Charles Hugh-Smith Of Two Minds You want to reduce CO2? Then trigger a global depression that
reduces global consumption of everything by 50% and destroys 95% of the
phantom wealth owned by the global elites trying to monetize the air.
I recently asked What’s Left to Monetize?, and longtime correspondent Mark G. provided the answer: the air we breathe, via carbon taxes and markets for trading carbon credits, i.e. financializing / monetizing Nature to benefit the few at the expense pf the many.
Here’s Mark’s commentary:
You asked, "What’s left to monetize? It appears the answer is 'very little.'" I respectfully disagree. The Biggest Enchilada of all is left.
Air. Specifically carbon dioxide, CO2. We just have to figure how to get
the yokels to agree to pay for that which was formerly free. Got it!
First we browbeat them into believing its evil and that we have to tax
it to save all life on Earth. Then, following in the finest traditions
of the degenerate late medieval Catholic Church, we’ll commission
sellers of "Indulgences" to allow sinning at ever rising prices. a/k/a
"Carbon Credit trading". This doesn’t require any value added and the
profits on "buy zero sell high" are limitless. This is the specific outline and the very same agencies that so
love financialization of all kinds, $2 trillion dollar student debt to
sustain obscenely paid college administrators and academics, endless
academic credentialism and huge Hipster Cities sitting on container
ports and mediating the China Trade, are all promoting this
financialization of CO2 as hard as possible. This is why a nullity like the Paris Climate Accords continues to
be pushed even after its proven every way possible that a) the biggest
emitters like China and India won’t adhere to them and b) even if they
did the prescribed regimes will do nothing anyway. And its why I "don’t believe" in it. Or rather, its why I believe its just the next and biggest financial scam.
Improving eco-efficiency within a capitalist growth-oriented system will not save the environment.
On the western borderlands of Montreal's well-to-do Outremont district and the ultra-hipsterised and gentrified Mile End lies an expanse of land where the University of Montreal is currently building a new science campus. Just across is Parc-Extension, one of Canada's poorest and most densely populated neighbourhoods and a port of call for many newly arrived immigrants.
The new campus has been touted as
a model of "sustainable development". It boasts LEED-certified
buildings to reduce environmental impact, rainwater collection
structures, energy-efficient lighting and heat recycling, infrastructure
for electric vehicles and bikes, lots of greenery, and overall, a
minimal carbon footprint. A number of tech companies, including
Microsoft's new AI Hub, are moving in and are expected to further enhance the "eco-efficiency" of the area.
The unspoken expectation is that once the green
new campus is completed, capital and economic growth will naturally flow
into the area. This means nearby neighbourhoods will get "revitalised",
especially the poorer ones, like Parc-Extension.
Thus, immigrant-owned grocery stores, halal
butcheries and community centres will soon be replaced by vegan chain
restaurants, hip vintage clothing joints, organic food stores and
coffee-shops galore, as landlords push out poor tenants to make space for more well-to-do ones.
In the process, the implicit socio-economic
violence behind gentrification will be invariably "greenwashed" and
presented as development that would make the area more "sustainable",
"beautiful" and "modern".
Unfortunately, creation by destruction is what
capitalism does best, and its damaging practices are anything but green.
This market-driven "sustainable" vision of economic activity,
ecological-conscious diets and "hipness" within modern capitalism
reinforce inequality and still hurt the environment.
Before I proceed further with my argument, I should mention that I am an academic, living in a "hip" part of Montreal and
engage in activities that follow a particular aesthetic ethos, all of
which make me very much a part of the reality I critique below. My
aim is not to moralise, but rather to highlight the dangers of a
political and economic system that profits from deceiving perhaps
well-meaning self-proclaimed progressive folks into believing that a
greener, more efficient capitalism is possible.
Carbon dioxide is not pollution. Our planet would be a wasteland without it.
click to enlarge
Fake news is everywhere, and governments can be a rich source. For
example, a flyer distributed in the mail last week by Canada’s Revenue
Agency – aka the taxman – tells us a pack of lies.
Against the will of elected leaders in four provinces, our federal
government has just imposed a carbon tax. The price of gasoline has
jumped at the pumps. Home heating costs have risen. This is just stage
one, since the tax bite will increase every year. The flyer begins by declaring:
Pollution has a cost. It impacts the air we breathe, our
children’s health, and our economy. That’s why the Government of Canada
has put a price on carbon pollution.
What nonsense. Carbon taxes are supposed to discourage people from
burning fossil fuels not because of dirty black soot (sophisticated,
anti-pollution technologies already exist), but because an invisible,
odourless gas gets emitted whenever fossil fuels are used.
The entire climate scare rests on the idea that humanity is adding too much carbon dioxide – CO2 – to the atmosphere, and that this will hypothetically destabilize the climate.
Now is a good time to point out that the Canadian government admits this
country is responsible for a mere 1.6 percent of global CO2 emissions.
Between them, China (26 percent), America (14 percent), and India (6.4)
are responsible for nearly half of all human-produced CO2 (46 percent).
It’s also a good time to remember that, over the past 50 years,
experts have predicted one environmental catastrophe after another,
none of which materialized. Even smart scientists with powerful
computers are terrible at forecasting the future.
Recently we have all been asked to celebrate the youthful commitment to 'save the planet' personified by the 'Youth Strike 4 Climate .' Hundreds of thousands of children, across the world, have been involved in various forms of strike action in protest against humankind's heating of the planet through our CO2 emissions. Many were given leave from their lessons to 'demonstrate.' This has been widely welcomed by the political class. Jeremy Corbyn, Caroline Lucas and Nicola Sturgeon were but a few of the leading politicians supporting this 'coordinated day of action.
Particularly delighted was the President of the EU Commission Jean Claude Juncker. He tweeted his support and a committed a quarter of the EU's annual budget for programs to 'mitigate' against man made climate change. That's an annual expenditure of more than €36bn, based upon the EU's 2015 figures. As ever with the EU, it is difficult to know precisely how much of your tax money they spend or where they spend it. They haven't independently audited their budget accounts for more than 20 years, preferring their own 'in house' auditors. Wouldn't we all?
While mass absenteeism presented a bit of a problem for schools, who should record a child's absence for any reason other than illness as 'unauthorised,' the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) union were also supportive. Despite some 'official concerns,' clearly there was tacit acceptance of the strike from government education departments around the world.
All of which begs some interesting questions. Whose idea was it that schoolchildrenas young as 5 yrs oldshould get involved in political protest? Who coordinated the 'day of action?' What were they protesting for (or against) and, most importantly, who funded it and why?Whose Idea Was It?
Allegedly the YouthStrike4Climate came about largely due to the efforts of 16yr old Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg. Greta staged her own school day walkout and formed her solo picket line outside the Swedish Parliament in the lead up to Swedish elections. Just two days before the elections, and only two weeks after starting her solitary protest, international media organisations the world over, such as the BBC, were already extolling the virtues of her 'struggle.' An incredible piece of global media manipulation by one so young.
Greta's achievements are truly staggering. Not only has she delivered a moving Ted Talk (owned by Chris Anderson's tax exempt Sapling Foundation, whose publishing company Future plc apparently settled out of court for violation of U.S online child protection laws) but also gave an 'educational talk' to the United Nations at the COP24 climate change summit. Her international government connections and use of social media to spread her message around the world is incredible. Especially seeing as she was just 15 when she began her protests. In the 8 months since opening her Twitter account (in June 2018), she has amassed 195,000 followers and her various videos have been shared millions of times.
Perhaps her amazing global reach is understandable when we consider that Greta's rapid emergence upon the World stage didn't just 'happen,' but rather appears to have been carefully coordinated by grown ups. Her initial protest fortuitously coincided with the publication of her mother's book. Greta's mum, the opera singer Malena Ernman, worked with PR man Ingmar Rentzhog, who promoted her publication.
Rentzhog, coincidentally, launched his climate change social media campaign group "We Don't Have the Time" the same day that Greta first started her protest. Making a tidy sum along the way.
We have mentioned countless times on this blog that the warming oceans are evidence that CO2 is not the cause of global warming. To understand the climate you must first understand the oceans. The oceans control the global climate. As the oceans warm, they warm and alter the humidity of the atmosphere above them. The problem is, as we have pointed out countless times, CO2’s only defined mechanism by which to affect climate change is through the thermalization of LWIR between 13 and 18µ.
LWIR between 13 and 18µ doesn’t penetrate or warm the oceans. Visible radiation, mainly from the high energy blue end of the spectrum does. CO2 is transparent to incoming visible radiation. The energy stored in the atmosphere and land is insignificant when compared to the oceans. The oceans contain 2,000x the energy of the atmosphere, so small changes to the oceans can mean big changes in the atmospheric temperature. The oceans also produce vast amounts of CO2 (20 x the amount man produces), and the most abundant and potent greenhouse gas, water vapor.
The warming oceans are evidence that CO2 ISN’T the cause of the recent warming. Oceans are warmed by more incoming radiation reaching them, and that is in fact what has been happening (Click Here). It is extremely easy to explain the recent warming due to natural causes, explanation that is backed by the evidence (Click Here), not just uneducated highly biased and conflicted opinions. Read more
There is a new white-paper out from The GWPF that illustrates the damage being done to people in poorer countries by environmentalists’ obsession with decarbonization in their imaginary quest to stave off global warming. As Dr. John Christy once said:
"Without Energy, life is brutal and short."
The report, by eminent epidemiologist Mikko Paunio, says that international bodies and NGOs are trying to prevent poor countries from expanding their use of conventional fuels, have abandoned the so-called “energy ladder” — the gradual shift to cleaner types of fuel that underpinned the clean up of air quality in industrialised nations.
As Dr Paunio explains, this will have devastating consequences:
“Indoor air pollution from domestic fires kills millions every year. But instead of helping poor people to climb the energy ladder and clean the air in their communities, the poorest people are being given gimmicks like cookstoves, which make little difference to air quality, and solar panels, which are little more than a joke.”
What is worse, the greens inside and outside the development community are blaming air pollution on power stations, industry and cars, as a way to prevent any shift to industrial power production. As Dr Paunio makes clear, most air pollution in poor countries is in fact caused by burning low-quality biofuels and coal in domestic stoves:
“Trying to blame power stations for indoor air pollution might make greens feel they are saving the planet, but the reality is that they are allowing millions of deaths from air pollution to continue. The body count is going to rival that of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century.”
The website of the German Employers Association (DAV) has posted a comprehensive interview by Holger Douglas with physicist and climate scientist Prof. Dr. Horst-Joachim Lüdecke, concerning the role of CO2 on the world’s climate. Lüdecke, who has authored numerous climate science publications in
climate science journals, is sure that the role of CO2 on climate is
grossly overstated and riddled with alarmist hype.
Polar bear population “growing”
On polar bears, Lüdecke says there is “no trace” of the animal
disappearing due to climate change and that the polar bear population
has in fact been climbing. Moreover, the polar bear has been around for “hundreds of thousands of years“.
Climate sensitivity much weaker than assumed
On the subject of the greenhouse effect and radiation outwards into
space, Lüdecke reminds that the climate system involves countless,
poorly understood complexities, such as cloud cover and water vapor. In
the interview he tells:
Water vapor is a very powerful greenhouse gas, and acts
to enhance the warming effect. We call this feedback, as the warming is
magnified more by it then it is alone by the radiation effect. But the
other assumption claims: The opposite is correct! More water vapor in
the air leads to more clouds that cool.”
On which effect is true, Lüdecke tells the DAV:
The theory of a feedback is not confirmed by
measurements. According to the theory, the altitudes over the tropics at
about 5 to 7 kilometers are supposed to be showing a clearly measurable
heating zone that is referred to as the ‘Hot Spot’. No one has found
it. Everything points to the pure radiation effect being weaker and not
enhanced.”
No human fingerprint
The retired, independent physicist then tells the DAV that “man’s influence on the climate still cannot be filtered from the climate noise even today”
and that today’s climate and weather changes are no different than what
was observed hundreds of years ago, citing the IPCC itself:
There is not a single bit of scientific justification to
claim: Here we are seeing unusual climate developments that can be only
attributed to humans.”
Lüdecke suspects that the cyclic nature of climate natural climate
change is caused mainly by the sun’s activity, naming the De Vries/Suess
200-year cycle and the 1500-year Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle as examples.
He also confirms the recent “18-20 year” global warming pause and
reminds us that in geological terms, the Earth today in fact finds
itself in a ice age period, which is typically defined as one that sees
the poles frozen over – as is the case today.
On proxies the retired climate scientist says that care has to be
exercised in interpreting the data they yield. The DAQV asks whether
there is a relationship between temperature and CO2 concentration.
Lüdecke replies:
No, there’s nothing to see there.”
CO2 concentration in fact historically low
Lüdecke also points out that today’s atmospheric CO2 levels are in
fact close to historical lows, and that elevated concentration bring a
number of advantages to the ecosystems, foremost a greener planet with
better plant growth.
Also, man’s CO2 emissions pale against those from the oceans and natural environment.
Ocean acidification “an alarmist myth”
On whether the threat of ocean acidification exists, Lüdecke dumps cold water on that claim:
No, ocean acidification is another myth of the alarmists.
Every chemists you talk to on ocean acidification being a result of
increasing atmospheric CO2 will roll his eyes. […] Also the supposed sensitivity of corals to CO2 in sea water is an alarmist myth.”
“Dangerous, undemocratic ideology”
At the very end of the interview, Lüdecke comments on climate protection as a movement:
Here I allow myself to state very clearly: Climate
protection has nothing to do with protecting nature. Climate protection
is a dangerous, undemocratic ideology.”
In the next post, we will look at what Prof. Lüdecke says in the rest
of the interview concerning climate models and the energy trend in
Europe.
We might think that a semi-secret, international conference of top judges, held in the highest courtroom in Britain, to propose that it should be made illegal for anyone to question the scientific evidence for man-made global warming, was odd enough to be worthy of front-page coverage.
Last week I mentioned that the Prince of Wales had sent a message to
this conference calling for the UN's forthcoming climate meeting in
Paris to agree on "a Magna Carta for the Earth". But only a series of startling posts by a sharp-eyed Canadian blogger, Donna Laframboise (on Nofrakkingconsensus),
have alerted us to what a bizarre event this judicial gathering turned
out to be (the organisers even refused to give her the names of those
who attended).
Including senior judges and lawyers from across the world, the three-day
conference on "Climate Change and the Law" was staged in London's
Supreme Court. It was funded, inter alia, by the Supreme Court itself, the UK government and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
As one of the two UN sponsors of its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, UNEP has been one of the main drivers of alarm over global
warming for 40 years. The organiser and chairman of the conference was
the Supreme Court judge Lord Carnwath, a fervent believer in man-made
climate change, who has worked with the Prince of Wales for more than 20
years, and with UNEP since 2002.
The purpose of this strange get-together was outlined in a keynote speech (visible on YouTube) by Philippe Sands,
a QC from Cherie Blair's Matrix Chambers and professor of law at
University College, London. Since it is now unlikely that the world will
agree in Paris to a legally binding treaty to limit the rise in global
temperatures to no more than 2 degrees C from pre-industrial levels, his theme was that it is now time for the courts to step in, to enforce this as worldwide law.
Although his audience, Sands said, would agree that the scientific evidence for man-made climate change was "overwhelming", there
were still "scientifically qualified, knowledgeable and influential
individuals" continuing to deny "the warming of the atmosphere, the melting of the ice and the rising of the seas",
and that this is all due to our emissions of CO2. The world's courts,
led by the International Court of Justice, said Sands, could play a
vital role "in finally scotching these claims".
"The most important thing the courts could do," he said, was to hold a
top-level "finding of fact", to settle these "scientific disputes" once
and for all: so that it could then be made illegal for any government, corporation (or presumably individual scientist) ever to question the agreed "science" again. Furthermore,
he went on, once "the scientific evidence" thus has the force of
binding international law, it could be used to compel all governments to
make "the emissions reductions that are needed", including the phasing
out of fossil fuels, to halt global warming in its tracks.
The fact that it could be seriously proposed in the highest courtroom in
the land that the law should now be used to suppress any further debate
on what has become one of the most contentious issues in the history of science
(greeted with applause from the distinguished legal audience) speaks
volumes about the curious psychological state to which the great global
warming scare has reduced so many of the prominent figures who today
exercise power and influence over the life of our Western societies.
For perspective, we need only think of the likely responses to all this
claptrap by China and India (which has just announced that it intends to
triple its CO2 emissions by 2030). Not only have they already kicked
into touch any chance of a "binding climate treaty" in December. At the
thought of these self-important lawyers trying to force them to comply
by international law, they will merely respond with inscrutable smiles,
as they continue to rely on fossil fuels to power what will soon be the
two largest economies in the world.
I guess it takes global warming hysteria to get the bioethics
movement to criticize what is known in the trade as “artificial
reproductive technologies” or ART.
But now, in the ever more radical Journal of Medical Ethics,
Cristina Richie, of Boston College’s Department of Theology, argues
that these technologies should be regulated to limit the number of
children–called “carbon legacies,” as a means of fighting climate
change. From the article:
A carbon footprint is the aggregate of resource use
and carbon emissions over a person’s life. A carbon legacy occurs when a
person chooses to procreate. All people have carbon footprints; only
people with biological children have carbon legacies.
I don’t know if Richie coined the term, but it is ridiculous. Children are children, not bundles of carbon producers.
ART is an almost unregulated industry, a lamentable circumstance with
which many bioethicists are content. But Richie says global warming has
to change the field’s thinking about ART.
Through the use of ARTs multiple children are born,
adding to worldwide carbon emissions. This is a burden on the already
over-taxed ecosystem to support new beings who might not have existed
without medical intervention. It is therefore the obligation of
environmental policymakers, the ethical and medical communities, and
even society to carefully weigh the interests of our shared planet with a
business that intentionally creates more humans when we must reduce our
carbon impact.
All those IVF babies are melting the ice caps!
While population growth and ARTs are not the primary
environmental issue that should concern ecologists and bioethicists, the
numbers of ART babies are increasing at an exponential rate. If we were
to look at these numbers in terms of carbon emissions instead of raw
population growth data, the statistics look grim.
No, grim is the exploitation of surrogates in biological
colonialism and the eugenic impetus that has sunk its fangs deep into
the heart of the industry. In the face of such human objectification, sorry, I can’t get upset about global warming. It’s time to regulate!
The unregulated ART business can no longer be
endorsed and the medical industry ought not operate in an environmental
vacuum. Retrenchment in all areas of life is the key to slowing down or
halting carbon emissions that lead to climate change. For each child
made through medical intervention a carbon legacy results. ARTs should
be allocated with due concern for the environment and sober
consideration for the implications of climate change.
Carbon caps on the fertility business and eliminating
funded ARTs for those who are not biologically infertile are the
beginning of an environmentally sustainable ART business.
“And Jesus said, ‘Suffer the little carbon legacies to come onto me’…” Good grief.
LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant
to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who
blogs at Human Exeptionalism.
Comment: I don't subscribe to the anthropocentric global warming view. I think that human influence on Climate Change is virtually nil due it being a natural ebb and flow of complex forces which produces a warming / cooling cycle. However, CFC and ozone depletion along with rainforest destruction CAN be laid at the door of humanity. This report clearly illustrates the effects of that influence. Instead of wasting money on something we have no hope of changing we are allowing our planet to be destroyed through destructive processes which ARE within our collective power to change. ----------------------------- Science Daily he human impact on the Amazon rainforest has been grossly underestimated according to an international team of researchers from Brazil and the UK, led by Lancaster University. he human impact on the Amazon rainforest has been grossly underestimated according to an international team of researchers from Brazil and the UK, led by Lancaster University. They found that selective logging and surface wildfires can result in an annual loss of 54 billion tonnes of carbon from the Brazilian Amazon, increasing greenhouse gas emissions. This is equivalent to 40% of the yearly carbon loss from deforestation -- when entire forests are chopped down. This is the largest ever study estimating above and below-ground carbon loss from selective logging and ground level forest fires in the tropics, based on data from 70,000 sampled trees and thousands of soil, litter and dead wood samples from 225 sites in the eastern Brazilian Amazon. The forest degradation often starts with logging of prized trees such as mahogany and ipe. The felling and removal of these large trees often damages dozens of neighbouring trees. Once the forest has been logged, the many gaps in the canopy means it becomes much drier due to exposure to the wind and sun, increasing the risk of wildfires spreading inside the forest. The combination of selective logging and wildfires damages turns primary forests into a thick scrub full of smaller trees and vines, which stores 40% less carbon than undisturbed forests. So far, climate change policies on the tropics have effectively been focusing on reducing carbon emissions from deforestation only, not accounting for emissions coming from forest degradation. Lead researcher Dr Erika Berenguer from Lancaster University said: "The impacts of fire and logging in tropical forests have always been largely overlooked by both the scientific community and policy makers who are primarily concerned with deforestation. Yet our results show how these disturbances can severely degrade the forest, with huge amounts of carbon being transferred from plant matter straight into the atmosphere." Read more
