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Here’s a stark statistic that came out last week in a new report: The Climate Industry draws in nearly $1 billion dollars a day. But here’s an ominous combination: … it openly admits that taxpayer money is its “engine-room”. Reading between the lines below, this industry is almost completely dependent on domestic policies that funnel money from citizens to itself, and tilts the playing field — without those policies, it can’t attract much private money. That is, it can only get money at least partially by coercion, people won’t give it money purely voluntarily. These same groups want even more — they want the public to take the risks too. What could possibly go wrong?
Al Gore, said it himself: “Special interests control decisions too frequently.” [See the ABC]. So he must be concerned about the lobbying weight of a $360 billion dollar baby whose existence is contingent on government gravy? As if…
From: The Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2013 from the Climate Policy Initiative
“Landscape 2013 finds that global climate finance flows have plateaued at USD 359 billion, or around USD 1 billion per day – far below even the most conservative estimates of investment […]
[See our concise and updating story of the bet here.]
Commenters often ask us if I am prepared to make a bet and put “your money where your mouth is.” The answer is: been there — done that. We (as in David Evans and I) already have and a long time ago. As far as I know, it’s one of the largest private bets going on the climate*. David bet against Brian Schmidt, $6,000 to $9,000, in early 2007 on outcomes over 10, 15 and 20 years.
The bet was made a year before I started blogging. It was literally the first action we took as skeptics (instigated and hammered out almost entirely by David, with my support). So we have $6,000 exposure — betting that global temperatures would not rise faster than 0.15C per decade, as judged by GISTemp. How are we doing on this bet? Judging by the trend at the moment, pretty well. Brian is still optimistic that he will win on the later outcomes. (This is part of the reason we are particularly interested in trends from 2005, which is when the bet temperatures begin to count.) Kudos to Brian both for being one […]
Let the historic dissection begin. Man-made global warming is a dying market and a zombie science.
The Carbon Capture Report, based in Illinois, tallies up the media stories from the English speaking media on “climate change” daily. Thanks to the tip from Peter Lang, we can see the terminal trend below. The big peak in late 2009 was the double-whammy of Climategate and Copenhagen (aka Hopenhagen). It’s all been downhill since then.
Mentions of “climate change” in news, blogs and tweets dropped suddenly from July 29, 2011
Source: Carbon Capture Report
But something that caught my eye was the drop in mid 2011 (or precisely — July 29, 2011) when media stories fell by half, a step-change fall from which they never recovered.
Media Matters, and Joe Romm make much of of the fact that after Paul Ingrassia (a skeptic) was appointed as Reuters deputy-editor-in-chief news coverage of climate change fell by half.
Media Matters found a 48% decline in climate-change coverage over a six-month period, after Ingrassia joined the agency in 2011.
But Ingrassia started in April 2011 not July. Media Matters compares 6 months before the global fall Oct 2010 – April 2011 — to […]
State of the Carbon Market: Started in 2003, but wiped out in 2013
Each year for nearly a decade The World Bank has published “The State and Trends of the Carbon Market” in May or June with great fan-fare and press releases. It’s the definitive guide telling the world how many dollars are turning over in the global markets (which really means “the EU market plus a few other bits”). I’ve been quoting their figures for years — The 2012 report told us that $176 billion dollars turned over in 2011. So what was the number for the 2012 year? Whatever it is, it’s so bad the World Bank cancelled the report.
Figure what the cancellation of the report tells us about the The World Bank. Was it publishing these figures for the last nine years because they were important for investors and policy-makers? I guess not, or they would still be publishing them. By dropping it at the first major downturn, we know the reason for the report was pure PR, something for whipping up momentum about the market and getting headlines in newspapers. The numbers in 2013 became a PR disadvantage — the World Bank did […]
So what does this mean? Billions more dollars poured into the uber carbon gravy train? Twenty whole percent?
Current climate spending is estimated at 5-7%. So this might be a big increase. Has the EU gone over the waterfall, or is it more a PR exercise where money that would have been spent on other things is rebadged as a “climate” expenditure.*
The power of a single department may get diffused and spread among lots of departments. WWF are not happy and nor is the European Environmental Bureau. It can’t be all bad. ( 🙂 )
Environment News Service
BRUSSELS, Belgium, February 8, 2013 (ENS) – European heads of state and government have agreed to commit at least 20 percent of the entire European Union budget over the next seven years to climate-related spending.
All-night negotiations in Brussels produced agreement among EU leaders on budget proposals for the rest of the decade, from 2014-2020.
“Climate action objectives will represent at least 20% of EU spending in the period 2014-2020 and therefore be reflected in the appropriate instruments to ensure that they contribute to strengthen energy security, building a low-carbon, resource efficient and climate resilient economy that will enhance Europe’s […]
While cancer patients will have to pay more or wait longer for treatment, the Department To Fix The Weather handed out nearly 1 billion dollars in 2010-2011, some* of which was used to “educate” people about energy efficiency and the benefits of government policies.
*UPDATE: While there are a lot of “education” grants in 2012, there are some research grants going to the CSIRO (eg in 2012 at least $13m of the $40m that year was for research at CSIRO). In 2010 (the big dollar grant year) many more of the grants were for “strategies”, for IPCC matters, for universities and the CSIRO — though none of the grants I’ve seen on a random sample add up to anything like the total outgoing.)
Is this advertising by any other name? Instead of running an ALP campaign advert, they award money to groups which promote their policies and get disguised third party ads by NGOs who collect donations and are seemingly the voice of the community (what percentage of these non-profits comes voluntarily from the community and what percentage comes via forced payment from tax?).
“Do Something” picked up $800,000 to become a type of GONGO and run a […]
GE — A clean energy revenue machine
GE is so large that its annual revenue ($150 billion) is greater than New Zealand’s gross domestic product ($140.43 billion). But GE stands to profit in solving man-man global warming, whereas New Zealand will just pay.
In 2011 GE generated $21 billion in “clean energy revenue”. (GE Annual Report 2011, p 3).
GE boast that their “technology helps deliver a quarter of the world’s electricity”. “We are one of the largest clean energy companies in the world” (page 18) “GE wind turbines, among the most widely used in the world, will soon power the largest wind farm in the U.S ”
Not just a whitegoods company any more.
In other words, they are one of the largest companies in the world which makes profits that depend on a climate of fear. How much would their wind turbines be worth if western governments pulled the pins on all the subsidies?
Here’s how much:
“Manufacturers of turbines and other components will shed an estimated 10,000 workers in the U.S. this year in anticipation of a slowdown in orders, says the AWEA. If Congress doesn’t extend the production tax credit, that figure will […]
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In June this year the UNEP report announced that Global Renewable Energy investment reached $257 Billion in 2011. It’s so large it rivals the $302 billion invested in fossil fuel power. But how much electricity do we get for all that money? When the details are pulled from the fog, a quarter of a trillion dollars appears to produce only about 3% of all our global electricity, and even less of our global energy. All that money, so few gigawatts.
The 2012 UNEP report “Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment” compares the
“…despite an increasingly tough competitive landscape for manufacturers, total investment in renewable power and fuels last year increased by 17% to a record $257 billion, a six-fold increase on the 2004 figure and 94% higher than the total in 2007, the year before the world financial crisis.”
Renewables growth has slowed somewhat:
“Although last year’s 17% increase was significantly smaller than the 37% growth recorded in 2010, it was achieved at a time of rapidly falling prices for renewable energy equipment and severe pressure on fiscal budgets in the developed world.”
The last couple of quarters have not been good for […]
How independent is this project?
Would BEST have ever seriously published a study showing anything other than a scary warming trend?
This is emblematic of how fans of Climate Change Scares present their efforts with half-truths — lines that are technically “correct” but leave an impression that may be the opposite of the real situation.
Elizabeth Muller is listed as “Founder and Executive Director” of the Berkeley Earth Team along with her father Richard Muller. But since 2008 it appears she’s been earning money as a consultant telling governments how to implement green policies, how to reduce their carbon footprint and how to pick “the right technologies” – presumably meaning the right “Green” technologies.
Mullers Daughter Elizabeth registered “GreenGov” in 2008
Richard and Elizabeth Muller. Image: Paul Sakuma/AP
She registered their website and tried to register the trademark herself.
“GreenGov™ is a service offered by Muller & Associates for Governments, International Organizations, non profits, and other organizations that work with Government. The aim is to provide politically-neutral counsel that is broad in scope while rooted in the hard facts of state-of-the-art science and engineering. The key is to make the right patch between the best technologies and […]
Bank of America Pledges $50 Billion to Combat Climate Change
The unholy alliance between bankers and government is on naked display.
It’s the black hole in the kitchen: huge, obvious, and silent. And boy does it suck. As Climate Depot points out, Bank of America got a $45 billion bailout from the government during the global financial crisis. Now it’s promising $50 billion to “address Climate Change”. How Green is your Bankster?
It’s a feeding frenzy:
The bank’s new initiative includes lending, equipment finance, capital markets and advisory activity and carbon finance, as well as advice and investment help.
Bank of America will focus on promoting energy efficiency; renewable energy, including wind, solar and hydropower; lower-carbon transportation like electric and hybrid vehicles; and water and waste treatment and disposal initiatives. [Capitalgr]
They already spend nearly $20bn on climate and did it four years ahead of schedule. So why not $5obn?
The company has spent $17.9 billion toward its initial pledge, including $8.4 billion for energy efficiency activities, including low-cost loans and grants for retrofitting low-income neighborhoods for energy efficiency. It spent $5 billon on renewable energy projects, including helping the San Jose Unified […]
Global Carbon Market trading climbed to $176 billion in 2011 according to the The World Bank, which has just released it’s annual State and Trends of The Carbon Market in 2012. That makes it about the same value as total global wheat production — which supplies about 20% of the calories consumed by the 7 billion people on planet Earth.
The global carbon market disguises itself as an angel against the greedy corporates. Yet it is, itself, a giant corporate playing field. The mainstream media remains largely silent on the “vested interests” represented by this major industry that did not even exist 10 years ago.
Global Carbon Markets are worth billions
Was 2011 the peak of global carbon trading? Looks all downhill from here.
A record number of emissions products were traded in 2011, even though prices of EU carbon permits and international offsets fells well below $10 a tonne late in the year. The prices have fallen, but the volumes have increased. Look out, the average price in 2011 was $18.80US, but the prices in 2012 are less than half that. It will take a monster increase in volumes in 2012 to keep raising the total market […]
Climate Money turned the tables on the Big-Oil criers
A reply to an article on Wired and Ars Technica
Alarmists rarely attack, or even mention the Climate Money paper I did in 2009. It’s an own goal to draw attention to the fact that skeptics are paid a pittance, while the alarm industry soaks in extended baths of cash, grants, and junkets, and the vested interests are a magnitude larger. Exxon might lose some money if a carbon tax comes in, but the world will still need oil. The same can’t be said for ACME-Solar. If a carbon scheme falls over, so does a Solyndra.
So yes, let’s do talk about The Money. As Climate Money pointed out: all Greenpeace could find from Exxon was a mere $23 million for skeptics over a decade, while the cash cow that is catastrophic climate change roped in $2,000 million a year every year during the same period for the scientists who called other scientists “deniers”.
John Timmer tried to debunk it with words like “bogus”, and “false” but lacked things like evidence and numbers to back up his case. As far as I can tell the arguments amount to […]
From the 2011 Australian Research Council report: as much as $45,700,000 was spent on An Environmentally Sustainable Australia in 2011.
The cash cow that is “Climate Change” is so loaded that over a six year period, $718,000 dollars of ARC funds has flowed to “believers” (their terminology) to study and convert dissenters.
The death threat that wasn’t (by the kangaroo culler — John Coochey) was made at an event that deserves more attention. The “Deliberative Democracy” turns out to be part of a project funded by the Australian Research Council to the tune of $378,500. It’s title: Social Adaptation to Climate Change in the Australian Public Sphere: A comparison of individual and group deliberative responses to scenarios of future climate change. This year, a new version of the same project has been awarded another $340,000.
Quite properly, the deliberative forum claims it was not going to take sides:
“The project sought to engage with the full range of positions from people who are sceptical about climate change through to those who are very concerned. We do not endorse any particular point of view – it is the aim of the project to find out what these views […]
The scale of the rot is something to behold. Something is grossly, wantonly wrong with Western Civilization, and lots of people know it, but they don’t know why (and for the next blind rebellion, see, “Occupy”).
But a head of the hydra popped into view last week. First a high profile whistleblower from Goldman Sachs wrote Why I am leaving in the New York Times. Then today (possibly, it’s unconfirmed), an insider from JP Morgan came forward to reveal something far worse, and dark to the core. It’s posted on the CFTC site (that’s The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission – the market watchdog, or rather watch-puppy). [UPDATE: The CFTC have removed the page after 48 hours, a copy of the text is here, screenshot here.]
A Goldman Sachs Executive Director — Greg Smith — resigned from the 143 year old firm explaining he felt ill with the callous culture where people would boast about how much they had ripped off clients, which they called “hunting elephants”, and calling their clients “muppets” and worse. He said that in 12 years the company had completely lost the culture that made him proud to join it. There was nothing left of integrity […]
Gillard once lauded the genius of the carbon market. That part of the “free” market which is free to move, is moving — and right out. The smart money is saying that carbon trading is a dead dog. It’s a has-been-tulip, a sick puppy, a sinking ship.
The future of global carbon trading is so “certain” that Barclays Bank is not even bothering to leave one part time guy in the US office with a post box, so they can pretend they still have an interest in it. The mood has so changed, they see an advantage in letting the world know they’re not wasting a single cent more on carbon trading in the United States of America. Well that made my day. :-).
“That is not good news for carbon-dioxide trading, especially not in the US,”
Barclays was the first UK bank to set up a carbon trading desk, and fast to move into carbon trading: “Barclays Capital is the most active player in the emissions trading market, having traded some 300 million tonnes as at February 2007″.
Barclays Closes US Carbon Desk In Latest Cap And Trade Setback
8.9 out of 10 based on 94 […]
Two professors of sociology think they can explain why “Climate Deniers” are winning. But Riley E. Dunlap and Aaron M. McCright start from the wrong assumption and miss the bleeding obvious: the theory was wrong, the evidence has changed, and thousands of volunteers have exposed it.
The real question sociologists will be studying for years to come is: how was an exaggerated scare, based on so little evidence, poor reasoning and petty namecalling, kept alive for two whole decades?
Climate Change Scare Machine Cycle: see how your tax dollars are converted into alarming messages
See your tax dollars converted into their scare. Click for a larger image. Reference: Climate Money, Science and Public Policy Institute, 2009.
….
The Full PDF version The key points
1. The money and vested interests on the pro-scare side is vastly larger, more influential, and more powerful than that on the skeptical side. Fossil fuel and conservative-think-tanks are competing against most of the world financial houses, the nuclear and renewable energy industry, large well financed green activists (WWF revenue was $700m last year), not to mention whole government departments, major political parties, universities dependent on government funding, the BBC (there is no debate), the […]
This weekend, I’ve got another article in The Weekend Australian. It’s a credit to the Murdoch News team that they are willing to print both points of view. This point is one that resonates with many people — a consensus can be bought with monopolistic science funding. It explains why research could run off the rails. We paid to find a crisis.
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Climate change suspect must be given a fair trial
GOVERNMENTS across the world have paid billions to find links between carbon dioxide and the climate, but very little to find the opposite, and that’s a problem.
Teams of professionals have searched high and low for any possible hint that CO2 poses a threat, and that is all very well, but no one has been paid to find otherwise. CO2 has been convicted without a defence lawyer.
It is self-evident that any expert in a field will reap more rewards, fame and fortune if their field is critically important. Why would anyone expect such experts to go out of their way to hunt down evidence that might suggest their field ought not be the centre of a global […]
Shouldn’t the government know what the benefits and costs of the carbon tax are before they make it into law? This is looking awfully like a case of “policy first, justifications later”.
First they promised they won’t do it. Then they do it, and they ask for even more of our money so they can pay PR hacks (introduced to us as scientists and economists) to tell us how fabulous their unwanted plan is — after all, the Climate Change Commission has no purpose other than to advertise the Carbon Tax. Then there’s a $12 million advertising program. But wait, there’s more…
Amazingly, there are now $250,000 grants (how many?*) from the Department of Climate Change to anyone who can persuade the public to accept the carbon tax!
If the government had thought this through, they’d already know why they wanted to bring in the tax. (Or maybe they did think it through, but are afraid to tell us the real reasons?)
As it is, they’re only bringing in the tax because 12% of the voters voted one green member into the House of Reps, and it was the price paid to keep Gillard in power. But for most Australians […]
Click on the image to go to a fully interactive infographic where you can find out just how much money people have buried, I mean, invested in clean energy in your country. It’s nifty.
Have you ever thought about how lucky we are that only kind-hearted helpful souls are involved in the erstwhile cottage industry known as “renewable energy”?
Imagine if a less-than-scrupulous agent got into these green-fields of money, and frolicked in the vast acreage of subsidies, schemes, and easy loans? Where would we be? The public would think the people and the industry were here to save us, the industry could prod levers of government to encourage more subsidies and pro-renewable energy legislation. The “cottage” industry could also pay for and help write reports that the government then used in order to convince the people to put more of their goods and chattels in the public-trough. In variations on the circular theme, the industry could apply for grants from the government to help pay for the reports it wrote for the government to help it earn even more subsidies, or to cripple it’s competitors. (eg. See here).
Thus deadly positive feedback would spiral out of control.
Then […]
Another leading commentator — this time Michael Stuchbury in The Australian — see the Carbon Tax as a dead dog.
ARE these the signs that Labor’s climate change policy is heading for a second disaster? Big unions and big business are in revolt as the mining boom’s strong dollar squeezes the rest of the trade-exposed economy. Households are up in arms over surging power bills.
And since the shambles of the late 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, Labor hasn’t doused worries that its carbon tax would put Australia in front of the world, a critical risk for a carbon-intensive economy.
This treble of jobs, cost of living and international competitiveness engulfs Julia Gillard and Greg Combet as they attempt to reverse Kevin Rudd’s humiliating 2010 retreat on his emissions trading scheme. It is replete with political and policy failures, some of which are only now becoming evident.
…
Facing a revolt among steel industry members, Australian Workers Union secretary Paul Howes last week vowed to oppose Labor’s carbon tax if it cost just “a single job”, even with unemployment below 5 per cent. Remember this is Wayne Swan’s union, which was mostly responsible for replacing Rudd with Gillard.
Tim Blair […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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