From Reuters:
Germany called a French idea to slap “carbon tariffs” on products from countries that are not trying to cut greenhouse gases a form of “eco-imperialism” and a direct violation of WTO rules.
August 2014, anyone?
New Western Front: Germany accuses France of eco-imperialism
From Reuters:
Germany called a French idea to slap “carbon tariffs” on products from countries that are not trying to cut greenhouse gases a form of “eco-imperialism” and a direct violation of WTO rules.
August 2014, anyone?
No campaign funding for Republican turncoats
Two Republican congressmen who voted for the Waxman-Markey bill have announced their candidacy for the U.S. Senate in 2010.
Steve Milloy wrote to National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Sen. John Cornyn asking that NRSC-funding be denied to the congressmen and any other Republican who votes for a climate bill.
July 27, 2009
The Hon. John Cornyn
Chairman
National Republican Senatorial Committee
Ronald Reagan Republican Center
425 2nd Street NE
Washington, DC 20002Dear Sen. Cornyn,
I am writing to request your commitment that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) will not support any candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010 who supported the Waxman-Markey bill or who votes for a similar climate bill in the Senate.
The Waxman-Markey bill is nothing more than a steep and stealthy energy tax and left-wing political power grab that will undermine the American standard of living and subvert our political system. That the bill will accomplish absolutely nothing in terms of energy security and environmental protection is the least of its many flaws and shortcomings.
I am concerned, for example, that Reps. Mike Castle (R-DE) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) will seek NRSC support in 2010 to run for the Senate seats that will be vacated by Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-DE) and Roland Burris (D-IL), respectively. Reps. Castle and Kirk voted for the Waxman-Markey bill and, in our view, against the interests of their constituents and the rest of America’s consumers and taxpayers.
The NRSC should not support Reps. Castle and Kirk or anyone else who lacks the common sense and/or fortitude to stand against the I-hate-America nature of Waxman-Markey and its supporters.
Sincerely,
Steven Milloy
Publisher, JunkScience.com
Bloomberg idles so you don’t get to?
From the New York Daily News:
Mayor Bloomberg, who casts himself as a green movement leader, has been caught red-handed letting his official SUVs idle – sometimes for more than an hour.
In just the past week, the city-owned SUVS that hustle hizzoner around the city were timed idling from 10 minutes to more than an hour eight times, The Associated Press reported.
Bloomberg strengthened the city’s anti-idling law earlier this year, allowing just three minutes of idling…
More windmills-as-eyesores…
North Carolina legislators are split over a bill banning wind turbines that ruin the beauty of the mountains, reports the Winston-Salem Journal.
Maryland’s bright green Gov. Martin O’Malley banned wind turbines from state park lands for aesthetic reasons in 2008.
Does this mean that the planetary emergency is over?
Snow-more fun: Obama to cut snowmobile use in park
The Obama administration has proposed to cut snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park by more than half (318 vs. 720 per day).
Carbon piracy: Will regulators allow Goldman Sachs to pillage the carbon market?
Does last week’s revelation that regulators granted Goldman Sachs special trading advantages over the public in the stock market indicate that Goldman will also get to freeboot in any carbon market created by cap-and trade?
An inquiring mind put that question to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Antonia Senior: Better dead than green
From The Times (July 24):
… Our intransigent refusal to choose green will be met by a new militancy from those who believe we must be saved from ourselves. Ultra-green states cannot arise without some form of forced switch to autocracy; the dictatorship of the environmentalists.
The old two-cow analogy is a useful one. You have two cows. The communist steals both your cows, and may give you some milk, if you’re not bourgeois scum. The fascist lets you keep the cows but seizes the milk and sells it back to you. Today’s Green says you can keep the cows, but should choose to give them up as their methane-rich farts will unleash hell at some unspecified point in the future. You say, sod it, I’ll keep my cows thanks. Tomorrow’s green, the Bolshevik green, shoots the cows and makes you forage for nuts.
If the choice is between ecological meltdown, or a more immediate curtailment of our freedom, where do those of us who are neither red nor green, but a recalcitrant grey, turn? Back to those small desires, and a blinkered hope that the choice never becomes so stark. If it does, I’ll take my chances with Armageddon.
Antonia Senior: Better dead than green
From The Times (July 24):
… Our intransigent refusal to choose green will be met by a new militancy from those who believe we must be saved from ourselves. Ultra-green states cannot arise without some form of forced switch to autocracy; the dictatorship of the environmentalists.
The old two-cow analogy is a useful one. You have two cows. The communist steals both your cows, and may give you some milk, if you’re not bourgeois scum. The fascist lets you keep the cows but seizes the milk and sells it back to you. Today’s Green says you can keep the cows, but should choose to give them up as their methane-rich farts will unleash hell at some unspecified point in the future. You say, sod it, I’ll keep my cows thanks. Tomorrow’s green, the Bolshevik green, shoots the cows and makes you forage for nuts.
If the choice is between ecological meltdown, or a more immediate curtailment of our freedom, where do those of us who are neither red nor green, but a recalcitrant grey, turn? Back to those small desires, and a blinkered hope that the choice never becomes so stark. If it does, I’ll take my chances with Armageddon.
Electricity projected to skyrocket in Georgia under carbon law
“Unless [the Waxman-Markey] legislation is modified and revised, Georgians could see their electric utility bills go up by as much as $66/month by 2020,” Georgia Public Service Commission Chairman Doug Everett told Restructuring Today.
This would amount to about a 70% increase in average monthly residential electricity bills for Georgia Power customers, based on data from the Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority.
India rejects global warming junk science
From the Financial Times:
A split between rich and poor nations in the run-up to climate-change talks widened on Thursday.
India rejected key scientific findings on global warming, while the European Union called for more action by developing states on greenhouse gas emissions.
Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, accused the developed world of needlessly raising alarm over melting Himalayan glaciers.
He dismissed scientists’ predictions that Himalayan glaciers might disappear within 40 years as a result of global warming.
“We have to get out of the preconceived notion, which is based on western media, and invest our scientific research and other capacities to study Himalayan atmosphere,” he said.
I guess Hillary Clinton’s “Ugly American” routine set them off…
Carbon trading omen: Goldman Sachs’ legalized cheating
If Congress enacts carbon trading through a cap-and-trade scheme, look for Goldman Sachs to figure out how to game the market at our expense.
Today’s New York Times features a front-page, above-the-fold article about how Goldman Sachs and other trading firms are allowed a 30-millisecond peek at incoming stock market orders before the rest of the the public, allowing Goldman to buy or sell ahead of the incoming trades.
When I was an SEC lawyer, we called this “trading ahead” or “frontrunning” and it was illegal. But apparently, Goldman Sachs and some other traders with powerful computers have obtained special permission to engage in so-called “high-frequency trading” — which can only be considered a euphemism for frontrunning.
This is outrageous in so far as it gives Goldman and the other frontrunners an unfair advantage in the market — no wonder Goldman Sachs is set to have record profits this year.
So what’s this got to do with carbon trading?
Energy and Environment Daily reported today:
Diverging views about how to regulate trillion-dollar carbon trading markets that would grow under a cap-and-trade law have emerged as a major hurdle for Democrats trying to pass a climate bill this year.
Some prominent senators on energy issues say the House-passed climate bill would not prevent a repeat of alleged speculation or manipulation in oil markets in recent years…
The discussions about how to regulate carbon allowance and derivative markets are unfolding at a time when lawmakers want to show they are not enabling Wall Street banks to launch another complex financial trading system that could spin out of control.
“The last kind of headline that members of Congress will want is billions in bonuses for Wall Street because of the way they have manipulated the cap-and-trade market,” said Norm Ornstein, a congressional expert with the American Enterprise Institute. “That is not something they can tolerate.”
Add all this to the recent report by Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi that Goldman secretly received permission from the Commodity Future Trading Commission to take greater positions in the futures market than other traders — thereby helping to cause last year’s oil bubble and $4-gasoline — and you’ve got a recipe for ill-gotten profits from carbon trading for Goldman and disaster for the rest of us.