Scared Monkeys Discussion Forum

Current Events and Musings => Political Forum => Topic started by: WhiskeyGirl on September 23, 2010, 07:56:46 AM



Title: "Carbon Markets: Reinventing Capitalism Or Rebranding Socialism?"
Post by: WhiskeyGirl on September 23, 2010, 07:56:46 AM
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Questioning capitalism can be a dangerous thing. Business secretary Vince Cable is in trouble this week for apparently casting doubts about the market. But last week, a sustainable business conference heard that it could be time to reinvent capitalism, to protect the planet.

Who really profits from the false 'markets'?  Wall Street?  Elite global players?

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It’s time to “reinvent capitalism,” said Ian Cheshire, head of Kingfisher group, the company behind DIY firm B&Q. Carbon credits are trying to fix the input values to the system so capitalism can produce a result that is of benefit to the world. In a sense that’s reinventing capitalism - or at least tinkering with it.

But it’s also not remotely new. As Vince Cable said this week, “markets are often irrational or rigged,”, and it takes intervention to clean that up. The carbon credit concept is no more artificial than the network of pro-polluter subsidies which Porritt described, nor the systems of bankers’ bonuses which drive irrational behaviour in the money markets.

But what happens if carbon markets don’t work? Campaigners like Porritt say that carbon trading schemes need to get tougher in order to change behaviour. The UK government seems to buy into that idea, with energy secretary Chris Huhne promising a high price for carbon to drive business change. But others can’t stomach the idea of allowing companies to buy credits that allow them to pollute. They dismiss the idea of carbon trading as a “scam”.

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But, let’s not pretend. When governments make prices go up, it’s a tax. And when governments impose collective actions to remind us that the planet actually belongs to all of us, it’s not far off socialism. We are talking about collective ownership - or stewardship - of the world.

Who really reaps the rewards?  A few global elite?  Folks that feast on lobster while the rest get Beans N Dogs?

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So at the Summit, we had a call to reinventing capitalism - but it might just as easily have been an urge to rebrand socialism.

"Rebranding Socialism"

more here - http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/comment/carbon-markets-reinventing-capitalism-or-rebranding-socialism-9953 (http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/comment/carbon-markets-reinventing-capitalism-or-rebranding-socialism-9953)


Title: Corruption and Indonesia's climate deals
Post by: WhiskeyGirl on September 23, 2010, 08:02:30 AM
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Billions of dollars Indonesia stands to earn every year in climate change deals could be at risk if it fails to stamp out corruption in its forestry sector, long notorious for graft and focus of an ongoing investigation.

Norway is preparing to pay the first $30 million of $1 billion it agreed to give Indonesia in return for a commitment to preserve valuable forests, part of a UN scheme in which rich nations will pay developing countries not to chop down trees.

"Our emission reduction potential from forestry and peatland is about 1.5 gigatonnes by 2030. So if the price of emissions reductions is around $10 per ton in 2030, then our potential revenue is $15 billion per annum by 2030," Agus Purnomo, head of Indonesia's National Council on Climate Change, told Reuters.

But considerable obstacles stand in the way. Indonesia's lucrative palm oil, plantations and mining sectors say the moratorium on land conversion will hinder expansion and profits. And the forestry sector has a legacy of mismanagement and graft.

"It's a source of unlimited corruption," said Chandra M. Hamzah, deputy chairman at the KPK anti-graft agency set up by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to combat corruption.

more here - http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68G0O020100917 (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68G0O020100917)

So how many folks will lose their jobs?  Income?



Title: Re: "Carbon Markets: Reinventing Capitalism Or Rebranding Socialism?"
Post by: WhiskeyGirl on September 23, 2010, 08:06:20 AM
"More Coming on Warming From French Academy"

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PARIS—Revelations and contradictions from the closed-door debate on climate change at the French Academy of Sciences yesterday continue to make their way into the press, but how much was achieved will not be clear until the report is published towards the end of October.

Research minister Valérie Pécresse said in a letter academy President Jean Salençon that there should be "maximum transparency," the daily newspaper Libération reported. All the contributions for the debate were leaked to the newspaper, and are now online, and several participants have commented on the proceedings to Libération and Le Monde.

The debate is an official response to a petition of more than 600 scientists, who protested a book by former research minister Claude Allègre L'Imposture Climatique (The Climate Fraud). Discussions were tense, presentations brief, and climatologists lamented the presence of nonspecialists. The arguments of Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were contested by Sandrine Bony of the French Dynamic Meteorological Laboratory, Libération said.

more here - http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/09/more-coming-on-warming-from-french.html (http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/09/more-coming-on-warming-from-french.html)

What's wrong with making the discussions open to the public?  Transparency?


Title: "‘Kill us now. That is better than starving to death.’”"
Post by: WhiskeyGirl on September 23, 2010, 08:16:59 AM
From - "A Global-warming Primer"

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Climategate: A Veteran Meteorologist Exposes the Global Warming Scam, by Brian Sussman, Washington, D.C.: World Net Daily, 2010, 224 pages, hardcover.

Gideons International should obtain rights to this title and place a copy in every hotel room in the United States. It is a veritable bible arming readers with information they need to refute the claims of environmentalists that humans can adversely influence climate.
Americans need to understand this issue, because devastating public policy is being crafted based on faulty science cooked up by those who stand to make a lot of money off the hoax.

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Economics and Public Policy
Sussman’s book encompasses more than science, because his purpose in writing is not merely to refute errors. The climate debate would not exist if unscrupulous politicians did not intend to use the concocted data to enact public policies set to cripple developed nations’ economies and force consumers back to archaic levels of energy consumption. “Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat’s dream. If you control carbon, you control life,” said Dr. Richard Lindzen, a climate scientist with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 2007.

His words have already played out in real life. In December, Ed Hiserodt reported for The New American, “Last January the government of Chad outlawed charcoal because of its emissions of CO2. This caused a riot in the streets by women whose only method of cooking for their families was being taken from them to pacify the environmental extremists. Their plea was, ‘Kill us now. That is better than starving to death.’”

Let them buy new stoves and expensive pellets - help create an economy.  If they have not money, and currently cook for free, what will they use to buy pellets and stoves?  Maybe they will be forced to sell their bodies, and their children?

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Sussman warns his readers that eco-fanatics have the same thing in mind for the United States. New technologies with chillingly Orwellian potential are already in use that will allow government authorities to monitor home appliances and control them remotely. For example, updated building codes now mandate the use of Programmable Communicating Thermostats (PCT), which “allow the utility to change settings on the thermostat based on load or other factors.” Meanwhile, companies such as GE, Google, Microsoft, and IBM stand to make fortunes on the development of such technology. Hardly surprising is Al Gore’s stake in many of these eco-mercenaries. Equally damning is Barack Obama’s interest in the Chicago Climate Exchange, a commodity market poised “to become the designated carbon trading depot” if the President’s dreams of carbon-taxing cap-and-trade become reality.

more here - http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/reviews/books/4606-a-global-warming-primer (http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/reviews/books/4606-a-global-warming-primer)