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Climate warming has
become so universally accepted that it is worth one’s reputation to
raise even a tepid question regarding warming wisdom or its factual
accuracy. Ordinary civic minded
citizens who dare to exhibit the temerity to raise serious questions about
the merits of man-made CO2 are routinely dismissed as uninformed
troglodytes. Scientists who
question prevailing climate wisdom are shunned by professional colleagues and
shut out from lucrative government research grants. Often their careers are sidelined and
professional reputations damaged, sometimes beyond repair, simply because
they insist that the methodologies of science be respected.
Indeed, Al Gore, Nobel Laureate and
‘eminence grise’ of the global warming
and climate change movement, continually repeats...the world as we know it
will surely come to an end...caused by the rapid temperature increases and
massive flooding...triggered by rising ocean levels and...only
dramatic measures designed to stop the production of man-made anthropogenic
CO2 caused by burning fossil fuels...will alter the trajectory of this
looming disaster... otherwise a global calamity of immense proportions is
inevitable.
Unfortunately, those environmentalists
motivated to support initiatives which contribute to the greater good of
society but reluctant to subscribe unthinkingly to the political agenda of
the warming movement, are routinely scoffed at and humiliated. Publicity demonizing carbon dioxide,
especially the man made version, routinely convicts anyone who drives a
gasoline-powered car, cooks his hamburgers on the barbeque, warms their
living room with the cosy flames of the fireplace
or cools their home with air conditioning using electricity generated by coal
or natural gas. We are pronounced guilty of contributing to a looming
genocide. The guilt we are made
to feel, stemming from our apparent insensitivity and warped morality, is
almost palpable.
Climbing Aboard the
Global Warming Train
1. Government Leaders
Do our institutional leaders, untrained in
climatology, know more than the rest of us or is it possible they find being
advocates of the warming cause useful for personal career reasons? Maybe fragile egos crave approbation
and validation by the majority who are warming believers? There are more than a few experts in
organizational and leadership theory who have noticed that leaders frequently
exhibit well honed skills at discerning which direction the parade is
heading. Having made that determination, these leaders hastily head to the
front of the march to squelch man-made carbon dioxide.
2. Electric Power Utility Companies
Also puzzling is finding sizeable support for
the warming cause from business sectors one instinctively expects to be
opposed to caps on CO2 emissions.
Major electric power utility companies, which are among the largest
consumers of fossil fuels leading to the emission of significant quantities
of CO2 and other air and water born pollutants, have also joined the climate
warming brigade. How can that
be? Isn’t that contrary to
their financial self interest? Is
it possible that power utilities are actually public spirited corporate
citizens driven to do what is best for the environment?
What about their significant support for
“Cap and Trade” which is the centerpiece of CO2 mitigation
measures? Not only is it notable
that many utility companies have enthusiastically signed on to the Emissions
Trading Scheme (ETS), but so, too, have major investment banks and hedge
funds. Trading Carbon Futures has
obviously drawn these moths to the global warming heat simply because it is a
golden opportunity to mint money. Whatever the additional costs imposed by
the purchase price of carbon credits, utility companies are certain that
regulators will allow those additional costs to be passed on to
consumers. Moreover, trading
carbon credits opens the door to exploit major new profit opportunities.
3. Wall Street Banks
Investment banks, such as JP Morgan Chase,
have also joined-in.
Money-masters like Chase have recently been discredited and shut out
of further billions of dollars previously generated by their creation and
sale of various forms of questionable and fraudulent financial paper known as
Derivatives. Trading carbon
credits provides a new profit source.
Considering that these amoral - some might
suggest “sociopathic” - institutions almost gutted the globe’s
financial system in September 2008, any issue to which they attach themselves
should be viewed with considerable alarm. While not guaranteed, it is reasonable
to conclude, from their recent actions that in whatever activity these
financial behemoths involve themselves, it must, by definition, run counter
to the public interest.
4. Hedge Funds
These large pools of private capital also use
large amounts of borrowed money to leverage their speculative trades in a
variety of financial products which now include carbon credits. Is it not an
inconvenient truth that the pious pied piper of climate change, Al Gore, has
become a partner in two hedge funds, Generation Investment Management (GIM)
and Capricorn Investment Group LLC, set up to specifically trade carbon
credits? Speculation suggests his paltry 2 million dollar net worth at the
time he lost his Presidential bid to George W. Bush has mushroomed fifty fold
since taking up the climate cause.
Speculative trading in carbon credits will
primarily benefit institutional traders, with only limited benefit accruing
to the environment or third world nations to use in kick-starting climate
friendly projects. The cost of
carbon credits will most certainly contribute to raising the cost of
electricity, manufacturing costs and the cost of living generally. All the
while imposition of caps is guaranteed to contribute precious little to limit
carbon emissions.
5. Ordinary Citizens
Enlisting massive support from so many well
intentioned people who genuinely believe in the need to nurture nature has
been its singular success.
Regular citizens have been bought into the cause in spite of the fact
that their cost of living will increase and their standard of living lowered. Selflessness in the cause of
preserving the environment is their motivation.
Some of us, however, are by nature cursed with
an inquisitive mind and have developed and honed our analytical skills to a
degree sufficient to prevent us from blindly bending to overwhelming
publicity which promotes a single perspective. In spite of the powers of persuasion
mounted by climate activists, opinion makers and their cheerleading media
mascots, there remain those who insist on examining the results of rigorous
and independent research before adopting any assertion, ideology, belief or
conventional wisdom portrayed as truth.
Contrarians naturally find themselves uneasy
with any large public policy issue which seems to have had the benefit of a
consensus viewpoint from the beginning.
“The science is settled” and “peer review proves
it” are mantras which are just too convenient for comfort.
Have you hopped aboard
the global warming/carbon credit trading train or are you starting to
question what you have been told and question what the benefits are for those
who promote such ‘science’ as opposed to you as a private citizen
of this planet?
Arnold Bock
Editor's Note: The above article is Part 1 of
a 4-part series that includes: "U.S. and Canada Are Global Warming
Scapegoats (Part 2)"; "Why Should WE Make Sacrifices to Offset
Global Warming? (Part 3)"; "Global Warming: The 'Anthropocentric'
Crisis (Part 4)".
Arnold Bock is a Canadian living abroad retired from a career in
government. He has a substantial
background in partisan politics and public policy development as well as in
project and program management within the public sector.
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