Eric Worrall writes: The Guardian, a prominent green UK daily newspaper, reports that climate activists are implementing new strategies for forcing climate action – rather than attacking fossil fuel installations directly, necessitating uncomfortable long distance travel to often quite desolate locations, they’ve decided to say in easy reach of the nearest coffee bar, by staging protests in cities, targeting financial institutions which help finance oil and gas projects.
According to The Guardian;
“The rapid momentum behind the finance sector-focused NGO campaigns in Australia has taken casual observers and many within the finance industry by surprise.
With domestic political action on climate change in Australia stubbornly stuck in reverse gear, environment groups are looking to other avenues to influence climate action and they’ve chosen finance as the next target. Today, there are more than ten environment groups in Australia with finance sector focused campaigns.
As managers of the capital that fuels the economy, the scrutiny and expectations on investors are rapidly rising. Banks, pension funds, universities, religious groups, cities and councils are under intense pressure to demonstrate a response to risks posed by climate change.”
I doubt they will succeed – the finance types I used to work with mainly saw climate protests as colourful idiots who usually got the address wrong. The London riots, which had nothing to do with climate change, were a lot more intense – though even the risk of getting caught up in the riots didn’t deter finance people. I remember watching the smoke rise from London, as parts of the city burned, from the safety of a bank office building. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots
But if the protestors do succeed, will oil and coal companies roll over and go bust? Or will they offer high rates of high confidence return, to individual investors willing to step in and fill any funding shortfall?
The latter.
With interest rates so low for so long, and the US Fed Reserve sitting on $4T+ in paper IOUs from the US Treasury, there are Trillions of dollars siting in cash at hedge funds looking for yield. If the banks don’t do itx there are plenty of other deep pockets who not only can, but will.
Maybe that’s the idea.
Yes, must be safer and more cosy to take to the streets outside a bank, instead of freezing one’s ass off up north and risk jail-time in Russia.
Hopefully, businesses are learning the hard lesson that if you give into left wing extremists such as those in the Climate Industry, they will not “leave you alone” but instead place even more demands on you. It’s the like campaign to get the Washington Redskins to change their name. The extremists behind that care nothing about native American rights or sensitivities, but simply want to wield power and set the stage for even more outrageous demands on the NFL.
To put it simply…DON’T GIVE IN!
the climate activists backs are against the wall, because no warming and very little extreme weather, so they do not have weather or climate to point to, so they show their true colors and attack capitalism. I am glad the tide has turned this way, they will fail for sure now. Everyone in the world knows capitalism is strong and will not be overturned.
Don’t take anything for granted, just ask the Venezuelans. If something is worth keeping, we need to fight for it constantly.
+1. The theiving thugs that have ruinied Venezuela are role models for much of the climate obsessed culture.
Don’t forget Zimbabwe’s re-distributive efforts that turned that once breadbasket of Africa into a basket case.
@Joel O’Bryan . . and now, having destroyed her agricultural economy by trashing all property rights is begging for $10billion for mitigation and adaptation costs for climate change as they blame western aCO2 for destroying farming!
Not only are their backs against a wall, they are against Wall Streeet 🙂 I predict they will be shouting in vain until the sea level is up to their necks outside the banks. This may take some time.
That big red banner protest with its “System Change, Not Climate Change” motto was the best anti-alarm development since Climategate, more important than any proof of scientific fraud, since science is too obscure for most people to be confident enough to judge independently. But now those people can no longer as easily take climate alarm as a scientific at all, since their System Change is just communism. Their Flood Wall Street aftermath even linked climate alarm with the near universally despised Occupy movement that can barely even find unbiased juries when one of them is arrested for assault.
Just like all terrorists, they seek out soft targets.
They leave an image… a bunch of unruly, disgruntled ruffians, going about as a group on buses and minivans with poorly made handwritten signs, protesting here, there, everywhere, about anything that will get them a gig. They’re one of the 99%, they’re one of the 97%, they hate the NWO, the UN, love the UN, hate communism, LOVE communism, tolerant, intolerant, hate climate, love climate. There’s no coherent message because not a single “protest” these days makes any sense at all. Although I have to admit over the last few years I’ve been amused at some of the right wing mockers that insinuate themselves into protests with over-the-top signs.
At least the 60s protests had meaning and reason. This mob is just too dense to understand anything.
pictures don’t do justice to the smell of many of those protestors.
Maybe they will have better luck than when they went after oil traders
Kyoto protest beaten back by inflamed petrol traders
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article1932363.ece
This is really the same campaign. They are trying to “divest” traditional energy- starting with universities and selected “on-side” industries. Look closer and that leaves only “renewables” as options for a much less reliable, and reduced energy supply. This is a follow-the-money act. Significant investment has already been made by “green” groups hoping to capitalize on the guaranteed returns of subsidies and tax credits to solar and wind. What’s not to like about mandated market shares, grants and other write-offs for capital and payment for power even if it can’t be used. Even bankruptcy isn’t punitive when the government eats the losses. Targeting private lending institutions simply protects the investments in “green” already made by major unions and public institutions, as well as very wealthy “friends” of the current administration. This will collapse when power failures begin (UK first) and citizens realize that the renewable technologies have been commercialized before they have been perfected.
Mixed success with politically sensitive foundations. Getting the stupid ball rolling, though? After all, banks put their own existence at risk for political purposes at the front end of the real estate bubble. Most of them lost something, but some of them left standing are huger for the effort.
In London it is the wealth of the city that keeps London a thriving capital city without it the city would die and the coffee bas would disappear.
Same for New York. If the financial industry fails, the city turns into a jungle. It’s already happening. Again.
R2Dtoo
One slight correction is needed to your otherwise fine comment.
You say
The renewable technologies have been perfected. They don’t work.
Richard
In the absence of a rating system I give you +1000 Richard. That comment totally nails it.
Agreed!
What young people today probably don’t realize (since our education system is collapsing along with everything else) is that renewable energy technology has been around for **decades** (in the case of windmills, hundreds of years). There is nothing new except perhaps advances in materials, computer controls, and more robust infrastructure. We have already deployed renewables in places where they make practical sense, and we know for certain that without coal, nuclear, oil/gas to supply the base load, they can not support the energy needs of our nation. After all, if there was a magic solution within our grasp we would have adopted it already. Who wants to be dependent on middle eastern or South American oil forever?
Frank K.
You write
Windmills are older than that! Vertical-axis windmills to mill corn were first developed by the Persians around 1500 BC, and they were still in use in the 1970’s in the Zahedan region.
The use of wind power and muscle power (from slaves and animals) was abandoned when the greater energy intensity in fossil fuels became available to do work by use of the steam engine. The human population exploded and the provision of food, services and goods expanded to more than meet existing needs: mechanical slaves now operate transport, manufacturing and services. (A mechanical slave in my kitchen not only washes my clothes but dries them, too).
People who want to abandon use of fossil fuels are advocating a return to using human instead of mechanical slaves.
Richard
City wealth meaning banks and all financial institutions.
If these clowns are so dead set against the use of fossil fuels, walk the walk instead of just talking about it and stop using them. And that goes double for that POS RFK Jr.
Exactly what I keep thinking. A large group of them should get together and start their own commune that is totally devoid of any and all dependency on fossil fuels and nuclear power. Lead the way and show the rest of us “how it is done.” Plenty of open space up in Canada where they could do this…..winters are nice and cold up there. Or maybe in the desert southwest where it can get into the 100s during the summer. Death Valley anyone? Think they can get any bank financing to get this started? Surely Kennedy, DiCaprio, Naomi Klein and the others could use their influence to secure one.
They can report back to me after a few years or so and let me know how they are doing. No guarantees that I would join them…..they shouldn’t hold their breaths waiting for me to decide.
Would make for an interesting experiment me thinks.
Great idea. Get a couple of hundred thousand of them together, and instead of marching on New York they can form an intentional community to, as you say, “show us how it’s done”. Of course they will have to develop new technologies, economic systems, health care systems, both civil and criminal justice systems; perhaps even a military to protect them from the hourds of heretics who will beg for entry as the waters rise around them.
With 97% of scientists behind them, the technically minded should join in droves, making the development of new infrastructure a piece of cake. Green politicians will join as well. Since they already know how to run the world, dealing with challenges inside the walls should be easy for them.
Dang … we don’t want ur rejects up here 😉
They would have to provide an airport inside their eco-commune so Al Gore and Leonardo diCaprio could fly in on their private jets for a publicity event or two then fly off to another party. Good opportunity to test whether their aviation bio-fuel is completely compatible with jet engines — might be a few kinks to work out (clogged filters, rotted seals, etc.).
You have to keep Beiber if we take 10,000 of your eco-loons!
We’ve seen this in other fields. There was a story a year or so ago about a female actor who worked in the porn industry. All of a sudden she couldn’t deposit her pay checks. It turned out that Chase Manhattan closed her and her coworkers accounts. The bank VP said they considered “those people” high risk. As it turned out the DOJ was running Operation Choke Point, an operation to reduce bank fraud. Banks, being risk averse, stopped doing business which the federal government might consider questionable. And this year, gun owners are finding out that they cannot get loans because many banks are now refusing to have anything to do with the gun industry (Of course, no one admits that the DOJ or SEC are leaning on the gun industry). This is pure fascism, of course. Perhaps the Climate Alarmists found new avenue to push their agenda: Target banks and other corporation’s finances.
JP wrote that some ways to buy guns with credit cards are being stopped. Here is the article.
http://www.examiner.com/article/credit-card-reader-companies-discriminate-against-gun-buyers-and-sellers
…several other payment processors and financial institutions and are now refusing to do business with anyone who has anything to do with guns, ammo or other weapons,”
Square, PayPal, GE Capital, PayAnywhere, Intuit
The NRA Business Alliance offers credit card services and can accept card payments swiped through remote devices.
From Gun blogger site.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/05/firearmconcierge/breaking-square-drops-all-firearm-and-ammunition-retailers/
Old Square Seller Agreement:
By creating a Square Account, you also confirm that you will not accept payments in connection with the following businesses or business activities: (1) any illegal activity, (2) buyers or membership clubs, … 23) internet/mail order/telephone order firearm or weapon sales, (24) internet/mail order/telephone order cigarette or tobacco sales,
NEW Square Seller Agreement:
By creating a Square Account, you also confirm that you will not accept payments in connection with the following businesses or business activities: (1) any illegal activity or goods, (2) buyers or membership clubs, … (23) sales of (i) firearms, firearm parts or hardware, and ammunition; or (ii) weapons and other devices designed to cause physical injury
Green on the outside, red on the inside.
They always were watermelons.
Anti-capitalism, enviroMENTALism, marxism, communism, socialism, national socialism.
It’s all one.
Well said richardscourtney!
I wonder how many years must pass, how many long-range & medium-range weather forecasts fail, how many elderly, sick, & weak, must die from fuel poverty & the cold, until they step back from the abyss, & ask the question, “Perhaps we’ve got this Climate Change thing all wrong?”. Not in my lifetime I should think. When the Europtards of Commissioners say things like “Even if manmade Climate Change theory turns out to be wrong, isn’t it better that we learn to use less of everything?”. You’re next my Colonial cousins, your next! At least Australia has made a welcoming fresh start. Cameron is alleged to have said when taking office, “The first thing we have to do is get rid of all this Green crap!”. Who knows when we shall be free of this yoke of oppression.
The problem here in the USA is the Obama Administration political appointees have hired their green friends into every level of the career civil service ranks at the EPA, FWS, BLM, Forest Service, etc where environmental impact reviews take place. So now, long after the politicals appt’ees are gone, their moles remain, not only biasing reviews, but feeding internal staff information to outside groups.
It will take a wholesale federal govt downsizing and almost outright elimination and then re-hiring within those agencies to restore thir integrity to the laws.
joelobryan
I use your point about “political appointees” as an excuse to iterate what I think to be the most important global warming issue at present.
The AGW-scare was killed at the failed 2009 IPCC Conference in Copenhagen. I said then that the scare would continue to move as though alive in similar manner to a beheaded chicken running around a farmyard. It continues to provide the movements of life but it is already dead. And its deathly movements provide an especial problem.
Nobody will declare the AGW-scare dead: it will slowly fade away. This is similar to the ‘acid rain’ scare of the 1980s. Few remember that scare unless reminded of it but its effects still have effects; e.g. the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) exists. Importantly, the bureaucracy which the EU established to operate the LCPD still exists. And those bureaucrats justify their jobs by imposing ever more stringent, always more pointless, and extremely expensive emission limits which are causing enforced closure of UK power stations.
Bureaucracies are difficult to eradicate and impossible to nullify.
As the AGW-scare fades away those in ‘prime positions’ will attempt to establish rules and bureaucracies to impose those rules which provide immortality to their objectives. Guarding against those attempts now needs to be a serious activity.
Richard
Richard,
Just came back to this thread to read new posts.
Absolutely 100% agree with your views on headless chicken bureaucracies.
Joel
If oil, coal and natural gas companies shut down operations at the end of this year there would be mayhem. They are trying to close down fuels which we cannot do without NOW.
Just how much progress do they think has been made? Bad information leads to bad decisions and suffering for THEM too.
Here are the graphics from the above quote. Carbon free apparently includes the much hated nuclear so it’s actually worse than it seems for the greens.
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/main_image/carbongraphmain.png
http://thebreakthrough.org/images/elements/carbongraph2.png
Does it include hydro as well?
If the world had not been derailed from the growth of nuclear power by the green extremsits we would not be dealing with the CO2 issue at all. The extremists would have had to find another rationalization to justify destroying the world.
But that entire article is misleading, there is no such thing as a “carbon-free” energy. In producing that windmill, how much carbon did they emit? They used energy, so it must have been something, even if that energy came from one of those alleged “carbon-free” sources.
Not long ago I found a study http://www.goldengatexpress.org/2013/04/21/hybrid-cars/ pointing out that hybrid cars have greater negative impact on the planet than my Dodge V-10. And that was just build the stupid thing. (If you recharge with electricity produced by a coal-fired power station, and chances are pretty good that you are, the majority of power in this country still comes from coal, then you are just converting your gasoline powered vehicle into a coal-fired vehicle.) Has anybody done the study to determine how much damage is done to our planet to produce a solar panel, or enough solar panels to build a “power plant”, or the windmills that chop the birds to pieces while issuing subsonics that turn ordinary citizens into crazed killers? OK, I made up the crazed killers part, but we do know they emit noise in virtually all frequencies, and has anybody actually studied the effects?
The point is, using “Carbon-free” in the headline is misleading, certainly incorrect and perhaps an outright lie.
Oh Boy, can’t imagine referring to my in-laws electric car as a coal-fuled vehicle. That could cause a problem to two…
Very few hybrids are plug in hybrids and the vast majority use the braking energy to charge the batteries so the plug in argument is just plain wrong.
[snip . . OTT . . we’re better than that . . mod]
These activists lose public support with every action.
This is simply a political struggle. Nothing to do with climate or energy, but a rabid, brainwashed mob intent on destroying our very way of life. Brains don’t fully develop until around 25 years of age and these guys would be on the waiting list.
I wonder if they’ll try to stop the financing of the opening of a new coal mine purchased by an Australian company in the Crowsnest Pass of Alberta to supply metallurgical coal to China? The people in Blairmore, Alberta are happy and the usual protesters are gearing up to make an issue out of OLD news as the environmental impact studies get underway prior to construction and operation. (Anti-development types on the radio today, not recognizing that the natural area they are talking about is an old reclaimed mine tailings area that will be re-developed as an open pit.)
Jobs outweigh protestors from the cities.
http://www.insightwest.ca/news/mining-insight/coal-insight/new-coal-mine-proposed-for-crowsnest-pass/
Let them put their money in green investments.
Oh wait, 1) most of them don’t have any money and 2) see 1.
The utter failure of the faux carbon market scam is yet another example of how everything the climate obsessed attempt fails. Not one of their energy dieas- msolar or wind- works. Carbon sequestration is a complete failure. Not one of the many treaties, agreements, taxes, conferences, movies, or any other event owrks. Every claim of imminent doom the climatge obsessed has made has been proven to be false.
Their carbon trading system was to be the way to pay for the move from the energy they don’t approve of to energy they do approve of. And it has literally and completely failed.
So now these miserable misanthropes hope to tear down the financial structure of what they hate, since it is now clear to all but the blindest of climate fanatics that their efforts are failing. So instead of reconsidering their assumptions, they seek to destroy.
The climate obsessed are typical fanatic losers.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Aren’t enough of them to make a difference.
Maybe Soros is looking to extend his oil money from Brazil by persuading the useful idiots to attack the banks.
Do you know what´s really interesting? The bulk of oil and gas reserves are owned by OPEC nations, Russia, and other state owned enterprises (Pemex comes to mind). The “divestment” movement seems to be aimed at private enterprise.
I noticed they also seem to target Canadian heavy crude (Keystone XL seems to be their boogie pipeline), but they don´t lift a finger to protest IDENTICAL heavy oil blends imported by tankers from Venezuela.
Their actions are so focused against private enterprises it seems we are dealing with people who want the fossil fuel industry owned by state enterprises? Or are they just completely ignorant of reality?
The greenies seem to be overlooking the fact that those same financial institutions also manage funds for the NGOs themselves and the individuals who participate in the protests. Properly motivated, the financial institutions could easily find ways to make life uncomfortable for them.
Sun Tzu pointed out 2500 years ago that a successful campaign requires secure lines of support. In my own experience in the military, one of the first things I learned was that you always want to have the support staff (secretaries, supply sergeants, etc.) on your side.
“Banks, pension funds, universities, religious groups, cities and councils are under intense pressure to demonstrate a response to risks posed by climate change.”
Well Australia solved its illegal immigration problem so the Leftists have no illegals to use as grievance group, like they currently do in the EU. So it’s climate for the Oz leftists. It’s always something; as demanded by Critical Theory.
They might indeed be the last leftists on the planet using climate.
It comes to me as no surprise, considering they (McKibennities) have enlisted the anti-capitalism crowd.
If they are using fraudulent tactics (climate scare stories, hockey sticks, photoshop) not based on settled science then they should be subject to the full application of the law. Libel is libel – good intentions don’t play a part.
So, if they succeed in stopping investment by western banks, what would stop Russian, Saudi or Chinese financiers from underwriting them?
Banks have just increaased the average fee for customers using ATMs not directly owned by their bank to an outrageous $4.25 a transaction. Do you really think some ignorant protesters with no credibility and no money are going to influence banking?
The thought, “Illusions of Grandeur” comes to mind.
A couple of years ago, the Democrat congress passed a law limiting how much money banks could charge stores for the privilege of using their cards. There was only one place where the banks could make up the money they lost. Fees on checking and savings accounts.
Liberals just don’t understand that when you squeeze a balloon, it just bulges out somewhere else.
Partially true. The various businesses paid different amounts for each credit card transaction. The big ones just told the banks what they would pay so the small businesses got a huge hit. Banks are scummy. So I’m looking for popcorn and waiting to entertain myself with scum vs scum (sort of like the Spy vs Spy but without the cool gadgets).
🙂
I guess these protesters never ask themselves how these ideas come into being and how they are promoted organized and managed. A daughter of a friend was an ‘eclectic’ protester as a university sociology student and when she graduated, she ended up getting a ‘job’ in the protest industry! I’m not sure if she knows what entity is paying her salary. I’m sure it’s put forward as group of caring intellectuals out for social justice. Maybe it’s one of Soros’s projects.
She has a budget for printing circulars and sign making and she bought a nice modest house. They flattered and toasted her, giving her credit for almost single-handedly freeing the people of East Timor! I can see where the zeal comes from! I asked her if she thought the Australian Army had perhaps assisted with this project in some small way and she was greatly offended.
There is a lot of this kind of thing going on. Spontaneity is not part of the picture.
The privilege to create money out of thin air, granted to commercial banks, should be revoked, because it goes against the spirit of capitalism. But that’s not what these clowns are pushing for.
The ecotards might just be able to draw on a long bow and claim success these days though. Given the investment cost per barrel has risen significantly in the last few years and the price of oil has dropped slightly, oil and gas projects don’t deliver such a lucrative return on investment as in the past, So despite short-sighted cost cutting efforts in evil big oil, investors are going elsewhere; not on account of the persuasive slacktivism of the great unwashed and their celebrity pets, but simply because there are better profit margins to be found elsewhere.
The habitually indignant are never known to let facts get in the way of a good cry though, so I expect plenty of wide of the mark gloating in the lame-stream media over the next year or so until the gap between production and demand widens and evil big oil declenches it’s buttocks.
Why banks? Because that’s where the money is …
At what point does it stop being called “Science”, and more truthfully be referred to as Stock Manipulation on a grand scale.
It is easy to knock things (down). But what is offered to build things up! Nothing.
There is nothing new about this, why do you think major corporations pay many NGO’s.
It is the new Mob. The New Mob is Social.
Hopefully security agencies will see the threat to financial institutions and economic stability from neo-Marxist activists, such as those who disrupted parades for the 2010 Olympic games (one effort had a known environmentalist front and centre in publicizing the possibility, including being photographed wearing a bandana and with fist raised), and the G20 riot in Toronto.
David Suzuki’s Marxism was evident in his speech to the Occupy mob in Vancouver BC.
And there’s this: http://systemchangenotclimatechange.org/about “An eco-socialist coalition” as well as http://climateandcapitalism.com “Ecosocialism or barbarism: There is no third way” – complete rejection of the proven path of individual freedom supported by a justice system
Now boycotting Coca Cola for the rest of 2014
Why ? I switch on the radio and the BBC is giving a free ride to WWF terrorizing us with it’s shock horror report quoted as “WWF Audit: Half Of The Earth’s Animals Have Disappeared” or “The Earth’s vertebrate wildlife population has halved in 40 years” ..”We don’t intend to cause alarm” the WWF woman is saying
..Then I log on to Bishop-hill.net the banner add is a joint one from WWF CocaCola
..and the alarmists mad conspiracy theory that skeptics are the ones with vast pockets and powerful deceptive PR war ..talk about projection.
Attacking businesses is the strategy of activism. See the current/recent efforts of Doomberg’s Everytown Mad Mommies against Starbucks, Target, Krogers, et cetera. In a dwindling economy all businesses bottom lines are vulnerable to agit-prop pressure.
Attacking workers is the strategy of Executives in the USA and the UK. Has been since 1975. Telling them that they earn too much and the executives earn too little.
Funny that…….
It would be a nice wake-up call to Americans if all the energy companies in North American that use coal, oil, or NG would shut down their plants for 24 hours on, say, 15 January.