… maybe it’s not too late for the California utility to join the USSR Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
New York Syndrome?
According to this report in The Guardian, the UN is planning to engage in psychological warfare on heads of state attending the climate summit in New York this week.
The UN plans to separate leaders of developed countries from their staff and then isolate the leaders in discussion groups and lunches with the leaders of poor nations seeking climate handouts, rent-seeking CEOs and green groups.
The ostensible purpose of the planned “shock therapy”, as the UN calls it, is to “imbue” the leaders with a “new sense of purpose” with respect to fighting the much-dreaded global warming.
At face value, the UN apparently aims to generate a sort of Stockholm Syndrome — where hostages develop sympathy for their captors — among leaders of the developed world. But this can’t be true Stockholm Syndrome, of course, since all the developed world leaders are already pretty much in the tank for global warming alarmism and no major psychological shifts will occur.
Rather, the UN seems to hope that this exercise will light a fire under President Obama so that he pushes harder toward the global economic suicide that carbon caps represent. Remember that the goal of an international carbon regime is to hamstring the U.S. economy and to ensnare the U.S. in global governance.
I sense a new Wikipedia entry coming:
New York syndrome is a psychological response hoped for by global warming alarmists, in which a socialist U.S. President is pressured to advocate more intensely for international socialism, regardless of the global-economic-destruction-for-no-environmental-gain that is likely to occur.
Thank you Hank Paulson!
The Treasury Department released today the unredacted documents related to CEI’s recent FOIA request.
The office that created these docs was created by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, whose nomination we opposed since it was obvious that he would use his position to advance the global warming ball for the greens.
As it turns out, good ol’ Hank may have sowed the seeds of cap-and-trade’s destruction.
Michelle, dumbbell…
… these are words that go together well…
… based on this Dana Milbank-article in today’s Washington Post about Michelle Obama shutting down blocks of Washington, D.C. so that she can pose as shopper of over-priced “organic” groceries at a local market — $5 for a dozen eggs?
Milbank’s article is must-reading if you haven’t already shaken your head in disgust today at the Obama administration.
Too bad birth control isn’t retroactive…
Giving contraceptives to people in developing countries could help fight climate change by slowing population growth, experts said Friday.
These “experts” wouldn’t be so “expert” had they not been born.
Unexpected admission from the OECD
ClimateWire reports that a new paper by economists at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says that:
… if OECD countries acted alone on climate, containing global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — the benchmark expected in Copenhagen — would be impossible.
So even if you believe in the global warming alarmist fairy tale, since India and China have vowed not to cut emissions at the expense of growth, nothing will be achieved by the developed world committing economic hara-kiri over CO2.
ACORN to get cap-and-trade cash in NY
Democratic legislators in New York want to give ACORN part of the $112 million that the state has raised from the sale of carbon allowances through the Northeastern Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
ACORN is the “community organizer” enterprise that has been exposed by Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck as little more than a ground-based campaign for socializing America.
According to a report in ClimateWire:
… Groups like ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, would receive some of the $112 million in carbon revenue to train workers in weatherization programs and to enroll residents in the programs.
“The organizations, such as ACORN, that would be eligible to receive this money were strong political supporters of the very same people that were pushing to get the bill passed,” said Mark Hansen, a spokesman for Republican state Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, who voted against the measure.
Skelos sent a letter yesterday to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo asking him to freeze all state money going to ACORN and its local affiliate, citing the U.S. Senate’s vote on an amendment Monday to deny the group federal housing grants. The vote came after two ACORN employees were videotaped in Baltimore giving tax advice to two actors posing as a pimp and prostitute…
Imagine how much money Democrats would funnel to ACORN if a national cap-and-tax regime is enacted.
WANTED: CARBON CRIMINAL; Exelon’s John Rowe
[Click image to enlarge]
Treasury: Cap-and-trade costs taxpayers $200 billion annually
From the Washington Times:
Officials at the Treasury Department think cap-and-trade legislation would cost taxpayers hundreds of billion in taxes, according to internal documents circulated within the agency and provided to The Washington Times…
A memo prepared by Judson Jaffe, who works in the Treasury’s Office of Environment and Energy, referenced President Obama’s remarks on energy policy in his State of the Union Address and said, given the president’s plan to auction emissions allowances, “a cap-and-trade program could generate federal receipts on the order of $100 to $200 billion annually.”
These figures differ from other cost estimates for the legislation produced more recently by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.
“These are candid, internal discussions of what they are telling each other and what they won’t tell you,” said Christopher C. Horner, a CEI senior fellow who filed the request.
Kudos to Horner.
The new French disease: Carbon tax-itis
French President Nicholas Sarkozy has announced plans to strong-arm France into adopting a carbon tax in order to “save the human race” from global warming.
According to the AP:
The tax would be initially based on the market price for carbon dioxide emissions permits, which is now euro17 ($24.74) per ton of carbon dioxide, Sarkozy said. At that level, the government expects to raise euro3 billion, which will be entirely returned to households and businesses through a reduction in other taxes or repaid via a so-called “Green Check,” Sarkozy said.
The result would be a shift of the tax burden from other revenue sources to energy derived from fossil fuels in an effort to discourage their use.
Gasoline, diesel fuel, coal and natual gas will be subject to the tax, but not electricity, Sarkozy said. France generates most of its electricity via nuclear power, which doesn’t emit greenhouse gases.
The tax would add 4.5 euro cents to each liter of diesel, 4 cents to each liter of gasoline and 0.4 cents for each KWh of natural gas consumed, Sarkozy said. The tax is intended to rise gradually from this level, Sarkozy said.
France emits about 1.4% of global manmade CO2 emissions.
If France stopped emitting CO2 altogether for the next 90 years, the total amount of atmospheric CO2 avoided would be on the order of 1.8 parts per million.
Sacre bleu!
The twisted green mind…
The ad below was developed by the World Wildlife Fund, allegedly in an attempt to dramatize the death toll from the 2004 Asian tsunami. The ad’s caption reads:
“The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it. www.wwf.org.
Thw WWF’s message is, of course, a subliminal warning about the much-dreaded global warming.
Following the Asian tsunami, I wrote a column for FoxNews.com — “Enviros Surf Tsunami Tragedy” — pointing out how the greens were trying to exploit the tragedy by linking the tsunami to global warming.
The greens complained to FoxNews.com about my column to no avail. (See note at end of column.)
Now, more than four years after the tragedy, the greens are still lyin’ and denyin’.
Click here for the story in The Guardian.
Government Electric: GE lawyer to become top federal environmental litigator
The Senate Judiciary Committee held the confirmation hearing yesterday for Ignacia Moreno to become the top federal environmental litigator at the Department of Justice.
Moreno is currently a top environmental lawyer for General Electric.
If she’s confirmed, which will probably happen later this month, we guess this will just more of… well… as GE recently put it in a memo soliciting PAC contributions from its employees :
“The intersection between GE’s interests and government action is clearer than ever.”
Apparently, it’s not enough that GE CEO Jeff Immelt is already on President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board — and getting stimulus money in return.
Of course, maybe GE just wants to make sure that it doesn’t get sued when its Hudson River cleanup project backfires.
Does GE now stand for “Government Electric”?