AGW – Calamity or Strategy?

There are those who believe that ‘global warming’ is a consequence of natural forces, there are those who believe that ‘global warming’ is man-made, and there are some who don’t believe it is happening at all.

Most reputable scientists seem to agree that there was a warming trend noticed in the mid-eighties (when satellite data became ‘de rigueur’) which lasted until 1998. Most would also agree that this warming has plateau’d and that the average global temperature has been steady for the last two decades. Many say that CO2 is to blame, many don’t.

Let’s, for the sake of argument, put all that aside for the moment. It really doesn’t matter, anyhow. What does matter in the AGW (anthropogenic global warming) debate is whether or not there are some people who have been trying to get the earth to warm up. Dane Wiggington is of the opinion that the earth is warming and that the result will be catastrophic. He also believes that geo-engineering is (partly) to blame. The implications are surreal.

There are three reasons for which this scenario is plausible: derivatives; market share; and commodities.

Derivatives (without getting too technical) are insurance. They are side bets made by financiers in order to protect themselves against investments gone bad. A farmers’ crops may be worth a million dollars, but if a natural disaster strikes, the failed crop might be worth two million through the derivatives market. This is the basis for ‘disaster capitalism.’ The derivatives market is said to be worth hundreds of trillions. Profits depend on failures in more traditional enterprises.

Market share is what drives corporations to monopoly. The more market share, the more customers, the more sales. Companies such as Monsanto have been developing techniques which would assure them almost complete market dominance. They, along with their partners, have been researching seed technology which could grow in almost any condition such as drought, flood, and even radiation.

Commodities are everything the world uses. They are raw materials. They are food. They are mineral resources such as gold (debatable,) oil, uranium, and coal. Some say that they are running out, or at least, that the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. There could be a new source of commodities, though. There could be an entire ocean of virgin ground awaiting exploration.

This would satisfy all three conditions.

If the world was warming, the polar ice caps would melt. This would wreak havoc with the global economy and the derivatives market would prove very profitable for the psychopaths praying for (and betting on) plague conditions. Environmental devastation would also prove very profitable for large conglomerates that could supply (very expensive) food which could not be grown anywhere else anymore. Thirdly, if the poles did melt, great swaths of new land would be exposed and exploited immediately.

This doomsday scenario begs the question, are there those who would sabotage the world for their own gain? If history is any indication, the answer is a resounding, “Yes!” If these people do exist, are they presently putting their resources to work in trying to achieve this goal? Is geo-engineering being used to warm the planet further and faster?

Whether or not this is being implemented, the people in Davos have just put together a plan to ensure that whatever happens, they will control the outcome. “Scott Minerd (who before Guggenheim worked at Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley) …joined a World Economic Forum advisory council. Its task? Develop guidelines for those nations looking to do business at the top of the world. That framework is to be released Thursday, in Davos.”

“The Arctic guidelines are voluntary, like many other sustainable investment initiatives, including the Principles for Responsible Investment or even the WEF’s own work on “sustainable competitiveness.” How does anyone expect to protect the Arctic environment in such a gold rush? The project is designed to complement the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and while the green earth is littered with do-good business pledges, the notion received a shot in the arm recently. In December, almost 200 nations agreed in Paris to adhere to the first-ever universal climate goals. How nations contribute to progress toward them is their call, since there are no binding demands to cut greenhouse gas emissions.”

The above taken from Bloomberg’s “The World Has Discovered a $1 Trillion Ocean.”

So cui bono? Who are the people who would benefit from a world destroyed, what tools would they employ to see such a strategy implemented, and just how far would they go to dominate and control the earth and its resources?

One would expect to find the answer just north of 66 degrees.

Trickle-Up Carbon Taxes

Here are some points about carbon taxes which may have passed under the radar gleaned from Canada’s Ecofiscal Commision (a Canadian think-tank.)

The commission had what they refered to as a debate today between Chris Ragan, chair of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission and Merran Smith, Executive Director or Clean Energy Canada moderated by the Globe and Mail’s Editorial Page Editor Tony Keller. It wasn’t much of a debate, it was more like publicity. The live event was aimed at corporate oil sector executives.

The participants mostly echoed each others’ comments. Even pre-recorded clips and guest questions simply regurgitated the day’s talking points. They were few, but seemed to encourage oil companies to accept the incentivization programs aimed directly at them. The public, and its concerns, were for the most part, ignored.

The one point which kept coming up was that carbon taxes should be revenue-neutral. What this means is that while companies would be taxed for their share of carbon emissions (again, there was no distinction between CO, CO2, and CH4) at about $30/tonne, the money would then come back to the company through special programs, tax breaks in other areas, or subsidies. BC’s cement industry was cited saying that some $25M had already been given in order to reduce GHG emissions. So is the government trying to get some of its money back, or is it trying to get corporations to pay for their own subsidies?

BC uses a revenue-neutral system whereas the system in Quebec is cap and trade (Quebec carbon is taxed at about $14/tonne.) The problem here is the perception of oil companies; if they feel the taxes are not revenue-neutral, the ‘debators’ conceded, there would be an exodus of mostly manufacturing jobs towards cheaper emerging markets. In other words, ‘the working man’ suffers.

They then pointed out that manufacturing jobs were being replaced with other jobs (in Ontario total hires went up.) If those jobs are being replaced with better jobs (R&D,) (re)education will cost more for the workers and saddle them with more debt – if Canadians are even qualified to do these jobs – which is doubtful. But if the jobs (as is more probably the case) are being replaced with lesser jobs (service sector) as is the current trend, again it is ‘the working man’ who suffers.

Emerging market countries have been quick to point out that most of this ‘pollution’ was made by developed market countries who then counter that the pollution from the next fifty years will be mostly EM, and much worse. We got it on credit, but you have to pay up front.

Finally, the ‘leftover’ taxes would be used to help subsidize public transport. Since less people will be able to afford cars, this seems reasonable. Again it is ‘the working man’ who suffers. Those who can afford it will be encouraged to buy newer cleaner cars. More money being spent by the public which already owes a tremendous amount of new car debt in favour of the car companies who produce the pollution in the first place. This is all getting rather circular. Who suffers? You guessed it.

All this is based upon the notion that this entire carbon market will not be a free market, but a highly manipulated one; one in which the price of carbon can never be high enough, much like the already carbon-tax-laden airline ticket. Prices will be set, because if the market were left to its own devices, and it turns out that CO2 does nothing to raise global temperatures, the >$1T market would collapse taking everything out with it.

Canada’s Ecofiscal Commision has no literature referencing sources for CO2 harm, cites no peer-reviewed papers backing up its claims, will not provide any references, and says the science is settled which negates the need for any pesky proof.

The commission has also indicated that all forms of carbon emissions should be subject to taxation. Get ready for a breathing tax, Canada.

 

Can We Both Be Right?

I had an exchange with a climate alarmist the other day, an exchange for which I felt the need to apologize. I sent him an email today. The subject line read: “Apology”.

Yesterday, we had exchanged opinions and facts about climate change and couldn’t agree about any of it. Today, the day after our exchange, I found myself bothered by it. I wondered why we couldn’t get along? He is a damn good researcher; how could he be so wrong. Maybe he thought the same of me.

I was going through an article I had recently written, looking at a graph which showed temperature and CO2 levels over the past several hundred million years. I saw that both CO2 levels and global temperatures had very rarely ever been this low, and I thought that surely this would lead to desertification. After all, the tundra is a desert, despite its low temperature. How could he think that this natural uptrend after near-record cold was anything but normal, anything to be worried about, anything unexpected? It had since leveled-off, so no problem, right? Why did he look at it as record highs when it was clearly (near) record lows?

My short answer was that he must only have been looking at the local US surface temperature record over a very short time span, and I was looking at satellite data as well as long term data covering more of the history of the earth, and this is what led to his distorted view. If the charts start in the sixties, it’s been getting warmer. If the charts start six-hundred million years ago, brrr. On a planetary level, however, no big deal. This seemed to explain away the problem as well as all the sub-problems like sea-level rise, Arctic ice extent, storm activity, etc. etc. etc. He was the American alarmist who took the ‘nothing outside our borders matters’ and the ‘we have the best equipment so everyone else is wrong’ view, and I was the voice of reason with a view to the world. Typical US-Canada relations.

I went for a walk to clear my head. Why was this still bothering me? I had figured out the problem; I had my answer. But there was more to it than that. There was something missing. As I walked around my neighbourhood, I thought about power structures and relationships, I thought about hegemony and what it can do to one’s perspective, I thought about the philosophy behind the situation when it hit me: Hegel – Mondrian – binary code. What if we were both right?

Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2): Do You Know the Difference?

Probably not, and that is exactly what they’re counting on.

CO (carbon monoxide – lighter than air) is formed as a result of oxygen-poor combustion (as in combustion engines,) it is used as a coloring agent in US meat production (illegal in EU and Japan,) and has potential in the medical field as a biological regulator. It is widely used in chemical manufacturing. It may even be used, one day, as a fuel source on Mars. CO is toxic to humans in very low concentrations (35ppm.) Atmospheric concentrations are approximately 0.1ppm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide

CO₂ (carbon dioxide – heavier than air) “is a colorless, odorless gas vital to life on Earth.” Plants use it to photosynthesize sugars from CO₂ and water (with oxygen produced as a byproduct.) CO₂ is produced by the respiration of animals and fish, organic decay, fermentation, and combustion of wood and fossil fuels. It is used throughout many industries for decaffeinating coffee, adding sparkle to carbonated beverages (soda, beer, champagne) and when frozen becomes ‘dry ice’. CO₂ is only toxic in extremely high concentrations (>70,000ppm.) Atmospheric concentrations are between 360 – 410ppm depending on location.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

The above article contradicts itself in several places and also claims that CO₂ is directly responsible for ‘global warming’, but more on that later.

In a sentence, CO is poison and CO₂ is plant food necessary for all life on Earth. Both are so-called greenhouse gases (GHG.) CO₂ is truly a greenhouse gas in the sense that farmers enrich their greenhouse environments with it in order to stimulate plant growth and increase yield.

Without CO₂, breads wouldn’t rise, sparkling wine wouldn’t sparkle, beer would be flat, and compressed-air tools (not actually air, but CO₂) would cost a lot more to run. Oh and by the way, all green plants (on land and in the seas) would die causing mass starvation for herbivores and humans alike.

Conspi-Racist

People with wealth, power, and influence say many things. Of those things, some seem to come up more often than others, namely:

1- Overpopulation is our biggest problem

2- CO₂ is pollution, and climate change is bad

3- GMO’s are safe and can feed more people

4- Vaccines will make you healthy

5- Wireless radiation isn’t harmful

6- Nuclear energy is green energy

7- There are no conspiracies

8- Did I mention overpopulation?

Based on the initial premise that there are too many people on the planet; do you think that the powers that be would suggest doing anything which would make that problem worse? Why implement plans that make the biggest problem bigger? So the rest of the things on that list should not help increase the population, should they? In fact, all of those things will actually reduce the population, as they should; given that over-population is such a problem.

It would be akin to saying that despite the fact that nuclear weapons are the biggest threat to mankind and must be eradicated, we need more nuclear weapons to keep us safe. No, wait, that’s a bad example. It would be like saying that we must find a cure for cancer, and then spend most of the money to research treatment options. Scratch that, another bad example. Like self-regulating financial industries… no. Like we need more debt to pay our debts… no. Oh, like more security means less freedom… no, no, no. Ok, so these aren’t the best examples; but you get the gist, right?

Well, the truth of the matter is that the narratives are becoming hopelessly intertwined.