NOTE: See updates below, it appears a green group, Climate Justice Action claims responsibility and apparently attacked ECX.eu in a tiff over carbon credit policy.
The Independent Media Centre of Australia is reporting that the sister website of the flatlining Chicago Climate Exchange, the European Climate Exchange (ECX), had it’s main page hacked and replaced with the image above. I’ve confirmed this with Google cache of the ECX website available here, Screencap of the cached page here. [Update: Wikipedia now has a larger screencap online here]
While they have since taken down that image, video, and text, the main page and the rest of the website appears to still be mostly nonfunctional (as of this writing) as you can see in the next screencap.
Indymedia writes:
In a protest against carbon trading as a method for acting on climate change, on Friday, July 23 at just before midnight, the public website of the European Climate Exchange (ECX), the leading marketplace for trading CO2 emissions in Europe, was targetted by hacktivists of the autonomous tech collective *decocidio* (#?).
In a public act of digital direct action, the ECX website was taken offline and replaced with a message in an effort to try to raise awareness about carbon trading as a dangerous false solution to the climate crisis, in support of the grassroots activists aiming to oppose the power structures and companies profiteering from the dysfunctional Cap & Trade scheme.
The hacked page shows the embedded video of The Story of Cap and Trade with links to activist groups Earth First, Climate Justice Action, and the Hack Bloc. The purpose of the hack was to expose carbon trading as a scam:
According to the hack message:
“The Cap and Trade system (as implemented in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme) has a whole range of issues:
* It’s main purpose is not to reduce emissions, but to help polluters meet “reduction” targets in the cheapest way possible, in a business-as-usual scenario.
* Leaves room for unverifiable manipulation.
* Generates outrageous profits for big industry polluters, investors in fraudulent offset projects, opportunist traders and new ‘marketplaces’ such as the European Climate Exchange.
* It distracts attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken to tackle climate change and it’s fundamental root causes.”
In 2009 Friends of the Earth UK released a report warning that carbon trading could trigger a second ‘sub-prime’ style financial collapse and fail to protect the world from global warming catastrophe. A copy of the full report, ‘A Dangerous Obsession’, is available at: http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/dangerous_obsession.pdf
IndyMediaAU full story here, h/t to Tom Nelson
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In other news, if you are interested in Carbon Trading, there’s a manual for it:
Above: thanks to Kate at smalldeadanimals.com
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Update: For the record, to prevent some from jumping to conclusions, I don’t condone hacking of websites. I also don’t condone carbon trading as I think it is indeed a recipe for easy abuse and “gaming” of the system.
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Update2: The hacker or hackers identifies on Wikipedia:
Excerpt:
Decocidio #ϴ is an anonymous group of hacktivists describing themselves as an autonomous tech collective. They take action in the spirit of Climate Justice Action, pursuing the same goals.
In a bizarre twist, it appears that one group of greens (CJA) attacked another (ECX.eu).
h/t to WUWT reader Neil
=========================================
Update3: It appears that the ECX website is back to normal now, but look at what is on the main page:
It’s worse than we thought.
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Well I for one encourage the activities of these miscreants.
It is time they were unmasked publicly and treated accordingly.
David Davidovics says:
July 24, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Did anyone else catch the south park reference with steps 6 and 7?
Sure did — it looks like the business model of the Underpants Gnomes:
step 1: steal underpants
step 2: ???
step 3: profit
Like Hansen, insisting on the whole loaf, they end up with none. The ideologues of a failed ideology can be counted on to get it wrong. Were I a CAGW proponent I would detest crap and spade too, but would recognize that it was at least a tiny step to test the waters on action against GW. It’s the best politicians can do. Thank God these guys always find a way to self destruct.
The report by The Independent Media Centre of Australia (in WUWT post above) implies the existence of eco-terrorism by Green groups that targets other members of the Green movement.
This shows the possible existence of environmentalist cannibalism.
They are eating their own now?
John
How can you expect not to get hacked when your site password is “algore” ?
‘We apologise for the inconveniency’ ????????
Do they mean ‘inconvenience’ ?
AAiM, Any market can be manipulated, but the example you use isn’t a good one. Virtually everyone in my corner of the business saw the collapse in housing stocks at a given. It was only a timing decision as to when and and investment decision as to how much should be shorted.
The think about the US stock market is that it’s a well understood mechanism. The “stock police” as well as market competitors are well aware of all the ways of manipulating the market. As such it’s pretty easy to spot, police and correct. Even more so now with good analysis software. (back in the day, it took a very skilled trader/observer to note “extraordinary” trading activity and investigate such.
Now, carbon trading is based upon a fraud itself. It is certainly almost a surety that many of not most of the big players are there merely to game the system. I believe that no truly ethical traders or investors would want to have anything to do with it. Who’s left?
Mark
Amino Acids in Meteorites says: July 25, 2010 at 12:19 am
Leaves room for unverifiable manipulation.
I think any stock market has room for this. In America some big bankers shorted housing stocks just before the housing market crash happened a couple years ago. There’s lots of things going on in stock markets that average people don’t understand. It’s about as safe for people who don’t know what they’re doing to get involved in stocks as it is to go to Vegas.
M White says:
July 25, 2010 at 2:09 am
“The only people we hate more than BIG OIL is the European Climate Exchange”
*HEARTY* LOL!!!
Beat me too it!
More seriously, this little incident is instructive on a number of levels. First, and foremost, many of us (me included) have been tending to view the AGW alarmists collectively as being of one mind. Such is not only incorrect but it’s a tad immoral. That’s as bad as viewing all skeptics as a monolith or all white folks, or women, or gays as a monolith. We’re individuals and when we may be collectivized, it’s only within very narrow contexts.
Secondly, this does show how irrational some of the green base are. They seem to have problems with about the only good and reasonable aspects of “cap and trade”. Seems to them that anyone making money and complying efficiently with reduction goals while still staying in business is the problem for these folks. They’re fundamentally anti-capitalist and perhaps more than a little immature and irrational.
Mark
Tony Hansen says:
July 25, 2010 at 3:31 am
With friends like this…..
————–
Gavin of RC and Judith Curry have just been at each others throats apparently.
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=4431#comment-181895
* It’s main purpose is not to reduce emissions, but to help polluters meet “reduction” targets in the cheapest way possible, in a business-as-usual scenario.
* Leaves room for unverifiable manipulation.
* Generates outrageous profits for big industry polluters, investors in fraudulent offset projects, opportunist traders and new ‘marketplaces’ such as the European Climate Exchange.
* It distracts attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken to tackle climate change and it’s fundamental root causes.”
Sometimes, the hardest part of being Mayor is recognizing when the village idiot has a one-in-a-lifetime flash of genius.
Taxing Thin Air
There’s a ton of money to be extorted from the public in the West by taxing thin air, aka “cap and trade”.
Once the Earth’s atmosphere has been fully monetized, and made exchangeable through “carbon credits” – a fiat currency derived from governmental “ownership” of the Earth’s atmosphere – all the insiders, manipulators, lobbyists, and other parasites will pocket their billion$ through the skimming mechanisms now in place such as the Chicago Climate Exchange, the European Climate Exchange, etc.
There’s too much money to be made from taxing the air, and too many politicians and manipulators anxious to pocket whatever can be stolen from the public. So – never mind the science (mostly fraudulent anyway) – they are determined to force upon us “cap and trade” in some form or another by hook or by crook, or both.
#6 on the page should have been “Makes its own gravy”.
Jack Savage says:
July 25, 2010 at 12:15 am
…… I am convinced that carbon trading really is a scam and it distracts us from real environmental problems and causes needless expense to the common man.
_____________________________________________________
I agree.
It never fails to astound me that the greens, can not see they are being manipulated and have been for years. Maurice Strong, chair of the First Earth Summit and Kyoto, and an important member of the UN commission on Global Governance, was president of an oil company for deity’s sake. Greenpeace and WWF get funded by Standard Oil dollars. And for some crazy reason they think those who see CAGW as nothing but a moneymaking power trip are FOR mega-poluting!
So it seems some of the greens are waking up but as usual they show they do not have much in the way of honor or integrity.
Lest we forget the esteemed Catlin ‘expedition’ and their unique portrayal of the waggle-dance. Still LMTO…..
Sorry, but this doesn’t bother me at all. As a computer professional myself (and Hacker, not Cracker), this only gives me a chuckle. It is these sort of events that supply me with job security. I hack (create things) to keep these things from happening to my clients. This simply helps support my industry, doesn’t bother me a bit.
Welcome to the wonderful world of distributed computing! It’s a wild wild west out there!
Cheers!
Cute.
On a par with those noble protagonists from that great literary digest, Mad magazine, Spy vs Spy.
“Further, show a citation where I specifically said, in my words, not words or interpretation of others “climate scientists of being part of some crazy conspiracy” or withdraw your claim.” – Anthony
You are the publisher of this cite. You regularly post material from Steve Goddard that claims U.S. temperature data is deliberately adjusted to show warming. You and Steve wrote: “NCDC has done an first rate job raising Arizona summer temperatures… How did they accomplish this? – by magic!” I read that as a claim that NCDC scientists are in a conspiracy to distort data. If you wish to clarify you remark please feel free.
REPLY: FAIL, you can’t cite it (me accusing a conspiracy of scientists) , because it doesn’t exist, thus your comment has been stricken. And further, NOAA NCDC does in fact deliberately adjust surface temperature data, by their own admission, and the result is warming. See NOAA NCDC graphs below. Oh and site as in “website”, cite as in “reference.” – Anthony
Source: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ndp019.html
The ‘Climate on Sale’ or perhaps more like ‘Climate For Sale’ strikes me as an apt cry against the ‘warmist’ tendency.
The reason ‘climate’ is popular is the many ways many can make money out of it.
Gail Combs says:
July 25, 2010 at 10:20 am
They (real Greens) are starting to realize that they have thumbed a bad hitchhike.
They are starting to get that they will be among the first to be tossed under the Bus, should Cap & Trade succeed, up front or by bureaucratic fiat.
Karl Maki says:
July 25, 2010 at 7:17 am
Sure did — it looks like the business model of the Underpants Gnomes:
step 1: steal underpants
step 2: ???
step 3: profit
======================
Thats the one 😉
Mike,
Did you know about ‘homogenization’ and other ‘adjustments’?
Mike,
You may have the impression that only Goddard and Watts have questions bout temperature data. But you have to step back and take a look at a bigger picture:
UHI adjusted or not adjusted:
Mike,
Temperature stations in cooler areas have been dropped from the record. Please take the time to check into these things for yourself. You can do your own study. You don’t have to believe me. But what does dropping of stations in cooler areas mean? I think everyone should take the time to think about that.
dropping of stations:
Digital direct action? That’s some fantastic Newspeak Indymedia!
It was only a matter of time before the anti-Globalization movement took aim at Big Carbon. It is obvious that Big Carbon is just one more thrust of Big Statism. And, yes, the anti-Globalization folk do overlap with the Greens. So, yes, it could have been done by greens but all those folks approve – not necessarily of hacking, but of protesting in their inimical ways Big Carbon.