade in high volumes.”
Eco Global Markets Limited, one of the companies wound up this summer, took over £8.5m from more than 230 investors, 50 of whom were aged over 70…
One of the victims, an 89-year-old man, told investigators that the firm’s salesman met him near his home twice – once at a train station, where he was encouraged to hand over £20,000 for 2,000 carbon credits…
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/06/carbon-credit-fraud-firms-closed
Typo – “their” should be “they’re” in my comment – sorry!
geran says:
December 14, 2013 at 6:02 pm
“Only after I showed Anthony’s “math expert” was a phony?
(Yup, screen shot here also.)”
Just for your information, your computer renders the HTML page it receives from a server. You can display the HTML source code with the appropriate view option of your browser, save it, modify the contained ASCII text, and create faked versions of the HTML, and render it again with your browser. So you can easily fake any web page you want. Try it! It’s pretty boring, but it might heal your obsession with meaningless screenshots.
Smells a lot like legalized larceny.
Thanks, Janice. It’s to be added to the collection:
Gomer’s surprise
Captain Renault’s shock
Dr. Smith’s pain
Seriously folks, the posted article is a keeper. And a sender.
Assuming that eventually the AGW scam and its perpetrators are effectively dealt with, is there any legal way that the tax payers around the world can be reimbursed even a small percentage of what the warmists have stolen?
For the U.S. I suggest that presidential wanabees for 2016 include promises of such reimbursements through lower tax rates for the number of years equivalent to a complete restitution of the theft.
Point Carbon had first para available without subscription:
Reuters Point Carbon: Danish film lifts lid on “crime of the century” CO2 trading scams
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2566040
website for the film has the entire article. as is most often the case, the MSM – who pay the Reuters’ subscription fees – failed to carry this article, and i doubt any other country will pick up the film. not that the film is anti-CAGW…but it’s never good to admit any CAGW-associated fraud!
11 Sept: CarbonCrooks.tv: Reuters Point Carbon: Michael Szabo: Danish film lifts lid on “crime of the century” CO2 trading scams
Thefts, fraud and money laundering in Europe’s carbon market have cost European companies and taxpayers more than 15 billion euros ($19.9 billion) since its 2005 inception, according to a new documentary by Danish filmmaker Tom Heinemann.
In “Carbon Crooks”, a 57-minute film that aired on Danish television on Monday, Heinemann said he boiled down 80 hours of film and interviews to explore whether carbon trading has had any impact on rising global greenhouse gas emissions…
Thefts, fraud and money laundering in Europe’s carbon market have cost European companies and taxpayers more than 15 billion euros ($19.9 billion) since its 2005 inception, according to a new documentary by Danish filmmaker Tom Heinemann.
In “Carbon Crooks”, a 57-minute film that aired on Danish television on Monday, Heinemann said he boiled down 80 hours of film and interviews to explore whether carbon trading has had any impact on rising global greenhouse gas emissions…
The film also examines criticisms of the voluntary carbon market and the Clean Development Mechanism, a carbon offset scheme designed under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol climate pact…
Carbon Crooks was part-funded by British non-profit film foundation BRITDOC, support that Heinemann hopes will lead to the documentary being aired on UK television.
http://carboncrooks.tv/danish-film-lifts-lid-on-crime-of-the-century-co2-trading-scams/
You’re welcome.
Great collection, Ben. U.
Here’s another one that might come in handy, someday:
“Round up all the usual suspects.” — Capt. Renaud
Say, Ben, “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
“Casablanca” is a gold mine for those, huh?
I’ve been muttering and shouting this since even before reading G&T, notwithstanding all the heavyweight Skeptic Lukewarmers who seem happy with the Arrhenius ECS formulations.
if we just bribe everyone, we’ll get away with this scam!
9 Dec: Platts: DOE to offer $8 billion in clean fossil-fuel project loan guarantees
It will be the first new solicitation in the DOE loan guarantee program in two and a half years…
DOE received billions of dollars in loan guarantee authority in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, but much remains unused…
DOE is eager to see applications for the new fossil energy solicitation that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Davidson said, citing as examples technologies that reduce methane leakage at wellheads and those that reduce water use in hydraulic fracturing. He said energy-efficiency measures related to fossil fuels could also be eligible, giving as an example, combined heat and power projects, in which heat from power generation is sold to industrial customers.
***The solicitation is the first for a DOE loan guarantee program in which municipalities, universities and port authorities will be eligible, Davidson said. Universities could apply for microgrid projects, he said…
The loan amounts could be as little as $25 million, although there is no upper limit, he said…
Davidson said DOE is considering a new solicitation next year for nuclear energy projects including small modular reactors. The solicitation would come from the unused loan guarantee authority from the 2005 energy bill…
“We’re trying to figure out how we can be helpful to the nuclear industry,” he said…
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/coal/washington/doe-to-offer-8-billion-in-clean-fossil-fuel-project-21927884
Yes, Janice, but I only wish that I could find a clip of Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber saying that he’s not a common criminal but an extraordinary criminal.
“£3.8 billion of taxpayers’ money funds the new Green Investment Bank, set up by the Department of Business and Skills.”
The UK now has a Department of BS…..to manage their greenmail scam….
Well, at least they got the acronym right…
The Obama Administration is about to nominate 50 new judges. Just in time for this, Sen. Reid has taken the nuclear option, and removed the filibuster. This will allow for wildly activist judges to be appointed in the next few months to defeat legal challenges to many Obama policies and mandates.
The Administration is also ready to appoint 180 to positions in the major bureaucracies such as the EPA, DOE, HHS and IRS.
They need to all be scrutinized for precisely these green NGO and renewable energy connections. And these bureaucracies have been used to target political opponents already.
Forgive me for being ponderous and long winded but I do not think people appreciate how important this story is or what it means. I will try to explain especially for US readers.
Although the BBC, like the ABC in Australia, both publically funded broadcast networks of a decidedly left wing view in the UK the Press, although a fading force, is still a national and powerful one. And as such the Mail has become the most dominant appealing to middle England.
The politicians have made very attempt to muzzle the UK press, there is a current try on now, above all because it reveals their peculations.
Moreover the UK law is inimical to a free press and so allows them to suppress stories by the mere threat of legal action.
Nothing the Mail has published here is unknown to those who pay attention to these things but the politicians have been able to keep it out of the public eye. More or less. So it will be news on Sunday breakfast tables. Some millions of them.
Since the Mail has put it on public view I am certain that neither the Mail’s management, its editors, its reporters and above all else its lawyers would have done this and named names and money unless they were absolutely sure that they could defend the story in court.
Which opens the dam, mere threats of legal action will not stop others from making allegations. The bond of self serving secrecy is broken.
And to a public deeply suspicious of politicians feathering their own nests.
What will happen now only time will tell.
But if I lived in No. 10 I would not be sleeping easily tonight. As perhaps others with their fingers in the pie might be worried.
No doubt the government lickspittles will gloss over it.
But with an election due in just over a year I doubt that will be effective.
Kindest Regards
“Enjoy the science, that’s what this site is about. — mod.”
Long since dropped that potato. As for David Rose – in fact checking quarters, his reporting is seen with bemusement. Next week, one assumes, he will run his microscope over the GWPF. Thought not. No, have nothing substantive to say other than how predictable for a science site to reprint this article.
As is ever the case, the CAGW is just the most egregious world wide example.
All the “save the world solutions” have these things in common.
Money is forcibly taken from the many(thro taxes, fees and compulsory indulgences).
Then given to the well connected few.(Who “intend”to help the imaginary victims)
The solutions are feel good and do nothing to reduce the supposed harm.
These actions are imposed by our bureaucracies, production difficulties multiply, real wealth shrinks.
The politicians and bureaus double down, more regulations and enforcement.
Real wealth falls further,civil unrest increases, militant enforcement increases.
In the case of politicians and bureaucrats feasting at the trough, whilst controlling the flows of public treasure, it is treason.
These individuals all swore oaths.
But who watches the watchdogs?
If it weren’t for thousands of Brits dying each year because of high energy costs initiated by these crooked bastards this story would put a smile on my face. The monies they’ve received should be reclaimed and used to protect those survivors still exposed by the worst energy policies on the planet.
This will not be news to anyone who has been following BishopHill, where very heavy hints have been made for years now.
However, few Britons read (or are even aware of the existence of) BishopHill. It takes a widely read national daily, with considerable legal resources behind it, to be able to safely spill the truth to a population.
This will take some time, but the British people will rise up.
Britons will rise up. Doubt it. Most won’t give a monkey’s buttock about this and for good reason. It is Private Eye style journalism. Shock, horror, etc. Nothing to get very excited about. And it is the most establishment of comfy middle class newspapers. Tomorrows fish and chip paper.
Margret Hardman says:
“As for David Rose – in fact checking quarters, his reporting is seen with bemusement.”
Blaming the messenger.
“Tomorrows fish and chip paper.”
The Internet has a longer memory than that, surely.
“Most won’t give a monkey’s buttock about this”
Beware the anger of a silent majority.
Hard luck, Margaret. Don’t you think you should throw something a bit more opaque over that emperor suit you are strutting around in?
The irony is that if these claims had been made about bureaucrats and politicians in charge of, say, social security or child welfare, the Guardianista Left would have responded with a collective cry of: “Yes, of course! Power and money always corrupt!” But like the religion that it is, environmentalism has always attempted to seize the moral high ground: ‘WE are not like THEM’. It’s a sign of how out of touch with reality you are if you can be shocked by discovering your heroes behave like everyone else.
Tim, they won’t. It’s meaningless to most people. You might think it’s important but the Mail’s core readership won’t care. Look at their website to see what the Mail really thinks. Not blaming the messenger, but in the world of Littlejohn, huff and puff today, then move on.
Janice Moore says: December 14, 2013 at 7:36 pm
Captain Renault is a goldmine indeed!
“Realizing the importance of the case, my men are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects.”
“I’m only a poor corrupt official.”
Margaret Hardman says: December 14, 2013 at 8:47 pm
You are snail expert Sir Paul Nurse (of secret meeting fame) and I claim my £5.
Hopefully David Rose will do a follow-up article on “green” subsidies of recent EDF nuclear deal in Britain, which doubles the future price of nuclear generated power in one hit, giving the company an unbelievable 10% per annum return on investment – guaranteed, index linked !
Much of the ground work for this was done when Gordon Brown was PM and his BROTHER was a PR rep for EDF. (Not suggesting any impropriety, of course but there is _just a possibility_ of similar cronyism being involved).
Much of the public justification for accepting the enormous increase in the price nuclear generated electrical power was the fact it’s “low carbon”.
So it does not matter whether you are a fan of nuclear or renewables, the bottom line is the same. The tax-payer gets screwed and fat-cat cronyism wins.
Hats off to David Rose for exposing the fact that these green lobbyists are no different to any other financial group.
As long as I get 4 times more thumbs down than up when commenting on other blogs, stating a 17 year pause of warming with climbing CO2, implicating a very low impact of CO2, I think the moment that the tide is really turning might be quite far away. But it is a good sign that it’s 4 to 1. It was 10 to 1 not so long ago, and news stories like this will eventually reach the general public. The scam WILL be exposed and the crooks WILL be prosecuted.
When the slime is literally pouring off, as with this lot, you would think that a bunch of them should be going to jail.
Enron to the power of N.
No surprise here. The UK is now as corrupt as many banana republics, which it is fast becoming.
After Gore’s $millions, we are shocked, SHOCKED to find that it’s all about money.
Everyone is missing the crux of all this. Benefiting financially by promoting “good” is perfectly acceptable Otherwise, Al Gore would have long since been run out of town on a rail. Why is it virtually impossible to find a political liberal anywhere in the world who does not fervently promote green energy? Because it is good! When promoting “good”, the end justifies the means, ordinary rules of behavior are suspended and anything goes.
Lord help you, though, if you get caught profiting from promoting “bad”.
I’m sure someone has already said this, but they don’t call it “green” energy for nothing.
Unfortunately, this does not surprise me one little bit – the financial ends justify the corrupted means..
Politics used to be about properly representing the people for the great good; now it’s largely about representing yourself for the individual ‘good’ and getting away with it.. We need a far better class of politician and a public who actually are able to think for themselves beyond believing what is pumped to them through a largely compliant and complicit media…
Some form of revolution will have to happen to change the situation – one hopes it won’t be a ‘V’ style undertaking.
The “better class of politician” can’t gain admission to the club/gang. You must have allowed yourself to be reliably compromised to gain nomination by a party to any election.
It is bit like Flannery in Australia. Until sacked by the new government he was earning a huge amount of money advising the government as well as getting grants for his geo-thermal enterprise.
110% certainty that 100% of recipients endorse the 97% consensus!
Margaret Hardman says: December 14, 2013 at 8:47 pm
Sorry (my comment at 11:01), Nurse is a yeast expert, Jones is the snail (and fruit fly) expert.
Nigel S, I am happy to have shown up James Delingpole for what he is, or would be were I Sir Paul Nurse, expert of the genetic control of the cell cycle. You should watch that Horizon clip. It is very entertaining. In fact the entire programme should be required viewing.
The British Establishment has always operated in this effete and corrupt way.
When there are snouts to be put in the trough for a ‘good cause’, they can be guaranteed to be the first in line.
Carbon credits/green energy subsidies were always going to attract white collar and/or organised crime. All David Rose has done is expose a tiny part of this global insanity.
As for carbon credits, which have no tangible or residual value, and you can just keep on selling them, although they tend to decline towards zero over time, there is very good analogy:
A hooker: you’ve got it, so you sell it, but you’ve still got it and so you sell it again, etc., etc. Eventually it becomes so unattractive that no one wants to buy it anymore.
This story has the potential to take on a life of its own in the media & parliament, beyond affecting the DM’s readership. IOW, it may “have legs.” (Not least because some influential people may be looking for an excuse to derail the greenshirts.)
If the DM endorses the UKIP, that would be a bit of a game changer.
AW would make this a sticky post
I’ve said it before, It’s all very well blindly following the science, but it’s a good idea to follow the money as well.
Find a cash flow and plug in, supposedly said by Al Capone, seems to fit so many green schemes.
Inwardly we all know that the real solution is. The image of an irate crowd unable to bear the suffering of energy poverty turning their offices to warehouses comes to mind. Intellectual debate and political pressure have their limits.
Good to see the BBC has taken this up with alacrity /sarc.
Bit of a dichotomy for them, a chance to hammer the Tories but at the cost of demeaning their favourite “settled” meme.
As David Rose reported “Lord Oxburgh has undeclared directorships/advisory roles in green companies”.
Is this the same Lord Oxburgh who cleared the University of East Anglia (UEA – CRU) from scientific malpractice in the climategate scandal!
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/apr/14/oxburgh-uea-cleared-malpractice
some call it the revolving door, i call it crony capitalism:
13 Dec: NYT: Eric Lipton: New Obama Adviser Brings Corporate Ties
The defense contractor Northrop Grumman gave money to the left-leaning Center for American Progress, founded by John D. Podesta, as the nonprofit group at times bemoaned what it called the harmful impact of major reductions in Pentagon spending…
Pacific Gas and Electric sent in a donation as Mr. Podesta championed government incentives to promote solar energy and other renewable sources that the California company buys more of than nearly any other utility.
The pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly was also a donor because of what it said was the Center for American Progress’s advocacy for patients’ rights — and just as the debate heated up in Washington over potential cuts to the Medicare program that covers Lilly’s most profitable drugs…
But Mr. Podesta, who was paid $220,000 last year by the center and who last served as a registered lobbyist in 2006, also arrives at the White House after serving on the corporate boards of at least two companies with ties to the clean-energy industry, Equilibrium Capital of Portland, Ore., and Joule of Bedford, Mass. The future of both companies depends in part on environmental policies set by the government and heavily promoted by the White House…
Even before the White House officially confirmed his appointment, officials said that Mr. Podesta would not participate in the debate over the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline connecting Canada to the Gulf Coast. Mr. Podesta, with the support of clean energy groups, has been a steadfast opponent of the plan.
Joule, a company that has tried but failed to win federal grants to help turn its experimental carbon dioxide-to-ethanol concept into a commercial scale project, is betting its future on its ability to deliver alternatives to fossil fuel…
In his new role, expected to last perhaps a year, Mr. Podesta will work on issues including health care and climate change, which have been major issues at the Center for American Progress as well…
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/13/us/politics/new-obama-adviser-brings-corporate-ties.html?_r=0
Jan 2011: Reuters: Joule Elects Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta to Board of Directors
We are thrilled to welcome John to the team, given his extensive experience within the US government and internationally as well,” said Bill Sims, President and CEO of Joule. “As a leading expert in technology policy and a known advocate for clean energy, John is an ideal champion for Joule, and we look forward to leveraging his insights as we progress towards international deployment.” …
“There is no question that clean energy innovation and adoption are among the top economic and security priorities for our nation, and it’s critical that we focus on breakthrough technologies, particularly for liquid fuels, that can sometimes fall through the legislative cracks,” said Mr. Podesta. “I have seen and heard many proposals by renewable energy companies, and can unequivocally say that Joule has a technology and a system unlike any other, with industrial viability and a clear path to market within the next several years. It’s an honor to join the board of a big-thinking category creator like Joule.”…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/18/idUS165340+18-Jan-2011+BW20110118
This is the total corruption of British politics. Freeloaders like Lord Deben and his best mate Yeo, who has lost the support of his constituent members so cannot stant for re-election as an MP, getting paid by both camps in the climate debate.
We will see the same thing with HS2, another multi-billion pound squander of taxpayer monies.
Where there is money to fiddle then corruption follows close behind.
The Sunday Mail has the 2nd largest circulation in the UK at 1.7 million. The main drama green paper the Guardian has the 2nd smallest circulation and it’s Sunday equivalents The Observer/ Independent have about 300.000 between them. The web sites have a similar ratio. It may not cause any instant revolutions in the UK but the grumbling ground swell is beginning to be heard. Politicians are choosing positions for the election in early 2015 and the newspapers have shown in the past that they can heavily influence elections. Anyone who writes off articles such as this as unimportant is seriously going against the past evidence. Rather like a sculptor chipping away at the granite, what appears over the next year will guide the electorate. The second largest circulation paper in the UK will test the water and The Sun, a Murdock rag will jump in when it sees the winning post in the distance. All power to David Rose. Accuracy and truth don’t matter one bit. If they did there would have been no CAGW scare in the first place.
the MSM will carry or refer to any NYT story when it suits an agenda, but no media picked up the Podesta story & none has so far picked up the David Rose/Mail story, & i doubt they ever will. any talk of corruption regarding CAGW is pretty much taboo, or confined to niche finance media. the public may get confused and switch off over the scientific debate, but they have no trouble understanding financial corruption, espcially when it involves politicians & their associates.
Nothing new here.
Ed Miliband’s Climate Change legislation which created the committee was drafted by a Greenp.ss minion (someone else may know if she was already known to Ed’s environmental lawyer wife) who has since been elevated to the House of Lords.
The committee itself was never going to include anything other than the drafter’s fellow travellers – jobs for the boys (and girls). No room at this inn for even the most balanced scepticism, far less for a Devil’s Advocate to question the claimed miracles, whether the amazing influence of man or the efficacy of the antidotes.
Because it has been drawn from this pool, all committee members, both from academia and industry, have always had their snouts deep in the trough of anti-carbon grants and subsidies. The Act gives these people the power to dictate government carbon management policies, so it’s no surprise that the turkeys have voted themselves extra rations and an even deeper trough. No matter how discredited the “science” behind Carbon Scientology, they are never going to vote for Christmas and abolish themselves as not fit for purpose.
The only caveat I have about the article is its treatment of SSE. It may be getting its share of the UK government’s “green” energy scams – what energy business can afford to turn down such opportunities, especially when taking part earns other credits (a knighthood here, a sinecure on a fancy committee there), while failing to do so enthusiastically (think clapping in North Korea!) can mean your card is marked when you look for support for other projects. But SSE makes a significant contribution to keeping the UK’s lights on, thanks to its coal-fired generating capacity. It has invested heavily to keep these on line, and would no doubt be doing more of the same if the carbon price floor hadn’t been invented to drive these units to closure before 2020.
dp says:
December 14, 2013 at 8:51 pm
If it weren’t for thousands of Brits dying each year because of high energy costs initiated by these crooked bastards this story would put a smile on my face. The monies they’ve received should be reclaimed and used to protect those survivors still exposed by the worst energy policies on the planet.
People outside the UK (and even some inside) may not be aware how many people are dying of cold in energy poverty in UK. Literally thousands each winter month, in March 2013 5000 (yes five thousand) people died of cold in ‘first world’ UK. Due to energy policies geared to enrich the politicians rather than provide energy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/elderhealth/9959856/Its-the-cold-not-global-warming-that-we-should-be-worried-about.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9078273/Hypothermia-deaths-double-over-five-years.html
Margaret Hardman says:
December 14, 2013 at 10:55 pm
Tim, they won’t. It’s meaningless to most people. You might think it’s important but the Mail’s core readership won’t care. Look at their website to see what the Mail really thinks. Not blaming the messenger, but in the world of Littlejohn, huff and puff today, then move on.
People are starting to care Margaret – you may not – but they do when their grandparents are the ones in energy poverty. Not only that but the decisions on energy generation made by the UK politicians guided by their wallets, has even been flagged by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) as now affecting family budgets of the middle class (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25330582 ). The public are starting to get upset that their household costs are being increased to pay for subsidies to green ‘schemes’ that seem to be vehicles to pass money to politicians, their families, friends or supporters. This upset will increase if as the power companies are warning there could be power cuts this winter or next due to lack of power generation capacity. The pressure is starting to have some effect Tim Yeo started trying to be less obvious http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25330582 about things but nevertheless his local Conservative party have now deselected him so he will not be standing as a Conservative MP in the next election.
More importantly many of them have been cleared of having any conflict of interest – probably the most damning indictment of our current parliamentary system in the UK.
The UN IPCC is the greatest threat to democracy we have faced since the darkest days of the 2nd world war and of the communist era. As many have observed and are aware AGW is the UN approach to creating a global government – but that cannot be elected and will depend on the input and lobbying of ‘representative groups’. The truth is this all goes far wider than the green lobbies, and the fear campaign to indoctrinate children in schools to have unswerving belief in AGW. It is the loss or survival of democracy as we know it, or in some cases think we know it.
I’m going to digress for a moment to try and explain to our cousins across the pond (who I have the greatest affection for after living in Texas some years ago) why a Watergate type scandal over people who appear to be green troughers making legislation, as some have suggested may happen, is definitely not going to make it to the surface in the UK.
Do a google search and have a look at reports on Dr. David Kelley who was a whistleblower over reports of WMD in Iraq and the curious circumstances surrounding his apparent suicide. See how the inquiry into the lead up to the Iraq war and whether of not Blair misled Parliament is completely stalled after some years and now seems unlikely to ever see the light of day. (Blair seems t be blocking release of papers). They will give you a slight inkling of the problems that exist in our political circles.
Every elected representative has to swear an oath before a magistrate that they will honestly and faithfully serve HM the Queen and the (best interests) of the people who elected them before they can take office. At the same time each of them who represents a political party is required by the party to undertake to abide by the policy decisions of their party – and that applies regardless of the interests of the Queen or their electorate or their own views. I’ve always believed that to be a fundamental contradiction and an immediate breach of the office-taking oath. But that is the British political establishment and how it works …….
For those in the USA who don’t understand how the UK is now governed – we are now effectively a province of the EU but with infinitely less powers than a state legislature in the USA. Britain is now always referred to as a ‘Member State’ as the status of being a ‘Nation State’ no longer exists in the eyes of the EU.
Circa 85 – 90% of our legislation is now dictated to us by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels ( the EU) with No Democratic input or accountability. The European parliament , which is elected, does Not make legislation, all it can do is delay or occasionally manage to halt the Eurocrats edicts. ( As an aside given that Obama determinedly wants Britain to remain governed by the EU . I wonder how many of you in the USA would be happy with a situation where the people you elect are unable to make laws for you but only able to implement laws issued by an unelected pan-american body?).
To go full circle and to understand the form of a global government created on the back of AGW you should look at the EU, how it is structured and how anti-democratic it is. Read some of the euro-sceptic analysis of it. I believe that that EU is a dry-run for UN plans to create an unelected, anti-democratic global government. As the Eurocrats have repeatedly made clear – you can’t trust the electorate to make the ‘right’ decisions ……. A bit like climate activists ….and the green lobbies.
Apologies for the length.
As a result of that British politicians now have very few responsibilities or areas they can make laws over – pretty much restricted nowadays to education, health service and crime and policing within EU frameworks – which means they have little to occupy their minds and time other than to rubber- stamp EU diktats into UK law and consider how best to ensure thei own financial success in life.
Democracy is thrown away whilst pretending to the electorate that it still exists and has meaningful effect.
It is fascinating that the only defense of the actions of these corrupt insiders is that no one will care.
How much was it that “deniers” are supposed to be paid by “Big Fossil Fuels”?
Shall look forward to this article getting high exposure on all BBC news bulletins this week.
Come on then Margaret, tell us what facts David Rose has got wrong. I’d love to know.
Thermageddonists such as yourself love to scream about “fossil fuel funded deni*rs”, but then tell us that green troughing “doesn’t matter”. In my book, that smacks of double standards.
Greenies on the take. Who’d a thunk it?
Old England-Daniel Hannan’s new book Inventing Freedom makes the point well on the uniqueness of the Anglosphere. The UK is losing what is precious to EU bureaucrats. In the US it is occurring via regional compacts surrounding our metro areas, but it is mostly out of sight.
This entire process from regional equity to green energy cronyism and digital learning cronyism are all examples of deliberately fostering the nexus between politically directed capital [either taxes or new public debt] and politically connected individuals and institutions. These conflicts of interest are deliberately cultivated so that decision-makers are on the financial ride of their lives with no genuine risk to their own capital and upside courtesy of the taxpayers.
It all ties together under what the OECD and the new economics foundation are calling The Great Transition. I have written about it after downloading all of the troubling documents developed over last decade. But I have also taken the phrase back to Kenneth Boulding’s 1962 book of the same name. What we are dealing with is using Cronyism to push us all towards global redistribution with an oligarchy that believes it gets to plan and direct going forward.
It cannot work as planned, and the sooner the disparate pieces like Regionalism and Smart Cities and education and CAGW are all widely acknowledged as being part of a broader political scheme, the safer we and our futures will be. At its core the only science that is really being pursued is psychology and sociology and political science. Which is why we keep hearing about the consensus as if this was an anthropology experiment.
There is more from David Rose here
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2523758/MPs-Lords-lobbyists-advise-Ministers-eco-policies–cash-in.html
published late 14 December.
“The great green con: MPs, Lords and lobbyists who advise Ministers on eco policies… then cash in
Tim Yeo, chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, has received well over £400,000 from green energy firms since 2009
Maf Smith, deputy chief executive of lobby Renewable UK, previously worked at Department of Energy and Climate Change on changes to renewable subsidies enshrined in Energy Bill”
Worth reading the whole article.
Margaret Hardman says: December 15, 2013 at 1:21 am
Who would you want treating you for a stomach ulcer? Someone who had proved, despite the consensus, that it was caused by H. pylori or the followers of that consensus who assured you it was caused by ‘stress’?
See, we can all play that game but it makes no difference to the facts exposed by David Rose.
The “Save The Planet” crowd is dirty? Nawww….
Old England says: As an aside given that Obama determinedly wants Britain to remain governed by the EU . I wonder how many of you in the USA would be happy with a situation where the people you elect are unable to make laws for you but only able to implement laws issued by an unelected pan-american body?
========================
We have a similar situation with the increase in ‘executive orders’ by the American President that effectively implement ‘laws’ without the input of the American Congress or the ‘check’ of the American Courts. It’s dictatorship in all but name.
It’s very brave of you to risk a defamation suit by posting that headline.
Mr Cameron should be made to explain these ‘coincidental’ links.
I’m really shocked at the extent of the hubris displayed when companies openly tell investors that 50-60% of the companies revenue stream is from taxpayer subsidies and that the prospect of increased dividend and returns are based on the Government driving up energy prices.
“TRIG said its income was ‘stable’ because of Government policies: tariffs and levies will account for a staggering 63 per cent of its revenue. Longer-term, the prospectus added, investors will also benefit from the rocketing price of electricity, which it thinks will rise by 60 per cent over the next 20 years.”
“According to Barclays, investors could expect an extremely attractive annual 9.1 per cent rate of return, even after paying all fees. This was because ‘half of revenue comes from largely fixed index-linked Government incentives’ – in other words, levies added to bills.”
I’m having trouble dealing with the underlying idea that Government ‘incentives’ (meaning subsidies to make an otherwise unprofitable industry profitable – VERY profitable it would appear) are going to continue essentially forever. This really looks to me like a kind of ponzi scheme, surely the people investing in this understand that the subsidies can’t reasonably be expected to continue forever and, when they stop, their ‘investment’ will be worthless?
Margaret Hardman says:
December 14, 2013 at 8:47 pm
‘…. No, have nothing substantive to say …’
No, you never do. Get back under the bridge.
I can’t find an estimate of how much global warming reduction created by the UK’s green energy revolution and how many pounds/degree the average consumer pays. I can find all kinds of warm, fuzzy save the earth links, but I can’t find any of the green energy supporters taking credit for any actual (or calculated) global temperature reductions. Since they do not, their polices are very likely producing miniscule results.
Claude Harvey says:
Everyone is missing the crux of all this. Benefiting financially by promoting “good” is perfectly acceptable Otherwise, Al Gore would have long since been run out of town on a rail.
…Gore has been run out of town several times. That’s why he gave up his book signing and publicity tours, and he never appears to his adoring public without six bodyguards.
@Old England
“I wonder how many of you in the USA would be happy with a situation where the people you elect are unable to make laws for you but only able to implement laws issued by an unelected pan-american body?”
Sadly, we Americans may soon be finding out how that feels, as Obama, continuing the Bush Trans-Pacific Partnership effort, seems to be on track to fast track that uber-secretive ECONOMIC TREASON. (Fortunately, some of it was leaked to Wikileaks, and a mostly muzzled Rep. Alan Grayson managed to communicate the flavor of the anti-democratic POS). It’s been called “NAFTA on steroids”, but it’s really less about trade, than about regulation and governance. Apparently, plutocracy loving Obama, like Bush before him, feels that it’s Oky-dokey to place unelected corporate lawyer types above even the US Supreme Court, in settling trade disputes.
Now, some people may be less repulsed by having their former national sovereignty sacrificed to European style beauracrats than fascistic corporate lawyer types, but I say “flush all of them down the toilet”. Nation states can make agreements the old fashioned way.
The American middle class used to be #1. It’s now down to about #26, thanks primarily to globalization. TPP is a sort of logical end game to corporate, plutocratic rule. And is recognized as such not just by lefties, but righties, as well. E.g. the principal guy at Tea Party Nation, Judson Phillips, has come out against the TPP. He said,
“Perot was right. NAFTA was the first of a series of free trade agreements we signed. All of them have been disasters. Our trade deficits have shot up, our manufacturing base has been destroyed and the American blue-collar middle class is disappearing.
TPP is NAFTA on steroids. The only difference between steroids and NAFTA is that steroids do some good.
In March, the Korean Free Trade Agreement went into effect. Guess what? Our trade deficit with Korea has exploded since then. In May, our trade deficit with Korea had jumped to $2 billion, which is a 53.5% increase over what it was a year earlier. Meanwhile, thanks to this great deal, American exports to Korea are tanking.
…….
This is a 90% issue.
90% of Americans agree that we need to protect American jobs.”
Alas, 90%+ of Americans are asleep at the wheel…..
Bob Greene says:
December 15, 2013 at 6:07 am
I can’t find an estimate of how much global warming reduction created by the UK’s green energy revolution and how many pounds/degree the average consumer pays. I can find all kinds of warm, fuzzy save the earth links, but I can’t find any of the green energy supporters taking credit for any actual (or calculated) global temperature reductions. Since they do not, their polices are very likely producing miniscule results.
*****
The effect of CO2 on the climate has been described by distinguished climate scientists as statistically insignificant. “Statistically insignificant” means the effect of increases or decreases of atmospheric CO2 on the Earth’s climate is so small as to be irrelevant. Anyone telling you CO2 is a major contributor to changes of any sort in the climate is either using a flawed computer model or is lying.
In order to demonstrate how miniscule the effect of CO2 is on the climate, I will summarise the relevant calculations.
The total “Greenhouse effect” on climate by all 6 Greenhouse gases is 33.0ºC.
Non-water Greenhouse gases ~5% : 1.65ºC.
CO2 ~75% of total Greenhouse gases : 1.24ºC.
Man-made CO2 – under 7%* of the total CO2 : 0.087ºC
* This is being generous. Some calculations show man-made CO2 at about 3.2%, which would reduce the total man-made Greenhouse effect to 0.0405ºC.
What is the effect of all Britain’s entire CO2 emissions on the climate? This, after all, is why we are spending endless billions trying to “fight climate change.”
Britain’s total CO2 “effect” on the climate is 0.00174ºC
– or as expressed as millionths of a ºC is 1740 / 1 000 000ºC
…or to put it another way: If Britain became a barren, sterile, lifeless rock and produced no carbon dioxide at all (0 %) for the next 86 years, and assuming there were no change in CO2 emissions elsewhere in the world, then by 2100 the Earth’s climate would have cooled by 0.00174ºC.
*****
That’s what is being demanded from you; to corrupt climate science, wreck the economy, ruin the landscape and seascape, force millions into fuel poverty which kills over 30,000 British poor every year, and let’s not forget the millions of birds, bats and wildlife massacred by wind turbines annually and for what? So that in about 100 years the Earth’s climate could be an infinitesimal bit cooler. But let’s face facts here; whatever Britain’s CO2 emissions are it will make no difference whatsoever to the Earth’s climate. None. Zero. Nada. And that’s the truth. Anybody that tells you differently is either a fool or a liar. Hundreds of billions spend. Thousands of people and birds dead. Industry wrecked. Britain impoverished for generations by the poisonous lies of the so-called “greens.” All for nothing
Hope that answers your question.
Margaret Hardman: “I am happy to have shown up James Delingpole…”
Margaret dear, the only person you show up is yourself.
As for the Nurse – Delingpole interview, it seems you missed the part where Nurse and his colleague Dr. Bindschadler made a particularly egregious error concerning the climate science, as a result of which Dr. Bindschadler – in contrast to Nurse – had the good grace to acquire an ID in order to post a full apology on JD’s blog.
Funny how you Warmists inexplicably omit little details like that, isn’t it?
@Bob Greene, It was never about producing results (other than making scads of dough for the Green Industry). Even using Alarmomath, which itself isn’t based on anything real, the amount of “warming reduction” purchased by UK’s energy idiocy would be vanishingly tiny. The truth is though, that it’s all just highway robbery.
Anyone else notice the number of comments at the DM appears to have frozen? How very odd. Must be a surplus of fish and chips, hey Margaret? Hard to tell one woe man’s trough swill from another’s prime chowder nowadays, it all looks green just the same. I blame misapplication of the Stefan–Boltzmann law myself: Diffusion Delusion (aka. as thick as too short Plancks).
Globally, $359 billion was spent on climate change and green energy in 2012.
The US plans to spend $22.1 billion this year.
Who is getting the money?
– there are material suppliers and building contractors;
– there are a small number of working employees;
– there are somewhere between 100,000 to 200,000 climate change academics; and,
– fees and commissions in an untold amount made by a untold number of people.
Who is supplying the money?
– there are investors in the energy projects, some ordinary citizens looking for a return, some larger institutional investors looking to make quick cash in addition to long-term returns;
– some of the funds are coming from foundations and oil companies; and,
– Most is probably coming from the taxpayer (and this is borrowed money given government deficits).
A nice tidy industry overall. Some people are getting very rich while others are losing their shirts.
But it is really a waste of society’s resources given how inefficient green energy is and how wrong the entire premise of climate change is.
@Old England
More Judson Phillips, of Tea Party Nation, on the TPP (= Economic Treason)
“This is an issue that crosses ideological lines. Conservative groups oppose this idiocy. Liberal groups oppose this idiocy.
I believe in a concept I call 90% leadership. While there are many issues we can disagree on, there are a lot of issues out there that 90% of Americans will agree on. So why aren’t we acting on those?
This is a 90% issue.”
Also, Americans who think that states have every right to legislate GMO labeling, would do well to note that state-level efforts to mandate GMO labeling will be superceded by TPP. Here is a link to a Bill Moyers interview of Yves Smith and Dean Baker, discussing TPP: http://tinyurl.com/k3p54hq
Corruption appears to be growing worldwide, control over the population is growing exponentially, the “NEW WORLD ORDER”, our Five Eyes” organization, continues to quietly speak about is becoming a reality right under our noses. statusquohastogo@gmail.com
Gosh, you might think that these were, like, really smarmy big bad oil company people. But, no…..
Except the oil company people NEVER used new government laws and regulations to directly take huge amounts of money from the poor, to give to the rich (themselves). Oil company people used their influence to prevent restrictions of various sorts, some of which might have been necessary, some over the top. I wouldn’t ever say that big companies with lots of money — in any field, just look at finance and banks before the Great Recession — us money to get politicians to do their bidding. And I wish government regulation had been tough enough to prevent the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
But I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such direct avarice, where the direct point isn’t to influence environmental regulations and such, but rather to use laws and regulations to directly enrich the people who voted for the laws and regulations.
Margaret Hardman says: December 14, 2013 at 8:47 pm
============
Corruption in high places is all fine and well only so long as the stink does not reach the public.
Zeke says:
December 14, 2013 at 8:28 pm
The Obama Administration is about to nominate 50 new judges. Just in time for this, Sen. Reid has taken the nuclear option, and removed the filibuster. This will allow for wildly activist judges to be appointed in the next few months to defeat legal challenges to many Obama policies and mandates.
The Administration is also ready to appoint 180 to positions in the major bureaucracies such as the EPA, DOE, HHS and IRS.
They need to all be scrutinized for precisely these green NGO and renewable energy connections. (emphasis added)
Now that the Democrats have abandoned the filibuster, it is up to the press to carefully vet these Obama administration appointees. If they do so, they will probably be amazed at the connections they uncover. Too bad the U.S. press has its collective nose so far up the President’s ____ that it will never happen. Maybe the British and Canadian press? Aussies? C’mon in, there’s a void to be filled here.
I may have a new word “enviromoniest”
It is odd. If I Google news Deben or Gummer, or climate change committee this story does not come up in the results. When I Google David Rose and Deben then I get this new related story from the Mail on Sunday http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2523758/MPs-Lords-lobbyists-advise-Ministers-eco-policies–cash-in.html.
The biggest story is Deben and his connections to the Severn Barrage which is not mentioned by David Rose at all, even though it was covered by booker 18 months ago. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9498568/The-tangled-tale-of-Lord-Deben-and-a-dodgy-Severn-barrage.html This story is HUGE, but was not picked up by media hacks.
I have come to expect stories run on Eureferendum or Booker take 18months to surface as scoops. This story is typical, and it is not being picked up by other news organisations. David Rose is by himself on this one, and is being ignored by the press pack. Their is a very bitter attack on David Rose by the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/bob-ward/hypocrites-of-northcliffe-house_b_4440043.html
For what it’s worth (probably not much) I will will keep badgering away at my local MP about this.
http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/commons/albert-owen/1474
He lives only two miles from me and his office is a ten minute walk. I only see him in photographs where he is championing some “bold government initiative” or other.
The problem with Albert is that he thinks Botticelli is a type of pasta if you get my drift.
Why would a politician spend hundreds of millions of dollars to win an office that pays hundreds of thousands? It only makes sense if you include corruption in the equation.
Politics 101:
1. buy a big tract of worthless land.
2. give the politicians a minority share in your worthless property.
3. wait for the politicians to change the zoning on “your” property.
4. sell your now valuable land for a huge profit.
5. kickback a portion of the profits as political contributions to both parties to limit investigations. No party is going to want to antagonize a large donor.
Simply change “land” to any scam you can dream up. Give the politicians a share and they will change the laws to increase the value of their share, resulting in windfall profits for your share. Kickback a portion of your profits to both political parties so neither party will want to cause waves.
A pox on UNIPOCC!
(“O” stands for “On.”)
Rationalization of bad behavior is the hallmark of human psychology. The green movement creates a perfect space for these thieves to thrive in. What does Hardman possibly gain by defending these people? I don’t know but she’s on the wrong side of history.
Grant says:
December 15, 2013 at 8:55 am
Hardman possibly gain by defending these people?
=========
makes sense if she is one of these people. nothing to see, move along.
Carpetbagger
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the United Kingdom, the term was adopted to refer informally to those who join a mutual organization, such as a building society, in order to force it to demutualize, that is, to convert into a joint stock company, solely for personal financial gain.
SAMURAI says:
December 14, 2013 at 8:08 pm
“The UK now has a Department of BS…..to manage their greenmail scam…
Well, at least they got the acronym right…”
Yes and the Minister “responsible” for the Dept of BS is a LIB Dem, one “Doctor” Cable. He;s the guy who thinks the Government should be him….and only him!
Allan MacRae says on December 14, 2013 at 5:54 pm
… but CO2 LAGS Temperature (in time) at ALL measured time scales …
Hypothesis:
Based on the preponderance of evidence, temperature drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature, so climate sensitivity may not exist at all at the “macro” scale, and may be utterly irrelevant to climate science except at the “micro” (and materially insignificant) scale.
Brian H says on December 14, 2013 at 7:47 pm
I’ve been muttering and shouting this since even before reading G&T, notwithstanding all the heavyweight Skeptic Lukewarmers who seem happy with the Arrhenius ECS formulations.
Allan again:
Hi Brian. I presume you mean G&T as in
Falsification Of The Atmospheric Co2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics, by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner, in IJMP(B), Vol 23, Iss 3, Jan 30, 2009, pp 275-364, doi:10.1142/S021797920904984X.
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S021797920904984X
I had not read the G&T and published my above hypo one year earlier than G&T in January 2008. I have no opinion on G&T and I do not need G&T to be correct from my hypo to be correct.
Let’s assume that CO2 IS a greenhouse gas and a bit more CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere may cause a bit of warming (all other factors being equal, etc.).
Nevertheless the only signal in the data is that CO2 LAGS temperature at all measured time scales, from ~9 months in the modern data record to ~800 years on a longer cycle in the ice core record.
On a seasonal time scale, it is also obvious that CO2 is driven by temperature, as evidenced by the seasonal CO2 “sawtooth” curve that is dominated by terrestrial photosynthesis of the larger Northern Hemisphere landmass,
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
So CO2 may indeed be a minor greenhouse gas but this effect is overwhelmed by the greater reality that temperature drives CO2 due to natural processes such as photosynthesis, ocean exsolution, etc. etc.
I suggest it is difficult for people to accept my hypo because it is the opposite of what they have been taught.
Nevertheless I suggest it will be the new conventional wisdom in climate science in less than a decade.
Regards, Allan
Well somebody has to say it.
Climate of Corruption.
United Nations International panel of Climate Corruption.
Or International persons of Corrupt Climate
Needs more work…..
Allen McRae @9;24 am
Based on the behaviour of measured temps(that imaginary global average temperature), and supposed atmospheric concentrations of CO2(let us assume these are useful values), then; CO2 is a cooling agent, a warming agent or an agent of stasis, depending on the time period chosen.
I suspect you are correct, CO2 concentrations follow temperature.
But the opposite claim, which currently has political support, seems impossible on the face of the evidence.
This is comparable to claiming the normal cycles of nature are insignificant, that the magic gas dominates all other effects, except when it does not.
Oh sorry IPCC FAR 2007. Coulda, woulda, we don’t know, but we are CERTAIN.
The effect of atmospheric CO2 concentration increases is being imperially tested as time marches on, so far? Climate sensitivity of zip, not measurable at this time.
That would be classed as unproven conjecture in my view.
History, of the geological time indicates that past co2 concentrations at much higher levels were very beneficial to life, as we know it.
But the topic; Corrupt to the core, taxing air to save us from an invisible foe, plant food..
It was always about the money, that’s why they kept shouting: WE MUST ACT NOW! It’s always been a con job and I repeatedly called them climate criminals.
At long last real investigative reporting into the climate change scandal takes hold. This story is way bigger than the MPs expenses scandal as it involves billions of UK pounds. It’s time the Parliamentary ethics committee took a look as well as the public prosecutor’s office.
Here is the alleged climate worrier Lord Stern. I found this some time back when rebutting an interview article in which Lord Stern talked about special interests trying to block progress on ‘tackling climate change.’
He is just one among many who either benefit from their own advocacy or their spouses and other family members. It’s a bloody scandal that does not come as a surprise to many on WUWT.
I forgot to bold:
Member, International Advisory Board, Abengoa SA (Spain)
which is a large renewable energy company.
Margaret Hardman says:
December 14, 2013 at 8:47 pm
“Enjoy the science, that’s what this site is about. — mod.”
Long since dropped that potato. As for David Rose – in fact checking quarters, his reporting is seen with bemusement. Next week, one assumes, he will run his microscope over the GWPF. Thought not. No, have nothing substantive to say other than how predictable for a science site to reprint this article.
========
Well put, I’ll be looking forward to your next non-substantive comment.
Where there is money, there is corruption.
Big Green trumps Big Oil.
Do We Have Time To Save The Planet From The Greedy Green Capitalists and the Greedy Politicians That Support Them?
Climate Change is Not the Problem. Fuel Poverty Is. Denying poor people access to cheap and reliable energy from fossil fuel is a death sentence for the poor of the world. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/15/james-hansens-policies-are-shafting-the-poor/ As the evidence mounts that that a rise in CO2 has little or nothing to do with global warming it is incumbent on people of good will to hold the greedy capitalists scoundrels accountable for the harm they are doing to the poor and to nature in their pursuit of their ill gained money off the backs of the public. Power to the people not to the greedy green corporate capitalists and the politicians that support them.
http://notrickszone.com/2013/12/15/top-leftist-oskar-lafontaine-comes-out-against-wind-power-landscape-being-robbed-of-its-poetry/
http://notrickszone.com/2013/12/10/analysis-of-entire-inventory-of-historical-data-clearly-points-to-one-conclusion-natural-factors-are-dominant/
Now can we see a story about alarmists to AREN’T on the take?
So Margaret Hardman, care to share with us which part or parts of the Rose article are untrue? I’m afraid snide and vacuous comments that hold as much water as a colander don’t count for much.
Margaret,
I’m still waiting for your reply (as, I’m sure, is UK Sceptic):
What part of the Rose write-up is untrue?
Are you seriously defending these green troughers?
Don’t you realise you’ve been taken for a fool by a group of people who’ve made a lot of money at the expense of the rest of us?
Or maybe you’re riding the Green Gravy Train yourself?
These allegations should be seen in their appropriate context, of which non-Britains may not be aware. The last Labour Government pushed through the Climate Change Act 2008. The current Labour leader, Ed Miliband, was then the Environment Minister. The Act was had cross-party support with 80% of MPs voting for, and around 1% voting against. Since 2010, The consumer cost of electricity and gas has risen by around 30%, but the wholesale price has remained pretty much the same. In September Miliband promised a price freeze if returned to power. The recent implication by the Labour Party is that this is all down to profiteering by the six major energy companies.
Of the six major energy companies, SSE is the only one mentioned in David Rose’s article.
Since 2009 all these six companies have been required by OFGEM to produce annual “consolidated segmental statements” for generation and for four categories of supply. They can be accessed from on OFGEM pdf here. SSE stands as the odd-man-out amongst the six for its generation profit and loss accounts. The revenue per MWh is about two-thirds of the wholesales price, and there are no direct fuel costs, despite operating coal and gas-fired power stations. This is because it has a quite separate (and quite legitimate) wholesale trading arm. It seems a bit odd that a manufacturing company (the product is electricity)should not show its raw material costs in its P&L.
I am currently trying to make sense of these segmental statements. Most telling is that over the 4 years 2009-2012, costs of gas and electricity to the consumer have risen by 25%; the profit margins percentage for supply and generation are about the same (at about 10% of a household bill); and the wholesale price over the last three years (which does not include subsidies) has remained pretty much the same. What has increased is “other costs” by 25% across 6 companies (spread across gas and electric sales) in just 4 years. On lower volumes on sales, this is more significant.
“Children just aren’t going to know what an honest politician is”.
It’s refreshing to see stories about people making money from green energy, especially here in Australia where the fossil fuel industry still receives massive subsidies whilst renewables grow in spurts and bounds despite inconsistent policies across governments. I’m currently looking for ways to disinvest in coal, but it is difficult to know who is fair dinkum and who just wants to take advantage of my idealism (and financial naivety)…. don’t want to seem alarmist bu the science seems to suport cutting our emissions as quickly as possible and history seems to show that innovation creates economic opportunities rather than deiminishing them…
Re: Sasha says:
December 15, 2013 at 6:13 am
“…Gore has been run out of town several times. That’s why he gave up his book signing and publicity tours, and he never appears to his adoring public without six bodyguards.”
Those may not be “bodyguards”. They may be “bag men”. Hauling off the loot is not a one-man job in the “green ‘bidness”.
Michael D Smith says:
December 15, 2013 at 3:44 pm
Now can we see a story about alarmists to AREN’T on the take?
================
here are a whole bunch
want to see them again?
And drug companies make billions on the HIV cocktail.. Hmmm..did they cause the AIDS panic/epidemic?? Perhaps…
Take a state at random: Arkansas’s Changing Climate
Average temperatures are already increasing, along with the frequency of extreme heat, storms, and dry summers.
In the future, with climate change, annual temperatures are projected to rise another 4.5-9.0°F (3-5°C) by the 2080s.
Residents can expect to see more public health risks from storms, flooding and waterborne illnesses, drought, extreme heat waves, and declining air quality.2
Arkansas does not have a statewide plan to prepare for the health impacts of climate change.
The British system of Government is designed to enable Politicians and their friends relatives and corporate rent seekers to write laws to enrich themselves. All these obvious conflicts of interest ( would be described as Corrupt Practices if carried out outside the UK) are conveniently deemed legal if they are openly declared in speeches to the House or before testifying before committees. The Governments Climate and Energy Policy is an Orwellian joke. Everybody except the useful idiot chattering classes understands that whatever the UK does re CO2 emissions will produce zero measurable effect on Temperatures in 2100 The Energy policy is designed to transfer money from the Public at Large to the Politicians and their Landowning friends and relatives and to the corporations who reward the Politicians with Directorships,shares and lucrative consultancies while at the same time reducing the supply of affordable energy to the populace at large, All these goings on are public knowledge available to anyone who cares to investigate and are generally recognized as the ordinary course of business. The Ecoleft Marxists and their propagandists in the BBC and the Guardian are happy to let the Politicians get away with their loot because the Government is a on the way to moving to centrally controlled Stalin – type economy as envisaged in the new Energy bill in which some government flunkey is going to decide in her infinite wisdom on a carbon price which essentially gives her control over the energy mix of the economy as a whole and by extension the price of everything produced in the UK.
The public as a whole mostly doesn’t think about these things at all and those that do adopt the typical British serf like approach to those they think of as their class betters who must obviously know more than they do. CAGW is a wonderful enabler for this massive transfer of wealth and will not be abandoned until perhaps hell freezes over.
Simon Eastman says:
December 16, 2013 at 2:45 am
…. don’t want to seem alarmist bu the science seems to suport cutting our emissions as quickly as possible and history seems to show that innovation creates economic opportunities rather than deiminishing them…
The science is not settled, cutting CO2 emissions will have no effect climate or global temperatures. There is more than enough CO2 in the atmosphere at present to absorb all the absorbable IR emitted from Earth. In fact if CO2 were vhalved to 200ppm theere wold still be more than enough to absorb to extinction all of the IR frequencies in the CO” wavebands.
In the UK any economic opportunities are more than offset by the green levy on energy costs making energy based industries uncompetitive and contributing to very high domestic fuel bills.
Simon Eastman says:
December 16, 2013 at 2:45 am
…. don’t want to seem alarmist bu the science seems to suport cutting our emissions as quickly as possible and history seems to show that innovation creates economic opportunities rather than deiminishing them…
The science is not settled, cutting CO2 emissions will have no effect on climate or global temperatures. There is more than enough CO2 in the atmosphere at present to absorb all the absorbable IR emitted from Earth. In fact if CO2 were vhalved to 200ppm there wold still be more than enough to absorb to extinction all of the IR frequencies in the CO2 wavebands.
In the UK any economic opportunities are more than offset by the green levy on energy costs making energy based industries uncompetitive and contributing to very high domestic fuel bills.
Dr Norman Page: The public as a whole mostly doesn’t think about these things at all and those that do adopt the typical British serf like approach to those they think of as their class betters who must obviously know more than they do.
Sorry Doc but, speaking as a typical British subject, I reckon your forelock tugging serfs “insight” is nothing shy of weapons grade wibble. I suggest you start listening to the “public at large”. You might learn something that surprises you. We’re not all politically ignorant, footie crazed, boozed up knuckle-draggers who can’t comprehend that we are being fleeced by government policies hardly any of us voted for.
I don’t know any serfs or anyone who acts like or wants to be a serf. The only people in Britain who have a problem with class are the progressives and union wallahs and they are the ones who have taken on board the CAGW
cash cowscam wholesale. If the public are in awe of anything it is the scale of the BS and lies our so called betters are frenziedly spreading around in order to try and bury the truth.Not everyone who visits and/or comments on WUWT has scientific training. Many of us are Brits, just ordinary people seeking the truth. And you’ve just insulted us. Well done.
UK Sceptic But y’all did vote for the present policies at the last election . Are there any UKIP members in the Commons ? They seem to be the only ones with any different policies on climate and energy. Don’t you think that most Brits ( not all obviously) simply repeat what the BBC and Guardian and Independent tell them on climate and are inclined to believe any scientist with a Sir or Lord before his name?
Delingpole and Rose are very much in the minority in the MSM.
(BTW I grew up in Liverpool and went to Oxford so I feel free to criticize)
UK Sceptic But y’all did vote for the present policies at the last election
No, we didn’t. You don’t get a hung parliament (coalition) from a popular vote. Politics in the UK is a sordid mess. People are so revolted by, and despairing of, the corruption and incompetence of our politicians they stay away from elections in droves.
Are there any UKIP members in the Commons?
No. And even if there were I don’t believe they’d change anything much because they might talk a good fight but they don’t have anything to back it up other than more rhetoric with a few banana skins thrown in for good measure. I wouldn’t be surprised if they went native the moment they grasped the teaspoon of power (the levers having been exported abroad and placed into the sweaty palms of unelected EU officials some time ago without so much as a by-your-leave or a referendum because the odds are that we would have told the State to shove it).
Don’t you think that most Brits ( not all obviously) simply repeat what the BBC and Guardian and Independent tell them on climate and are inclined to believe any scientist with a Sir or Lord before his name?
Most Brits do not read the Guardian or the Independent. Never have and probably never will. The fact both of those broadsheets have a plummeting circulation and are in financial straits, particularly the Guardian, makes a nonsense of your observation.
As for the BBC they might once have fooled a large percentage of their audience but people have been catching on for some years now. You can blame the evidence of the public’s own eyes not matching up to the claims being made by the BBC about the climate for example. The BBC simply cannot command the number of viewers it once had so it’s influence has waned exponentially.
As for scientists and nobs, I’m afraid the public has been bombarded with so much alarmism, and corruption only spin doctors and the most gullible take theses so called experts seriously anymore, their words no more than tomorrow’s chip paper. “Expert” has become a derogatory term. They are fake charities, agenda hustlers and spivs who constantly contradict each other and themselves as the political script is amended. We are no more in thrall to them than we are to Gordon Brown’s absurd claim to have saved the world from economic Armageddon.
We are sick of the corruption and troughing rife in both the Commons and the Lords. People are not so ready to accept what the “elite” tells us at face value and as information becomes more freely available, information not filtered by a celebrity infatuated, intellectually lazy and biased MSM, it is becoming harder for the elite to pull the wool over people’s eyes.
Delingpole and Rose are very much in the minority in the MSM.
Which is why the dead tree press is floundering and why people turn to the internet for information; to blogs like WUWT. Let’s not forget Christopher Booker of the Daily Telegraph who has been lifting the lid on the claims of the climate alarmists for far longer than Rose and the Mail.
BTW I grew up in Liverpool and went to Oxford so I feel free to criticize.
Oxford, eh? Is this the point where, according to your theory on the hierarchy of the British people, I now meekly accept your intellectual superiority and hang on to your every word?
Dream on, Doc. Dream on. ;0)