Guest post by Thomas Fuller, San Francisco Environmental Examiner
Some background.
1. The Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University has published science that was integral to the decision of the EU and the UK to immediately implement programs subsidizing the installation of green energy generation systems.
2. Those subsidies amounted to approximately $50 billion U.S. dollars in 2008 alone.
3. Organised crime has already moved to profit from these subsidies, which appear to lack adequate controls to prevent misuse.
4. When the authorised leak of emails and documents resulted in the Climategate scandal of November 2009, it caused considerable havoc in stock market prices of green energy companies, especially when it was followed by Copenhagen, a cold winter, and scandal in carbon certificate trading.
5. East Anglia University commissioned an investigation into the practices of its research unit and asked Lord Oxburgh to chair the panel.
6. Lord Oxburgh is chairman of Falck Renewables, a manufacturer of windfarms and the UK subsidiary of The Falck Group, a Milan-based manufacturer.
7. A sister company of Oxburgh’s Falck Renewables, Actelios, is publicly traded and had suffered serious falls in its stock price during the period of Climategate, etc.
8. Lord Oxburgh’s company, its parent and more than one of its sister companies have had organised crime activities surrounding their acquisition of property and installation of green energy systems.
9. The green energy industry, organised crime investors, Falck Renewables and its parent and sister companies stood to benefit from an investigation the results of which did not overturn the science findings of CRU.
10. The investigation by Lord Oxburgh was perfunctory. The report was 5 pages. It interviewed no-one who was not employed by the University. It reviewed 11 papers that were not part of the Climategate controversy. Those papers were selected either by the University itself or a committee of the Royal Society on which Phil Jones, director of CRU, was a member.
Do I believe the ‘mob directed the investigation?’ Of course not. Do I believe that Lord Oxburgh had additional reasons to weight the findings of his investigation in favor of the status quo? It’s certainly possible. Do I think that having an underworld connection to renewable energy subsidies prejudices almost every decision made about renewable energy? Definitely. Do I believe East Anglia University chose the wrong person to chair its investigation? Absolutely.
When Lord Oxburgh was asked to chair the inquiry into the scientific practices at CRU, home of the Climategate emails, many sources questioned whether he would be able to be objective. This is because of his leadership of a company that builds windfarms in the UK and Europe. There may have been other reasons to question his ability to be objective. The sister company of Falck Renewables, the publicly traded Actelios, had lost half its value in the preceding months, following the Climategate scandal, the failure of Copenhagen climate talks and perceptions of a cold winter in Europe and America. Lord Oxburgh may have had a lot on the line, and may well have needed the verdict his panel produced.
But there may well be more. Much like the late 19th century produced plenty of sordid stories and crime in the development of the oil industry, there is a lot of organised crime rushing to get involved in renewable energy. We can either praise the mafia’s newfound sense of ecological correctness or note the large amount of government subsidy being thrown around rather carelessly.
Lord Oxburgh is chairman of Falck Renewables, a windfarm manufacturer that is a subsiidiary of the troubled Falck Group in Milan, Italy. The projects that Falck Renewables build seem to follow a pattern:
Their project in La Muela, Spain, was associated with the arrest of 18 people on organised crime issues.
“Powerful wind turbines churned the air above La Muela last week but the stir in this small Aragonese town was caused by the arrest of the mayor and 18 other people on charges that reveal a new phenomenon in Spain: eco-corruption.”
And at Falck’s windfarm at Buddusò – Alà dei Sardi: “Four people arrested, seven wind farms and 12 companies under sequestration, and ‘that’s the outcome of the operation’ Gone With the Wind ‘for which the magistrate court of Avellino has issued arrest warrants for Oreste Vigorito, 62 years Naples lawyer, administrator and president of IVPC Benevento Calcio; Vito Nicastro, 52 years of Alcamo, Ferdinand Renzulli, 42 years of Avellino, and Vincent Dongarra, 46 years of Enna. Another 11 people were investigated in various capacities for accountability in organized fraud for receiving government grants for the construction of wind farms. Nine of the seized companies are based in Avellino, the other 3 in Sicily.”
As for Falck’s windfarm at Minervino Murge, we reported on Friday,”the Anti-Mafia prosecutor in Trapani gave life operation “Aeolus”, with 8 arrest warrants issued at the time of men linked to local clans, public administrators, municipal officials and entrepreneurs “for allowing the association called La Cosa Nostra mafia, and in particular the Mafia family Mazara del Vallo control of economic activities, permits, contracts and public services in the production of electricity through wind turbines and the exchange of vows political mafia. ” identification of persons and companies involved in the investigation Sicilian revealed disturbing links with the construction of wind farms in the territory of Puglia: Minervino Murge, Spinazzola and Poggiorsini municipalities in whose territories some companies have shown interest and in some cases initiated installations without the necessary concessions.”
As for their wind farm near Palermo, Petralia Sottana, what do “Puglia, Sicily, Mazara del Vallo-Minervino Murge have in common? Nothing but interest for wind power. Companies interested in plant wind turbines in Apulia are committed to the same plant in Sicily, the same involved in an investigation initiated by the hot anti-Mafia prosecutor in Trapani and actually called, “Aeolus.” On 17 February, the Anti-Mafia prosecutor in Trapani gave life operation “Aeolus”, with 8 arrest warrants issued at the time of men linked to local clans, public administrators, municipal officials and entrepreneurs “for allowing the association called La Cosa Nostra mafia, and in particular the Mafia family Mazara del Vallo control of economic activities, permits, contracts and public services in the production of electricity through wind turbines and the exchange of vows political mafia.”
Italian and EU subsidies for the building of wind farms and the world’s highest guaranteed rates, €180 ($240, £160) per kwh, for the electricity they produce have turned southern Italy into a highly attractive market exploited by organised crime.
As a 2009 story by the Financial Times put it, “Multinationals are starting to find out something that is well known to Italian investors: that concealed beneath Europe’s most generous system of incentives – supported by “green credits” that industrial polluters have to purchase – there exists a web of corruption and shady deals.
Rossana Interlandi, recently appointed head of Sicily’s environment department, explains that project developers – she calls them “speculators” – were also lured by the appeal of a law that obliges Italy’s national grid operator to pay wind farm owners even when they are not producing electricity.”
The number of Italian cities with a windfarm nearby has doubled within a year, thanks to EU subsidies. It would be astonishing if the Mafia hadn’t gotten involved.
The situation has deteriorated in Italy to the point that they are moving to residential solar to cut CO2 emissions, in large part to minimize Mafia involvement.
Wind energy has become big business and it’s growing in a hurry. Lots of shady people are getting involved, in no small part because of government subsidies for both construction and feed in tariffs for green electricity.
The parent group of Oxburgh’s Falck Renewables is the Falck Group of Milan. As with so many Italian businesses, it’s a complicated maze of crossholdings and interlocked ownership that makes it almost impossible to decipher. However Falck’s sister company Actelios was the target of an anti-Mafia investigation, as reported last week.
Nobody from Falck Renewables or its parent company has been arrested, although Achille Colombo, its former head, has resigned, and news reports of questionable dealings with a Sicilian incinerator project that was cancelled have arisen. The deal, which was cancelled and is still under investigation, was worth an estimated € 4 billion. Falck Group is a Milan based company that has built windfarms in Calabria and Sicily that have been part of an anti-Mafia investigation. Some of the windfarms, including one near Corleone, were completed quite some time ago, but haven’t been connected to the grid. However, generous EU subsidies were forthcoming nonetheless.
Falck’s sister company Platani Energia Ambiente was part of an anti-mafia investigation regarding a controversial land deal that lasted from 2002 to 2007 and involved the removal from office of the contract administrator, Gioacchino Genchi.
Just about the last thing they needed was news that wind energy wasn’t crucial to the planet’s survival. Just about the last thing they needed was news that the research unit that told the world that current warming was unprecedented in the past 1,000 years was probably wrong. The recession had hammered stock prices in green technology. The failure of COP15 in Copenhagen, the collapse of carbon pricing and various scandals about trading permits had not helped.
A quick investigation focussing on internal interviews and a review of papers selected (it seems) by a committee on which one of the targets of the investigation served, and pointedly did not review any of the papers that had been criticized by skeptics, left the CRU smelling like a ‘slightly disorganized but committed’ rose.
The reaction of major media sources and governments to the Oxburgh results show that his findings were more than welcome–they may well have been necessary to continue the momentum for widespread conversion to green energy.
I’ll repeat here that I have no evidence linking Oxburgh or his company to the mafia–even honest companies in Italy can’t get far away from the mafia and can be surprised when they are linked in an investigation. I have interviewed none of the principals in this story, which would be the first course of action for an investigative reporter, which I am not. I am an opinion commentator who happens to read Italian, having lived there for seven years.
But the pressure Lord Oxburgh’s company was under due to general financial conditions and being enmeshed in legal difficulties in Italy make it inevitable that someone would raise the question of whether he could have been impartial.
More importantly, the flood of new government money, new deals and new partnerships for projects in faraway countries makes due diligence difficult, if not impossible. This is a Wild West frenzy of renewable building and carbon trading, and there have been scandals for years–and there will be more. What was the thinking behind choosing someone (even one so respected as Oxburgh) to sit in judgment on issues that affected his company’s health–even survival? I’ll repeat I’m not questioning Oxburgh’s integrity–but could anyone from the renewable sector have escaped some kind of association of this sort? In 2009 alone, 19 were arrested in Spain in connection with corruption surrounding a wind farm, there was a scandal regarding recycled carbon trading permits in Hungary, a regulator in Maine accepted an ownership interest in a company he regulated and which he went on to lead, a Washington biologist is accused of steering wind farm funding to his non-profit, Canada is investigating lobbying violations by green lobbyists, the list literally goes on and on.
And now a company with so many controversial ties to scandals in renewable energy comes up with a verdict that provides needed breathing space for renewable energy companies in general, and his own and his sister companies to boot.
It was a most convenient finding, this exoneration of CRU.
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Thomas Fuller.
The Milano ‘La Stampa’ reported in March that ENL (the Italian Electricity provider) had suspended payments to solar panel electric Companies as there was exceptionally high use of online electricity being diverted into the solar panel grid. ( diverting 1 kw and passing it into the solar system meter gives the thief plus minus 0.35 cents a kw profit )
Oxburgh had a clear conflict of interest. Why was he appointed? Given the comments above, I believe that corruption is the answer. How do we reply? Well, the majority are apathetic and will move as they are told to do. We have to target opinion makers – Newspapers and TV. Then we have to bring these scammers to trial and this is going to take a lot of cash. But the choice is clear. Fight for your democracy or lose it. I suspect we have already lost it. We have unelected civil servants running Europe and a US president who will look away at the green corruption of his own machine – a man who even appeals for votes on the basis of race. OK, we may lose but if you don’t fight, defeat is certain.
Nice article Tom.
Steven mosher (08:30:28) :
“you really SHOULD read more about Tom and what he believes before you write. I’ll speak for Tom because he is a friend and we wrote a book together. As we argued in that book. NOTHING in the mails changes the science.”
I stand corrected. Maybe I should have read more or maybe
Tom Fuller should have stated this as clearly as you did now.
Small matter in the end.
I find your ´’lukewarm’ stance interesting, because it is reasonable:
1. we are unsure about the level of warming
2. uncertain about feedbacks
3. uncertain that warming will be damaging
4. uncertain about the best course of action.
1. so am I , but ‘prepare for the worst’ see point 4
2. so am I, but being an ecologist the possible biosphere
feedbacks (e.g. methane bursts) are nightmarish. That
said, it is perfectly possible we will might never be able to
predict the whole earth system.
3. there are so many possible effects – the most likely,
unfortunately will hit where it hurts most; arid, densely
populated areas with little resilience
4. I see it mostly in terms of risk management: inaction
is not a good option when confronted with uncertain,
but potentially catastrophic far into the future. A climate
policy is costly, but spread out over time doable (maybe
3% of global GP). And would have positive side-effects,
lower dependence on fossil fuels – think of the political
benefits: less dependence on MIddle East, Russia, etc
No surprise. The whole AGW project is basically extortion. Give us power, money or you will die of ‘planetary fever.’
So they are making us an offer we can’t refuse.
The level of fear-mongering, shout-downs of sceptics, and fraudulent ‘science’ employed in this extortion effort has made it all too obvious.
And there is soooo much money at stake.
Only problem is that look who is involved in this. Goes right to the very top.
But great article from a courageous journalist – in San Francisco no less. Expect to see some Pelosi goons.
Gail Combs (09:27:56) : OT. But, Afghanistan. Shocking about those record opium crops.
La CO2a Nostra
Ask any Italian and they’ll tell you the mafia has also taken hold of the country’s waste recycling business too and turned Naples into a dumping ground.
NZ Willy (23:56:49) :
‘ “Falck Renewables” indeed. Why not cut through the East-Anglia BS and just call it “Flick Renewables” in the spirit that JFK called his ladies “flickers”, or even cut further and just call it F…’
I think there is a misunderstanding about the spelling.
‘Falck Renewables’ has a capital ‘i’ in the middle: ‘faick’. It’s a tongue-in-cheek joke on the rest of us.
Al Gore’s Holy Hologram, I am stealing that (but I’ll give you credit…) La CO2a Nostra… thanks in advance.
My impression is that the next thing we’re going to see is bloody dead horse’s heads appearing in the beds of Lord Monckton, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, Chris Horner, Marc Morano and many more…
Mafias are tough guys. You don’t want to mess up with them.
“”” Mike (05:47:38) :
Isn’t all business organised crime? “””
Only if it is used to provide jobs for people who otherwisw would be unemployable.
From Jan 25, 2009.
“The United Nations’ crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis …
Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often became the only available capital when the crisis spiralled out of control last year.
“In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital,” Costa was quoted as saying by Profil. “In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had found evidence that “interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities,” Costa was quoted as saying. There were “signs that some banks were rescued in that way.”
Profil said Costa declined to identify countries or banks which may have received drug money and gave no indication how much cash might be involved. He only said Austria was not on top of his list…”
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLP65079620090125
HA ! Some conspiracy.
mikael pihlström (12:08:18) :
Steven mosher (08:30:28) :
“you really SHOULD read more about Tom and what he believes before you write. I’ll speak for Tom because he is a friend and we wrote a book together. As we argued in that book. NOTHING in the mails changes the science.”
I stand corrected. Maybe I should have read more or maybe
Tom Fuller should have stated this as clearly as you did now.
Small matter in the end.
“I find your ´’lukewarm’ stance interesting, because it is reasonable:
1. we are unsure about the level of warming
2. uncertain about feedbacks
3. uncertain that warming will be damaging
4. uncertain about the best course of action.
1. so am I , but ‘prepare for the worst’ see point 4
2. so am I, but being an ecologist the possible biosphere
feedbacks (e.g. methane bursts) are nightmarish. That
said, it is perfectly possible we will might never be able to
predict the whole earth system.
3. there are so many possible effects – the most likely,
unfortunately will hit where it hurts most; arid, densely
populated areas with little resilience
4. I see it mostly in terms of risk management: inaction
is not a good option when confronted with uncertain,
but potentially catastrophic far into the future. A climate
policy is costly, but spread out over time doable (maybe
3% of global GP). And would have positive side-effects,
lower dependence on fossil fuels – think of the political
benefits: less dependence on MIddle East, Russia, etc”
OKAY, THAT’S IT! I’VE HAD IT!
Mikael:
I have tried to avoid commenting on even the most ridiculous statements posted here by advocates of one stripe or another, but (moderators, forgive me), sonny, you have just crossed the threshold of my resistance.
1. Mikael, “preparing for the worst” is a weak, cowardly, and poorly-defensive posture which prevents you from embracing change, investing whole-heartedly in the future, and capitalizing on new opportunities. If history is any guide, and I have no doubts, warmer times, if ahead, are to be welcomed.
2. I have yet to meet an “ecologist” who can make an honest living for himself and his family without a very generous, politically-approvable, government grant, which obviously strains the meaning of “honest living”.
3. What alien planet’s history have you been taught? Over the past eons, ecologically stressed areas have the prime source of countless human migrations, which have led to the wonder of diversity which we see in humankind today. The cultural sharing, although often involuntary, has created tough, vibrant, outward-looking human cultures, which are just the kind that I believe are needed to take us to the stars, and thus end the cycle of extinction of the dominant species by external events, which has characterized the past. Shouldn’t you and your cohorts be working to encourage the resettlement of endangered humans (if that’s what you think they are) to safer areas? You can do it. YES YOU CAN! Just remember, they might not want to move on the basis of climate modeling which seems to be, ah, quite problematic.
4 a. Risk management has not created any new real world solutions, has never accurately predicted problems which will arise, and has never gotten past the basic reason for the existence of risk management: providing some kind of excuse when some vulnerable entity is being sued by American-style personal injury shysters.
Inaction is not merely a good option, it is the only option which is scientifically justifiable. “No definitive answers” should equate to no drastic, permanent, unrecoverable, highly-experimental attempts to influence the results.
b. Why should the world give your masters 3% of the world’s GDP, based on the 2030 PROJECTED valuations? Three trillion American Goddamn Greenback dollars? (Isn’t that what Mr. Patchy demanded in Copenhagen? Well, whatever. It’s a noticeably amount of money.) Even allowing for ObamaFlation, that’s more than even another of his donor-pal bank bailouts. And that didn’t turn out so well either. And give it to whom? Mr. Patchy?
c. What’s so wrong with the Western World utilizing the oil that Russia and the Middle East wants to sell? News Flash! Have you noticed that people who invest their money in you, and who are financially dependent on your continuing patronage rarely, if ever, attack and seek to destroy you and your means of paying them back for their goods and services? The price of your gasoline is merely reflective of the taxes your elected representatives have chosen to inflict upon you, for your own good, of course. Do you really care if the oil consumers of the world, who all use the same pooled oil resources, exhaust the supplies of the erstwhile commies and the desert dwelling humans before they uncap the thousands of already-located, already-drilled, and already-capped wells in the western part of the American Midwest? No, I didn’t think so. Actually, I do. I met a lot of very personable desert-dweller types in Texas, and I liked them. Very like Texans, really. Their lives sway back and forth with the price of Light Crude at the New York Mercantile. Haven’t met that many erstwhile commies, except in taxicabs in Boston. Scary to have your fortune in the hands of erstwhile commies, but scarier to have your fortune in the hands of the New York Mercantile.
Dr. Roy Spencer will be interviewed tonight (Mon.) on Coast-to-Coast from 10pm to 2am Pacific time.
Mike:
“‘Isn’t all business organised crime?”
There are more than a few businesses I have worked with/for that only warrant the descriptor “organized” if “dis-” comes before it. I leave the criticism of the crime part to others.
Henry Phipps (17:53:10) :
2. I have yet to meet an “ecologist” who can make an honest living for himself and his family without a very generous, politically-approvable, government grant, which obviously strains the meaning of “honest living”.
I have competed and won some grants, but predominantly earned
money elsewhere. But, your attitude is destructive to intelligence:
Why is the US the leading economic power in the world? Because,
it has developed excellence in science and RTD; part of it is ‘good
scientific tradition’, originally imported from Europe, but developed
to its full in the US; part of it is correlative to the money allocated.
Now, you and your likes want to cut the tree down, because some
branches produce fruit that you instinctively find disturbing?
Henry Phipps (17:53:10)
1. Mikael, “preparing for the worst” is a weak, cowardly, and poorly-defensive posture which prevents you from embracing change, investing whole-heartedly in the future, and capitalizing on new opportunities. If history is any guide, and I have no doubts, warmer times, if ahead, are to be welcomed.
On the contrary denying even the possibility of damaging
warming scenarios is weak,, cowardly etc. I am all for change
climate policy and so on.
Henry Phipps (17:53:10)
3. What alien planet’s history have you been taught? Over the past eons, ecologically stressed areas have the prime source of countless
human migrations …
Please update your worldview. I always get this response
from your fraction: as if it was about moving a small population
of nomads. We talk about e.g. 100 M’s chinese, densely populated
deltas in Bangladesh or Egypt. Resettlement is always painful and a last
resort, but I think the Togans have it in their backhead as salt water
penetrates their wells.
Well done!
Always. Follow. The. Money.
It’s not just a cliche. It’s good advice.