Last Friday, I attended a conference for a multinational bank in Oman.

It is an annual event to update the region’s clients about the bank’s latest views on local and global conditions and, of course, to tell us about its latest products.

For the first time, I heard about the Chicago Climate Exchange (http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/)

I had thought that “green derivatives” was just myth or bad idea, not something able to be sold. But I was shocked to learn that the volume of trades has reached to one trillion dollars!

It seems we are just creating another speculative industry, which will attract huge funds, the whole thing far removed from basic and essential social investments.

I am not against real green initiatives that reduce the pollution, make use of energy more efficient, offer cleaner/better water or improve the healthy environment that surrounds us. I am against the linkage between those useful things and “climate change”, which just seems to put restrictions and taxes on some industries just to fund something not real.

“Climate Change” is something universal. It will keep changing and is more powerful than any human actions. This is my own personal view.

The joke of the conference was this:

When one of the attendees asked the instructor: “What if the investment is lost, how I can justify that to my manager?”

The answer: “Tell him that your company was supporting the fight against global warming!”

I wonder if that answer would be enough to keep feed me in future, if I will lose my job, or will I blame the weather for my decision!

I wonder how the carbon taxes collected in past and future will be justified to the future generations, when they discover that they were used to fund unnecessary and non-productive expenditures like trading on the Chicago Climate Exchange?

R H, Our Middle East Correspondent

Mr Rudd accuses opponents of his Ration-N-Tax Scheme of “bowing to vested interests” (The Australian, 6/11/09).

That is the pot calling the kettle black.

The biggest vested interest is the ALP itself, hoping to harvest Green preference votes from their green posturing.

Supporting the alarmists are the gaggle of green industries already reaping dividends from the Rudd subsidies and market protection rackets.

Mr Rudd also tells us that his big business mates want the “certainty” of Emissions Trading.

A roll call of these people reveals domination by big firms of auditors and accountants, bankers and brokers, speculators and solicitors, touts and traders – all longing to get into the biggest trading lottery the world has ever seen – more snouts in the carbon trough.

The rest of big business merely wants the “certainty” of free emission permits or other special exemptions denied to Joe the Plumber and Fred the Farmer.

Sceptics on the other hand do not have a mercenary army of academics, bureaucrats and publicists who can be bribed or bullied to produce scary climate forecasts or doomsdays ads on demand.

Nor do sceptics have the power to silence or sack dissidents in their ranks.

Nor do they have the pulpits and power of the UN which, having failed at “peace keeping”, sees “climate control” as its new business model.

The climate realists have only one big vested interest – the desire to live their lives free from the “certainty” of new taxes on everything they buy and new controls on everything they do.

This is not about global pollution or global warming – it is about global energy taxes, global government and global redistribution.

Viv Forbes

“When you see that trading is done, not by consent but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed.”

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Part Two, Chapter II.

Dr. Martin Hertzberg

The US Senate hearings on proposed legislation to deal with the “global warming/climate change crisis” were broadcast on C-span last week. While watching, I finally realized that our legislators and government officials were absolutely right to complain about the deficiencies in our nation’s science education. For as they made pronouncements about the impending crisis caused by human emission of greenhouse gases such as CO2 even though they knew nothing about meteorology or climatology, I kept shouting at the TV: “ Heal thyselves, you bunch of scientific illiterates!”

For the 25 years that I have studied this controversy, it never ceases to amaze me at how many otherwise intelligent people have been completely duped by the Gore-IPCC-Hansen clique of propagandists.

Complete article: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/hoax-of-century.pdf [PDF, 32KB]

By Viv Forbes

Four energy sources power most of our world – oil, coal, uranium and gas. These are the earth energy sources that provide heat, light, transportation and power for most homes, factories, farms, vehicles, engines and appliances (for Australia and New Zealand, cross out uranium).

Australia has large buried resources of all of these fuels, and we lead the world in exploration, drilling and extraction technology.

So what could go wrong?

In just three words – stupid energy policies. Big Nanny must intervene in these markets with ever changing rules on tenure, investment policies, development conditions, restricted and no-go areas, market mandates, export embargos and discriminatory taxes and subsidies.

Complete article: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/gas-wastrels.pdf [PDF, 111KB]