Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Anyone concerned about the huge influence of Wall Street on our lives should definitely be protesting the influence of Wall Street on the upcoming climate conference in Durban, South Africa. Durban is the latest incarnation of the occasional IPCC celebration. I’m not sure what it celebrates, perhaps they are celebrating being given prepaid tickets and receiving a salary plus a per diem to fly halfway round the world to a lovely remote spot to listen to people talk about wasting fossil fuel.
I know I’d celebrate if some one paid me to do that. In any case, the last party was in Cancun, and the party before that in Copenhagen. The hard life of the climate bureaucrat. The web site for the party is here, so you can see what your taxes are paying for.
Figure 1. This image illustrates the change in climate that the participants in the Durban COP 17–CMP 7 will be forced to endure. The “17” means that this is the seventeenth time they’ve had this party, or as they call it, this “Conference of Parties”. Seventeen. Parties. The majority of the participants will be moving from late fall/early winter to late spring/early summer in Durban. I doubt that there will be many complaints about the warming involved in that change of seasons, despite the fact that it will be more than the dreaded 2°C tipping point of warming..
So what is Wall Street’s take on the Durban CO2 conference? What do the bankers say about the proposed extension of Kyoto? Here’s one man’s take, from Reuters :
“Parties must take the opportunity in Durban to send strong signals to the carbon market regarding their commitment to its continuation and future development,” said Jose Tumkaya, chief operating officer at UK emissions-reduction project developer Ecosecurities, a JP Morgan-owned firm. SOURCE
So we have a carbon offset project developer. Said carbon reduction person makes money from reducing carbon. Banks like money. They bought up the carbon offset project development firm. It is now owned by JP Morgan.
And now, being owned by JP Morgan, and thus being Very Important People (ex officio), they get interviewed by the media to give us their impartial view of the situation:
“Negotiators should be concerned about the historic low carbon prices as they do reflect, to some degree, a lack of confidence in the long-term commitment to existing emission reduction targets, as well as continued uncertainty with regards to a future international agreement,” he said.
Be concerned, be very, very concerned …
Ah, well. The bankers are pleading for the negotiators to come up with something, anything, to keep their Rumplestiltskin machine spinning carbon into money.
So we’ve got the banks against us … gonna be a long fight. This is Wall Street at its worst, looking to keep the carbon hype afloat and pushing to keep those sweet carbon bucks rolling in.
Where are the OCCUPY! folks when we need them? I say bring on the tents and the undercooked bulgur wheat, let’s OCCUPY COP 17–CMP 7 !
w.
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SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND POWER CRISIS
(Reward NRs. 100,000/= One Lakh to First who can prove wrong) Dr. Dev Bahadur Dongol
(In The Rising Nepal: Overturning Global Warming; 25 June 2009 and Don’t Blame Gases For Green House Effect; 24 September 2009 and By Mark W. Hendrickson; Don’t Treat Co2 As A Pollutant, 25 June 2009)
What we know
a. Related to climate change – CLIMATE CHANGE DUE TO GASES IS IMPOSSIBLE: SOLUTION TO Climate Change…
[SNIP: Long, intricate, copied and pasted mix of arguments covering every subject imaginable. Way off topic. -w.]
“Where are the OCCUPY! folks when we need them?” Ummmm. Um, no – I guess.
S***!
“Historic low carbon prices” WTF.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Another Gathering of te Druids, for them to Glurge and Mope over scandalous Refugee Displacements and tell Lies about Blizzards. All of it In-Your-Face hypocrasy as they galavant about the globe eating hors d’ouvres and patting each other on the back. Bloody sickening. A grand display to be fawned over by CNN and its collection of arrogant airheads.
Very good point. No doubt, the ‘occupy this!’ types are a bit confused. Carbon investors will continue to lose their shorts unless the eco-warriors’ dreams come true: a worldwide treaty to radically punish production of CO2.
Ain’t gonna happen.
BTW, COP 16 was in Cancùn, not Mexico City. Remember the irony of the cold weather there? Durban will be in late spring – should be hot.
Kurt in Switzerland
I’ll bring Misti.
Willis, Did you notice the obligatory stranded polar bear in the publicity shots for COP17 ar Durban?
http://www.geoffstuff.com/Durban%20bear.JPG
The last party was in Cancun, not Mexico City. You know, that warm beach resort (in Mexico) which at the time the freeloaders arrived was suffering from very low temperatures courtesy of: global warming; or was it the gore effect?
[REPLY: Tru dat, fixed. -w.]
Challenge to IPCC / UNFCCC, SHAME ON YOU
Solution to CC and Power crisis
Dear Dr. Pachauri and Mr. Algore,
Please give me either one scientific reason/ theory that justifies CC is due to gases OR STOP ACCUSING GASES for CC. Just accusation is not science. CC by gases is impossible. Please visit devbahadurdongol.blogspot.com for solutions to CC and ‘power crisis’. Summary is attached for your convenience. I have also explained the mistake being done in the hydropower engineering and, its correction can give us unlimited hydropower.
Challenger,
Dr. Dev
I thought people were occupying Wall Street protesting against what the ‘bankers’ are doing with all the money? I’m pretty sure they are generally against the JP Morgans of the world and what they’ve been up to.
Just checking wikipedia this kind of thing does seem to be covered under what they list as the aims, especially the ‘lobbyist’ bit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street
“They are mainly protesting social and economic inequality, corporate greed, corruption and influence over government—particularly from the financial services sector—and lobbyists. The protesters’ slogan, “We are the 99%”, refers to the difference in wealth in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population.”
Dev Bahadur Dongol says:
November 2, 2011 at 1:09 am
Haha, love the first point on your blog:
1.Gases as fluids with freely moving molecules can’t form green house,
That’s where everyones been going wrong I guess, why did no one else think of that? Can I ask where you bought you PhD from? I might get one too!
could you please show me how gases can form a green house? i hope you know what is a green house, it as a structure to make needs transparent solid materials like plastics or glass, not to mention other materials required for construction. i did not buy Ph.D but earned. if you have read the blog carefully you should have known, since i have mentioned about it in the blog. its pity you are in the business of buying selling academic degrees.
Correction needed. It was Copenhagen, Cancun, then Durban, not Mexico City.
In a democracy you can remove a government by an election but how can we change bankers to ones who are science savvy?
Willis I’m not sure we (South Africans) would agree that Durban is a “lovely remote spot” with a rising population of about 3.2 million. Durbans coasts both north and south are pretty heavily developed “holiday destinations” probably similar to the California coastline, also home to one of our more successful rugby union teams the Sharks (although they were mauled recently by gold reef boys the Lions) Anyway, I agree a lot of hot air will be seen rising and of course our Government reps. will be there in full force milking the apologist west for all they’re worth trying to shake of few billion dollars to “compensate” for the “damage” they have caused, naturally no one will mention that all the countries dams are full to capacity, that we have had a pretty cold winter after a mild summer last, and it looks to repeat again this season. But, hey if you guys have such a bad conscience and a trainload of spare cash – by all means – our energy and fuel costs are soaring and we need somebody to pay for it. Oh and you won’t get any local protesters, they’re all be on the beach or partying with you guys.
Durban is a natural choice for them following the Copanhagen snow debacle.
Hot and humid all year round, it will have all these monkeys in business suits sweat their eyeballs out, easier than fiddling the aircon.
South Africa has also become an international whore for any kind of promises of money, and will go out of their way to accomodate these fatcats in the holiday city.
Its well established that the UK Parliament is, to many intents and purposes, a university cum finishing school for those wishing to enter much more lucrative careers ‘in The City’. As Members of Parliament, the students learn all about how Government works and build an impressive list of contacts in the Civil Service (the real law makers of the country) and be privy to/help shape upcoming legislation. Once ‘graduated’, ex MPs are very valuable to big industry, banks and finance houses. Witness our very own Tony Blair, ex Prime Minister and now ‘advisor to JP Morgan at £2.5 million per year – something like 20 times his PM salary alone just for that one position among (how) many others.
Then, after a few years ‘in The City’, they return as members of The House of Lords.
The EU is the same and are even trying to do something about it..
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3326189,00.html
esp as many/most of these ‘lobbyists’ are ex EU insiders.
The whole thing is far to close, cosy and thoroughly stinks.
I’d suggest that the ‘Occupy’ people do have a point of sorts but are aiming at the wrong target(s)
Climate change? It’s all politics and, as the saying goes, politics makes for strange bedfellows.
KPO says:
November 2, 2011 at 3:01 am
“Oh and you won’t get any local protesters, they’re all be on the beach or partying with you guys.”
The EU delegations will bring their own.
Durban – a “lovely spot”?
It is a dirty, hot, sweaty, dangerous dump, with one redeeming grace: it’s a great place to be mugged.
A good mugging is usually a sure cure for being a liberal; in extreme cases two muggings are sometimes needed. There is a good chance some of the AGW faithful will get mugged – you never know, that could be a cure for their condition.
Willis:
I checked out how they are going to off set all that carbon they generate through the conference. It says absolutely nothing. Just platitudes and handwaving. No real changes. Ultimately they will simply put a surcharge on all the bills to cover the purchasing of carbon credits at inflated prices. May it snow on their parade!
Rent Seeking
In economics, rent-seeking is an attempt to derive economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by adding value.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking
Pete in Cumbria UK says:
November 2, 2011 at 3:41 am
“The EU is the same and are even trying to do something about it..
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3326189,00.html
”
ah yeeah sure, the European Parliament, who just agreed with the suggestion of the Commission to raise the EU budget by 4.9 % next year. MEP’s are as self-serving as it gets and totally disconnected from the interest of their voters. The European Parliament is just responsible for rubberstamping everything the council of ministers (“council” is “Soviet” in Russian, BTW) and the commission decide.
They’re trying to do something about their own corruption? Look:
“However, Green lawmakers and an anti-lobby lobby lamented that the measures were not even stronger, saying that they had been watered down with a loophole for lawyers.”
If anyone works with lobbyists, it’s the renewable energy industry, the darlings of the Greens; they pumped ALL of their profits during the highly subsidized era when PV cells were a sought-after good into building up lobbying organizations, instead of R&D. Don’t believe for a second that Greens will do anything against this influence-taking. Probably they just want the lobbying money to go into the coffers of the Green parties instead, or directly on the bank accounts of their MEP’s.
if theres money in it a bankster will agree.
if theres money in it the GM makers will agree and promote their crud as being green.
if theres a news crew ready to film a pollie will sell his soul.
Dev Bahadur Dongol
You obviously don’t understand the difference between the green house effect and a green house which are different things:
“The “greenhouse effect” is named by analogy to greenhouses. The greenhouse effect and a real greenhouse are similar in that they both limit the rate of thermal energy flowing out of the system, but the mechanisms by which heat is retained are different. A greenhouse works primarily by preventing absorbed heat from leaving the structure through convection, i.e. sensible heat transport. The greenhouse effect heats the earth because greenhouse gases absorb outgoing radiative energy and re-emit some of it back towards earth.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect#Real_greenhouses
I’m afraid it really does speak much for the quality of PhD’s from Nottingham if you weren’t able to research the most basic of facts.