Turning a Blue Planet Green

HOW CARBON TRADING WORKS

2012-05-14T10:42:00.001-07:00

Carbon trading not clearing the air

Peter Koven, Financial Post Published: Saturday, December 05, 2009

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HOW CARBON TRADING WORKS: A "cap and trade" system would penalize heavy polluters and reward companies that invested in clean power. Kagan McLeod, National Post HOW CARBON TRADING WORKS: A "cap and trade" system would penalize heavy polluters and reward companies that invested in clean power.

In the last week alone, it has been at the heart of a major funding dispute with China and political chaos in Australia. But despite its growing importance, the world of carbon trading remains opaque, almost unknown by the average investor even as it becomes an enormous global industry.

At its heart, carbon trading is a simple business: Companies have caps on the amount of greenhouse-gas emissions they are allowed to make, for which they receive "credits." If they exceed their emission caps, they can buy credits from other companies that are emitting below their caps, providing motivation for everyone to invest in greener technologies and reduce emissions.

That is where the simplicity ends. In North America and much of the rest of the world, there is no harmonized emissions-trading system, and no one really knows what that system will look like once governments take a more active role in regulating emissions (the European Union has a system, but there are plenty of questions about how effective it is.)

Even without established cap-and-trade in North America, a wide number of public-and private-sector ventures are up and running. It is proof that entrepreneurs recognize that carbon trading is the future, and everyone from Alberta farmers to U.S. alternative energy producers are benefiting.

The carbon market is growing with staggering speed.

In 2002, the World Bank estimated that 32 million metric tonnes of carbon emissions were traded around the world, worth about US$100-million. Bill Clifton, commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said in a recent speech that in 2008, 4.8 billion metric tonnes were traded with a total dollar value of US$126-billion.

That works out to an annual growth rate of more than 300%, and that is before the U.S. Federal government steps in with some kind of carbon program. Experts have suggested the carbon market could be worth US$2-trillion or US$3-trillion a year in short order, dwarfing even the oil market.

"Make no mistake, these carbon markets can be the world's largest commodity markets in a few short years," Mr. Clifton said.

For investors, the carbontrading market offers some opportunities, but a combination of government uncertainty and the sharpest global downturn in decades makes it a dicey proposition.

Carbon prices have collapsed over the last year, especially in North America, where trading is voluntary.

Part of the reason is economics -- when a recession hits, there is less industrial activity and companies emit less. The other factor is political, as many companies do not want to buy voluntary carbon credits when it is unclear how an eventual government-run system will work.

The main vehicle to buy and sell carbon credits in North America is the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), where prices have plummeted from more than US$7 per tonne last year to just US15¢.

The exchange still boasts a blue-chip base of large emitters, including Canadian companies such as Domtar Corp. and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc. They see the CCX as a testing ground to prepare for real regulation in the future.

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Was Russian secret service behind leak of climate-change emails?

2012-05-14T10:42:00.000-07:00

FSB accused of paying hackers to discredit scientists after stolen correspondence traced to server in Siberia

By Shaun Walker

Monday, 7 December 2009
The news that a leaked set of emails appeared to show senior climate scientists had manipulated data was shocking enough. Now the story has become more remarkable still.

The computer hack, said a senior member of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, was not an amateur job, but a highly sophisticated, politically motivated operation. And others went further. The guiding hand behind the leaks, the allegation went, was that of the Russian secret services.

The leaked emails, which claimed to provide evidence that the unit's head, Professor Phil Jones, colluded with colleagues to manipulate data and hide "unhelpful" research from critics of climate change science, were originally posted on a server in the Siberian city of Tomsk, at a firm called Tomcity, an internet security business.
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The FSB security services, descendants of the KGB, are believed to invest significant resources in hackers, and the Tomsk office has a record of issuing statements congratulating local students on hacks aimed at anti-Russian voices, deeming them "an expression of their position as citizens, and one worthy of respect". The Kremlin has also been accused of running co-ordinated cyber attacks against websites in neighbouring countries such as Estonia, with which the Kremlin has frosty relations, although the allegations were never proved.

"It's very common for hackers in Russia to be paid for their services," Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the vice chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, said in Copenhagen at the weekend. "It's a carefully made selection of emails and documents that's not random. This is 13 years of data, and it's not a job of amateurs."

The leaked emails, Professor van Ypersele said, will fuel scepticism about climate change and may make agreement harder at Copenhagen. So the mutterings have prompted the question: why would Russia have an interest in scuppering the Copenhagen talks?

This time, if it was indeed the FSB behind the leak, it could be part of a ploy to delay negotiations or win further concessions for Moscow. Russia, along with the United States, was accused of delaying Kyoto, and the signals coming from Moscow recently have continued to dismay environmental activists.

When Ed Miliband, the Secreatary of State for Climate Change, visited Moscow this year, he had meetings with high-level Russian officials and pronounced them constructive. But others doubt that Russia has much desire to go green.

Up in the far northern reaches of Russia, there are stretches of hundreds of miles of boggy tundra; human settlements are few and far between. Often, the only inhabitants are indigenous reindeer herders, who in recent years have reported that their cyclical lifestyle is being affected by the climate: they have to wait until later in the year to migrate to winter camps, because the rivers do not freeze as early as they used to. In spring, the snow melts quickly and it becomes harder for reindeer to pull sleds.

Much of Russia's vast oil and gas reserves lie in difficult-to-access areas of the far North. One school of thought is that Russia, unlike most countries, would have little to fear from global warming, because these deposits would suddenly become much easier and cheaper to access.

It is this, goes the theory, that underlies the Kremlin's ambivalent attitudes towards global warming; they remain lukewarm on the science underpinning climate change, knowing full well that if global warming does change the world's climate, billions of dollars of natural resources will become accessible. Another motivating factor could be that Russia simply does not want to spend the vast sums of money that would be required to modernise and "greenify" Russia's ageing factories.

But global warming also brings with it a terrifying threat for Russia, the melting of permafrost, which covers so much of the country's territory. Cities in the Siberian north such as Yakutsk are built entirely on permafrost, and if this melts, are in danger of collapsing, along with railways and all other infrastructure.

But many in Russia's scientific community are deeply sceptical of the threat from global warming. And only 40 per cent of Russians believe climate change is a serious threat, a survey shows

Russia's commitments ahead of Copenhagen have been modest. In June, the President, Dmitry Medvedev, said Russia would reduce emission levels by 10 to 15 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. But what this actually means is a whopping 30 per cent rise from the present levels. Using the 1990 figures as a benchmark is a way to gain extra leeway, because emissions in Russia have tumbled since the Soviet Union collapsed and much of its polluting industrial complex went down with it.

Of course, Russia is not alone in falling short on climate commitments. But nor does it have a track record for openness for dismissal of the claims against the FSB to be straightforward. The Tomsk hackers in the message along with their leak, wrote of their hopes that the release would "give some insight into the science and the people behind it". Similar insights into the hackers themselves look extremely unlikely.

Chemical Brake down of the Gulf oil leak.

2012-05-14T10:41:00.003-07:00

Hydrogen sulfide
Methylene Chloride
Benzene
BP Oil Spill:Toxic Gases Spreading Inland, Scientist Says Move Out of Gulf...EVACUATIONS OF THE GULF REGION ARE COMING, FEMA WILL OPEN ITS ONE-WAY DOORS.
Gases such as Hydrogen Sulfide, Benzene, Methylene Chloride, and other toxic gases pose a greater risk to human health than the presence of oil washing up on Gulf of Mexico beaches. The allowable levels of Hydrogen Sulfide and Benzene according to the EPA are 5-10 parts per billion and 0 respectively.The EPA reported the level detected in the Gulf at almost 1,200 PPB for hydrogen sulfide and 3400 PPB for Benzene during the month of May. The amounts pose a serious and even fatal health risk to people and animals.
For some official level reports on these deadly gases click below

Climategate: You should be Steamed

2012-05-14T10:41:00.002-07:00

By Neil Frank
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/2010/01/climategate-you-should-be-steamed/
Now that Copenhagen is past history, what is the next step in the man-made global warming controversy? Without question, there should be an immediate and thorough investigation of the scientific debauchery revealed by “Climategate.”

If you have not heard, hackers penetrated the computers of the Climate Research Unit, or CRU, of the United Kingdom’s University of East Anglia, exposing thousands of e-mails and other documents. CRU is one of the top climate research centers in the world. Many of the exchanges were between top mainstream climate scientists in Britain and the U.S. who are closely associated with the authoritative (albeit controversial) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the more troubling revelations were data adjustments enhancing the perception that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Particularly disturbing was the way the core IPCC scientists (the believers) marginalized the skeptics of the theory that man-made global warming is large and potentially catastrophic. The e-mails document that the attack on the skeptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the skeptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the skeptics were demonized through false labeling and false accusations.

Climate alarmists would like you to believe the science has been settled and all respectable atmospheric scientists support their position. The believers also would like you to believe the skeptics are involved only because of the support of Big Oil and that they are few in number with minimal qualifications.

But who are the skeptics? A few examples reveal that they are numerous and well-qualified. Several years ago two scientists at the University of Oregon became so concerned about the overemphasis on man-made global warming that they put a statement on their Web site and asked for people’s endorsement; 32,000 have signed the petition, including more than 9,000 Ph.Ds. More than 700 scientists have endorsed a 231-page Senate minority report that questions man-made global warming. The Heartland Institute has recently sponsored three international meetings for skeptics. More than 800 scientists heard 80 presentations in March. They endorsed an 881-page document, created by 40 authors with outstanding academic credentials, that challenges the most recent publication by the IPCC. The IPCC panel’s report strongly concludes that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide.

Last year 60 German scientists sent a letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel urging her to “strongly reconsider” her position supporting man-made global warming. Sixty scientists in Canada took similar action. Recently, when the American Physical Society published its support for man-made global warming, 200 of its members objected and demanded that the membership be polled to determine the APS’ true position.

Read the rest of this piece at Houston Chronicle.

BenjaminFulford

2012-05-14T10:41:00.001-07:00

Benjamin Fulford
In Haiti, "Earthquake" information behind

According to the Pentagon and information from MI6, the earthquake happened in Haiti is saying that recent attacks by weapons of earthquakes. The CIA and MI6, according to new information, this weapon was used HAARP earth quake that was what the atomic bomb instead. According to the CIA and HAARP tsunami in Indonesia, not likely that such weapons were used and the same time. National Geographic when I went to the tsunami one year after the tsunami epicenter, said there was not a creature. Explain why the CIA can not believe that it is not radioactive.
The purpose of Haiti is saying that the two attacks. One is that many Latin American countries to cut undersea cables in order to prevent the transfer of large amounts of money. Another is "hunt down and start their own genocide" threat. We suspect you do this (Papa Bush faction ) take responsibility for it. Asia also needs to encourage to send emergency aid to Haiti from around the world.

Behind this is the final phase of attacks in the U.S. financial war. It has been a backlash against the Fed has cut off the funding. The closing date for the Young people are also included at the end of this month that more information is likely to accelerate the movement is intense.

MI6 also said the Fed has sold a lot of Missile Technology to China to get a hedge fund. The Fed has the guys to not fall, the colour seems more people trying to sell military technology to China that. This is a traitorous acts against the United States. According to Pentagon figures were more representative of the forces of the universe that could open to the public in the underground facility in the near future. In Japan, it is considered that the arrest of Ozawa. The reason is that it can prevent a dictatorship by Ozawa Followed by intense domestic and international expansion continues.
http://benjaminfulford.typepad.com/benjaminfulford/

Copenhagen: a deal of sorts

2012-05-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

Copenhagen: a deal of sorts
The push for a global, legally binding deal could not overcome national self-interest

President Barack Obama talks Israeli President Shimon Peres, right, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller. Official White House photo Pete Souza.Upon hearing that the Copenhagen Conference was over, I quickly found that there were, just like in the conference, competing headlines and stories about what had transpired. One story told me a deal had been reached; another said that all hope was lost. This much I know; George Monbiot is beside himself and Lord Monckton is outraged. Both men are upset, because neither got everything they wanted.

Monbiot, one of Britain’s leading climate change activists, is no fan of the Copenhagen Accord; the agreement that leaders cobbled together on their way out of town. Writing in The Guardian, Monbiot says, “A clearer and less destructive treaty than the texts currently being discussed would be a sheaf of blank paper, which every negotiating party solemnly sits down to sign.” Clearly, Monbiot sees nothing but failure.

Meanwhile, Lord Christopher Monckton, one of Britain’s leading climate change sceptics, is in a funk becase he says the conference has been a success in helping to establish a world government. Monckton points to the huge sums of money that will be drawn from nation states to finance climate change adaptation; up to $100 billion US by 2020, as proof of the imminent global government.

While it might be easy to dismiss Monckton, his claim evoking images of people who wear tinfoil hats and fear black helicopters; it is this fear, of a supra-national government-like structure, that helped kill off what activists had hoped for.

Throughout the conference there have been calls from activists, and from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, for the leaders to sign on to a legally binding treaty. Canadian environmental guru David Suzuki says the the problem with the Kyoto Protocol was that it had no teeth and countries that did not meet targets could not be punished. In the middle of the conference, Suzuki appeared on CBC Television to say any deal out of Copenhagen would need to have teeth, “We need, if we're going to have such regulations, we need ones with teeth; a way of punishing those that fail to meet them. If we don't have that, then it's just on paper and any rinky-dink country or person can say, no, I'm not going to even bother trying.”

Don’t feel bad for Suzuki that the current accord is a set of voluntary emissions reductions that cannot be enforced. The crusading environmentalist says, “We'll wait until next year, until we get the negotiations going along further. But we've got to say nature sets the limits, not us.” And expect this same demand to be pushed back next year, just as it was this year, by China.

Much of the negotiations in Copenhagen centred on the idea that developed countries needed to provide money for developing countries to sign onto any agreement to limit carbon emissions. The calls for such funding went as high as $200 billion a year, but in the end it was agreed that the developed world would, by 2020, provide $100 billion annually for climate change mitigation. In exchange for the money, the developed nations demanded “transparency”; they wanted to know where the money was going and they wanted to monitor the emissions reductions for which they would be paying. China balked at both demands. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called any attempt to have outside groups monitor emissions reductions in China a violation of his country’s sovereignty.

It’s not just the monitoring that would violate the sovereignty of China, or any other country that believes in such antiquated concepts, but also the idea put forward by Suzuki and others that there will be an international body that can impose sanctions upon countries that do not meet emissions reductions targets. There would also be a loss of national sovereignty if the proposal to have an international tax established to pay for this fund were agreed to.

One of the proposals discussed widely at the conference, and supported by European countries, was for a tax on aviation fuel and bunker fuel, the energy source for international shipping. The levy upon these two carbon-emitting fuels would be passed onto the International Maritime Organisation, a division of the United Nations, which would then oversee the distribution of funds. What do we generally call bodies that impose and collect taxes, that can impose penalties and monitor what you do? Government.

China cannot, and likely never will, accept outside authorities telling them what they can and cannot do within their boundaries. I expect there are other countries that hold a similar point of view, but dare not express it in relation to such a fashionable cause as climate change.

We’ve been told that climate change is based on science, and Climategate aside, the science they tell us is clear. Yet what happened over the last twelve days in Copenhagen was not science, it was politics, pure and simple. It was countries attempting to see if their national self-interest could mesh with the self-interest of other nations. Environmental purists may not like that, but barring that, global government Lord Monckton fears it will stay this way.

As he left Copenhagen late Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper admitted that activists may not be happy with the accord, but, “Leaders have to translate necessity of dealing with the challenge and the science of climate change, with the very real impact of what trying to deal with it will have on our economies.” That’s realpolitik in it’s truest sense. The leaders have agreed to what they see as practical and possible now while also singing the refrain familiar to so many sports fans at the end of a disappointing season, “there’s always next year.”

Dirty climate data

2012-05-14T10:40:00.002-07:00

Dirty climate data

Climategate emails prove that we must redo the science with data and a process that can be trusted

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post Published: Saturday, December 05, 2009

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http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=2305744

The data from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University -- headquarters for Climategate -- is now discredited. This discredits any findings by other research bodies that relied on the Climategate data.

How much falls from Climategate, whose participants read like a Who's Who at the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Not much, says CRU's disgraced director, Phil Jones, pointing out that CRU's data for global temperatures is but one of several datasets, all in general agreement. Besides, many argue, CRU was no linchpin to the science. The IPCC relied on numerous other sources. Throw CRU out, they say, and the IPCC's conclusions remain unshakable.

In truth, if you throw CRU out, you've eviscerated the findings of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, the most recent and most definite opus from the UN. This is the report, received with universal acclaim in 2007, which scarily stated: "The warming of the climate system is unequivocal."

The argument over global warming requires evidence that the globe is warming in dangerous ways. This evidence the IPCC presents forcefully in its third chapter on surface and atmospheric warming, which rests overwhelmingly on the official global temperature record of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, called the HADCRUT3 temperature dataset.

And who produced the HADCRUT3 dataset for the World Meteorological Organization? The Hadley Centre of the UK government's meteorological office (the HAD of HADCRUT3) and the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (the CRU).

With HADCRUT3 in hand, the IPCC's warming chapter confidently pronounced that "The rate of warming over the last 50 years is almost double that over the last 100 years," that "2005 was one of the two warmest years on record," and that "Changes in extremes of temperature are also consistent with warming of the climate." With HADCRUT3, the co-authors of the IPCC warming chapter could show the temperatures going up, up, up.

Who were the IPCC co-authors who decided to use the HADCRUT3 temperature data? None other than two of the most questionable characters in the Climategate cast: the head of CRU, Phil Jones himself, and his cross-Atlantic correspondent, Kevin Trenberth, a lead author with the IPCC. Trenberth in 2004 also had a starring role in another noteworthy IPCC episode, held in the swirl of an active U.S. hurricane season. Not one to pass up an opportunity to sway the public to the urgency of global warming, Trenberth called a press conference to link global warming with hurricanes even though the IPCC's own hurricane expert, Christopher Landsea, pleaded with Trenberth not to -- the link of hurricanes and global warming had no basis in science.

If any chapter in the IPCC opus is more important than the warming chapter it is chapter nine, which concludes that man is the culprit "based on analyses of widespread temperature increases throughout the climate system and changes in other climate variables." The source for the temperature data? HADCRUT3.

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Carbon trading not clearing the air

2012-05-14T10:40:00.001-07:00

Peter Koven, Financial Post Published: Saturday, December 05, 2009

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In Canada, the CCX partnered with TMX Group Inc. last year to create the Montreal Climate Exchange. There was a lot of excitement about the exchange at the time, as Ottawa was talking about introducing greenhouse-gas regulations in 2010. Now that timeline is up in the air.

Leon Bitton, vice president of research and development at the Montreal Exchange, says the market is having trouble getting traction without any guidance on government policy. But that also creates opportunity, he says, as CO2 emitters can buy carbon futures today at prices that could look very favour-able once government puts a price on carbon.

"If you think there is a certainty that there will be regulation, you like to go to the marketplace when the market is at the low end of prices. So some participants are entering the market at that stage," he says.

Since launching, the Montreal exchange has traded close to 130,000 tonnes of CO2 through futures contracts, a very modest amount. The market price was about $12 a tonne at launch. It eventually fell all the way to $2, and now is back up to about $6.

Individual investors may be moving into the market along with emitting companies, Mr. Bitton says, but he does not know who the buyers are.

While the exchange is still operating on a very small scale, there are patchwork carbon programs in North America where serious money is starting to change hands.

One of those is in Alberta, where the government-mandated carbon-trading scheme is turning into a huge win for farmers, who can produce and sell carbon offset credits just by tilling their land less. Don McCabe, a farmer and president of the Soil Conservation Council of Canada, says they have created about five million tonnes of offset credits since mid-2007. Some farmers have even sold their credits on the CCX, but Mr. McCabe acknowledged that the prices are "terrible."

Other North American carbontrading programs include the Western Climate Initiative (a joint effort of states and provinces that plans to launch cap-and-trade in 2012) and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the U.S. Northeast.

While all of these programs have broadly similar rules, many business leaders are wary of them until politicians introduce firm legislation. And recent events suggest that they may not rush to do so.

This week, Australia's political system was thrown into turmoil when the Senate rejected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's plan to introduce a cap-and-trade program ahead of the Copenhagen conference. It is a serious blow for a leader who has already reversed past government policy by signing on to the Kyoto Accord, and the debate over the issue also cost the opposition leader his job.

At the same time, a major dispute broke out between China and the United Nations over carbon credits for wind farms. The UN blocked funding for the farms over concerns that they do not need financial aid, and that China deliberately lowered subsidies to these projects in order to make them eligible for UN funding.

While these are just two isolated events, they demonstrate how complex and difficult it is for government and business leaders to implement and manage any kind of carbon-trading system.

And with carbon prices as low as they are, many experts are questioning whether existing systems are really helping. They say that companies have no motivation to invest in cleaner technologies, as they can just buy dirt-cheap credits instead. There have even been calls in Europe for a price floor on credits.

So while everyone agrees that carbon trading represents the future, there is no consensus on when it will fully take shape, and what it will look like in its mature form.

"We are well positioned in the marketplace and are just waiting for more predictability in terms of legislation," Mr. Bitton says.

pkoven@nationalpost.com

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Leaked emails won't harm UN climate body

2012-05-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

Leaked emails won't harm UN climate body, says chairman

Rajendra Pachauri says there is 'virtually no possibility' of a few scientists biasing IPCC's advice, after UAE hacking breach
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/ipcc-climate-change-leaked-emails

There is "virtually no possibility" of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the UN's top global warming body, its chair said today.

Rajendra Pachauri defended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the wake of apparent suggestions in emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that they had prevented work they did not agree with from being included in the panel's fourth assessment report, which was published in 2007.

The emails were made public this month after a hacker illegally obtained them from servers at the university.

Pachauri said the large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism adopted by the IPCC meant that any bias would be rapidly uncovered.

"The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report," he said.

"Every single comment that an expert reviewer provides has to be answered either by acceptance of the comment, or if it is not accepted, the reasons have to be clearly specified. So I think it is a very transparent, a very comprehensive process which insures that even if someone wants to leave out a piece of peer reviewed literature there is virtually no possibility of that happening."

The IPCC, which was set up by the UN in 1988, is the world's leading authority on climate change. It advises governments on the science behind the problem and was awarded the Nobel peace prize along with Al Gore in 2007.

Pachauri was responding to one email from 2004 in which Professor Phil Jones, the head of the climatic research unit at UEA, said of two papers he regarded as flawed: "I can't see either … being in the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

Pachauri said it was not clear whether the wording of the emails reflected the scientists' intended actions, but said: "I really think people should be discreet … in this day and age anything you write, even privately, could become public and to put anything down in writing is, to say the least, indiscreet … It is another matter to talk about this to your friends on the telephone or person to person but to put it down in writing was indiscreet. If someone was to say something like this in an IPCC authors' meeting then there are others who would chew him up."

Jones has denied any suggestion that he tried to suppress scientific evidence he disagreed with or that he manipulated data.

Some commentators, including the former chancellor Nigel Lawson and the environmental campaigner and Guardian writer George Monbiot, have called on Jones to resign but Pachauri said he did not agree. He said an independent inquiry into the emails would achieve little, but there should be a criminal investigation into how the emails came to light.

Pachauri said he doubted that trust in the IPCC would be damaged by the affair. "People who are aware of how the IPCC functions and are appreciative of the credibility that the IPCC has attained will probably not be swayed by an incident of this kind," he said.

He pointed out that five days after the emails were made public, Barack Obama announced a major commitment to cutting greenhouse gas emissions ahead of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

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Climate talks end with sketchy deal

2012-05-14T10:39:00.001-07:00

Leaders aim to limit global warming to two degrees
Last Updated: Saturday, December 19, 2009 | 11:59 AM ET Comments4Recommend6
CBC News

Delegates rest on Saturday after a 24-hour period of plenary sessions at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.Delegates rest on Saturday after a 24-hour period of plenary sessions at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen. (Heribert Proepper/Associated Press)The UN climate conference in Copenhagen formally closed Saturday after two weeks of divisive negotiations, which produced an agreement that seeks to cut greenhouse-gas emissions while giving participating countries more time to work out the details.

The three-page document, referring to a "strong political will" to fight climate change, was struck in the final hours of the summit Friday night after talks between U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiaboa.

The agreement recognizes that an increase in global temperature should be kept to two degrees Celsius — the threshold that UN scientists say is needed to avert serious climate change — but the deal is not legally binding and has no long-term global targets for emissions cuts.

The Copenhagen Accord, put forward by a U.S.-led group of five nations — including China, India, Brazil and South Africa — also promises to deliver $30 billion US in aid over the next three years to help developing nations reduce emissions.

Industrialized countries could channel $100 billion US a year to poorer nations by 2020, but the money is contingent upon them submitting to UN monitoring.

The agreement includes a method for verifying each nation's reductions of heat-trapping gases — a key demand by Washington, because China has resisted international efforts to monitor its actions.

It requires industrial countries to list their individual targets and developing countries to list what actions they will take to cut global warming pollution by specific amounts. Obama called that an "unprecedented breakthrough."

Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the agreement "realistic" and said Canada was "very comfortable" with it.

Obama left Copenhagen before the final text was issued. Soon after he boarded a plane for the U.S., environmental groups denounced the failure of wealthy countries to announce their final 2020 targets for cutting emissions.

Several countries, including Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Sudan, called the document unacceptable and said it had not been reached through proper process.

Although the agreement was not formally approved, the conference president said that delegates at a late-night plenary session — which extended the 12-day summit past its scheduled ending by four hours — agreed to "take note" of the document, or recognize that it exists.

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, welcomed the climate deal as an "essential beginning," but said it must be transformed into a legally binding treaty next year.

Resources to aid your Understanding

2012-05-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Weather Control / Warfare

# "DAY AFTER TOMORROW" SEEMS DESIGNED TO REVIVE SUPPORT FOR DISASTROUS KYOTO ACCORDS!

# HOW CAN MAN CONTROL WEATHER WHEN GOD CREATED THE EARTH AND RESERVED THAT CAPABILITY FOR HIMSELF?

# DEFENSE SECRETARY WILLIAM COHEN ADMITS ELECTROMAGNETIC WEATHER WARFARE IS REAL

# FINAL PROOF IS NOW CONCLUSIVE! "GLOBAL WARMING" IS NOW PROVEN TO BE CAUSED BY HUMAN BEINGS!

For once, we agree with the Leftist Environmentalist! Human activity IS causing global warming, for the atmosphere IS heating up. We part ways with these Environmentalists as to WHY Global Warming is occurring and WHO are the culprits.

# OCCULT THEOLOGICAL BASIS FOR HATING THIS INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION

To comprehend how our leaders could hate this Industrial Civilization so much they would take gradual action to destroy it, we have to begin at the religious level - the religion of the occult. Remember, our current and past national leaders not only control armies, navies and aircraft of the word, they control our national environmental policies as well.

Sustainable Development = Destruction of this Civilization -- Part 1
# WEATHER CONTROL AND WEATHER WARFARE
Subtitle: History's Greatest Misconceptions Held by the Masses of People

1. The earth is flat

2. The Sun revolves around our Earth

3. "If God had wanted man to fly, he would have created us with wings".

4. Only God can control the Weather

Since our educational system has been deliberately dumbed down to prevent citizens from being well trained in logic, mathematics, and science, most people do not believe that man controls the weather. In this article, we will demonstrate the obvious worthlessness of this stagnate belief.

Sustainable Development = Destruction of this Civilization -- Part 2
# MAJOR DISCOVERY! MAPS OF DEADLY STORMS OF PAST YEARS CONFORMS GREATLY WITH THE U.N. MAP OF RESERVE AND CORRIDOR SYSTEM TO PROTECT BIODIVERSITY!
When you see that the pattern of past deadly storms is consistent with the U.N. Map referenced above, your eyes should be opened to the fact that our weather is being controlled and utilized to create the social engineering so desired by the Illuminati.

Sustainable Development = Destruction of this Civilization -- Part 3
# ULTIMATE GOAL OF "SUSTAINABLE" PLAN MAY BE THE "COMING SUPERSTORM"!
"It is patently impossible to discuss social engineering ... without implying extensive objectives of social control and destruction of human life, i.e., slavery and benevolent genocide ... When a silent weapon is applied gradually, the public adjusts/adapts to its presence and learns to tolerate its encroachment on their lives until the pressure ... becomes too great and they crack up. ["Behold A Pale Horse", Cooper, p. 36, 40]

After years of ratcheting up violent, deadly storms, the finale just might be the greatest "Perfect Storm" in history. In its aftermath, people would allow themselves to be ordered off their land, out of their cities, into their "Reserves" and "Buffer Zones".

Sustainable Development = Destruction of this Civilization -- Part 4
# REVIEW OF REVELATION JUDGMENTS THAT TURN WEATHER AGAINST WICKED MAN!
In Parts 1 through 4 of this series on Weather Control and the Sustainable Development controversy swirling through the world right now, let us stop to review God's many judgments in the Book of Revelation that turn an aspect of weather against wicked man.

The progress toward "Sustainable Development" in today's news might be yet another indicator that the End of the Age is very close. Sustainable Development = Destruction of this Civilization -- Part 5
CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS IN THE PROGRESS OF WEATHER WARFARE TECHNOLOGY
When we study the progression of scientific advances that allow government scientists to control the weather, we can learn much about Weather Warfare.
# A TERRIFYING LOOK AT THE CONTROL OF WEATHER WARFARE -- A LOOK AT HAARP
We shall take a basic look at the technology involved in controlling the weather. We shall try to take a simple look so you can understand a most complex scientific subject.
# LIFE MAGAZINE TAKES NOTICE OF THE WEIRD WEATHER THE PAST TWO YEARS, BUT THEIR SOLUTION IS EXTREME TYPICALLY NEW AGE!
Life Magazine takes note of the terribly weird weather in the past two years, gives great statistics, and almost takes note of the capability to control weather. Yet, their conclusion is almost the New World Order goal.
# ARTICLES FROM MASS MEDIA OVER THE YEARS HAVE TALKED BOLDLY ABOUT WEATHERWEAPONS! FURTHER CONFIRMATION THEY EXIST! We have reported that a United Nations treaty is on record prohibiting any nation from using Weather Weapons against any other nation. Now, we will review articles that have appeared in the last 20 years boldly declaring that Weather Weapons do exist and do work. [Part 2 of 3]
We have reported that a United Nations treaty is on record prohibiting any nation from using Weather Weapons against any other nation. Now, we will review articles that have appeared in the last 20 years boldly declaring that Weather Weapons do exist and do work. [Part 2 of 3]
# MORE BOLD ARTICLES FROM MASS MEDIA TELLING US ABOUT WEATHER WEAPON TECHNOLOGY!
We review still more articles about the technology to control the weather. You will be stunned to learn how prevalent it is today. We conclude with a shocking United Nations pamphlet that ties weather control into their New World Order Plan! Part 3 of 3.
# CAUSING A MASSIVE FLOODING WITH WEATHER WEAPON TECHNOLOGY
Now that we have examined firm, irrefutable evidence that Weather Weapons do exist, let us see how a massive, 500-year flood can actually be created, in the exact spot scientists choose.
# UNPRECEDENTED FLOODING IN CHINA
Weird Weather continues to rear its ugly head, in Communist China. Once more, we see historically unprecedented storms - flooding this time - pummeling mankind. Weather Warfare is a likely reason.
# HURRICANE CHARLEY ABRUPTLY, UNEXPECTEDLY CHANGED COURSE, STRIKING PUNTA GORDA AREA, A MAJOR U.N. BIODIVERSITY AREA WHERE NO HUMANS WILL BE ALLOWED TO LIVE! Updated 8-27-04
Just as Hurricane Isabel struck a major U.N. Biodiversity area last year, Hurricane Charley precisely struck a major Biodiversity area when it ploughed into Punta Gorda. Government is still using "Weather Modification" capability to convince people there are just some areas they cannot be allowed to live.
# HURRICANE ISABEL WAS STEERED DIRECTLY ONTO THE U.N. BIOSPHERES - "CAROLINIAN - SOUTH ATLANTIC" and "VIRGINIA COAST"! Action to implement Biosphere, "Re-Wilding" program is apparently under way in earnest -- Part 2
Hurricane Isabel originally showed a Masonic Pentagram in the middle of her eye for a very good reason: this storm has devastated an area targeted for "de-population" so that the land can go back to the "wild", i.e., "Re-Wilding". Using Weather Modification tools, the Illuminati is gradually establishing the precedent that certain areas of the land cannot be inhabited. When you lose your Personal Property Rights, you can thank "Re-Wilding" and the UNESCO Biosphere program.
# NBC Weather Anchorman Reveals Weather Is Controlled
Hurricane Isabel originally showed a Masonic Pentagram in the middle of her eye for a very good reason: this storm has devastated an area targeted for "de-population" so that the land can go back to the "wild", i.e., "Re-Wilding". Using Weather Modification tools, the Illuminati is gradually establishing the precedent that certain areas of the land cannot be inhabited. When you lose your Personal Property Rights, you can thank "Re-Wilding" and the UNESCO Biosphere program.
# "THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!" -- Part 1 -- Scalar Weaponry

Smoking Gun Proof That God's Prophecies Control World Events! As Bush leads the U.S. into war in the Middle East, the shocking reality is that our military forces do not possess the most powerful weapons on earth. The Russians do, and the Chinese, and maybe the Israelis do -- Col. Weeks was right: We do not have the weapons to back up our global bravado! This war could turn into unmitigated disaster.

# "THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES" -- Part 2 -- Prophetic Line-up!

More Prophetic Implications of Other Countries Having Greater Scalar Weaponry Than We Do. Lineup of nations possessing superior scalar weaponry are nations God gives a prominent role in the End Times!

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"Chemtrails" are a Hoax

2011-01-12T19:24:00.001-08:00

Six Reasons why "Chemtrails" are a Hoax
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread82471/pg1
I first heard about "chemtrails" about five years ago, from an individual on a pre-Y2k preparedness forum. About six months later, I logged onto one of the chemtrail forums, and followed many links, evaluating both pro-chemtrail and anti-chemtrail research. I have also talked to many people about these phenomena, including meteorologists, commercial airplane pilots/crew, and other aerospace engineers with direct experience with large fixed-wing aircraft. I came to conclusions that I would like to discuss below; but first, I'd like to tell you about me, because it may (or may not) give you some insights as to why I believe what I do.

First, I want to emphasize that I do not speak for, or act as an agent for, my employer, The Boeing Company, in any way, shape, or form. My views are completely my own and do not necessarily reflect the views on anyone else at Boeing. As a matter of fact, I doubt if most of my colleagues have even heard of chemtrails. However, with thirty years in the aerospace/defense business, experience as a pilot (small aircraft only) and a habit of reading a lot, I hope that my views have something to back them up. Okay, here's my read on the view that some contrails are more than normal jet engine exhaust:

It's completely bogus. The idea that long-lasting contrails are anything other than normal contrails, in my belief, fails on six counts:

1. The existence of a huge and sinister plot is completely lacking in evidence.

2. The logistics of a massive spraying program would be an order of magnitude higher than the Manhattan Project, the Apollo Moon Landing, or the Vietnam War -- and simply could not be hidden from any oversight.

3. There is no evidence whatsoever of aircraft modified to perform some of the spraying methodologies that are proposed.

4. Anecdotal "evidence" of any illnesses caused by contrails is not backed up by any reliable data (and is actually contradicted by others).

5. There has never been any evidence of anyone collecting some of this "chemtrail" material in situ, having it tested by any reputable laboratory, and presented to anyone.

6. Every characteristic of chemtrails can be just as logically and rationally explained by normal contrails under normal (but differentiating) atmospheric conditions.

Now let's look at those counts in a bit more detail.

(1) The existence of a huge and sinister plot is completely lacking in evidence. The President; Congress; SecDef; Director of the FAA; the entire command structure of the various armed services; every military man or woman who flies, maintains, fuels, and overhauls aircraft; every commercial pilot and crew member; every meteorologist; and every aerospace engineer who builds, sells, modifies, or maintains the entire fleet of worldwide commercial aircraft comprise a group of about half a million people. Every one of them would have to be in on the plot. And in the X number of years that this "chemtrail" stuff has been going on, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM has come out and said anything about it! What is the chance of a plot that requires the help of a half-million people being secret for more than six milliseconds? Zero.

As a matter of fact, there is no evidence of any sort of plot of any kind by the Bilderbergers, Illuminati, International Zionists, CFR, NWO, the International House of Pancakes, or anyone else.

Is our government corrupt and immoral? I believe so. Is the UN controlled by a bunch of socialist third-world losers with their hands out for the US to feed them and fight their wars for them? I think so, too. But that does NOT mean that they are heading a huge, secret, centuries-old plot to have the Black Helicopters Manned By Crack Bolivian Troops In Blue Berets Haul Us Off To The Secret Concentration Camps In Roachspit, Texas Where We Will Be Forced To Knit UN Flags And Eat Ebola-Burgers. It just means that they're crooks! So what else is new?

(2) The logistics of a massive spraying program. In order to have the massive worldwide spraying that the chemtrail-protagonists talk about would require thousands of aircraft, flying 24/7 shifts, with the additional support infrastructure, a bazillion pilots and ground crew, and the combined efforts of every employee at Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and even Airbus Industrie. It isn't there.

(3) There is no evidence whatsoever of aircraft modified to perform some of the spraying methodologies that are proposed. The only things I have ever seen on an aircraft that shoot things out (besides the engine exhaust) is the toilet and the fuel dump orifices, often at the wing tip. If the aircraft are squirting chemicals out of the fuel dump nozzles, what's in the fuel tanks? Poisonous chemicals? Huh-uh. (One exception to this is a military version of a civilian aircraft called TACAMO, a Navy variant of the AWACS aircraft. It has these oddball nozzles near the base of the wings. But they're still fuel-dump nozzles; they've merely been moved inboard because the TACAMO has reconnaissance pods at the wingtips, and they don't want to jettison JP-8 over the million-dollar electronics.)

Bear in mind that you don't just strap in a couple of big tanks and poke the nozzles out through the aircraft fuselage. There are VERY stringent engineering details to be worked out regarding structural integrity, movable center of gravity, environmental protection for the crew and poison-loaders, etc. Almost all major mods to an aircraft are done under subsequent contract to the original builder. Since no one at Boeing knows anything about such mods (and I've asked around) this means it either wasn't done, or everyone else (but me) in the company is in on the secret. Huh-uh.

(4) Anecdotal "evidence" of any illnesses caused by contrails is not backed up. One of the hypotheses of "chemtrails" is that they're toxic/infectious/bad juju. Various people report that they came down with flu-like symptoms after a heavy "spray day". As someone who does a lot of travel (domestic and international), I've flown out of a lot of airports and through a lot of other aircraft's contrails over the past five years.
If the poison-chemtrail hypothesis had any merit, there would be tons of sick passengers crawling off the 0900 shuttle to LAX; I've never seen 'em, nor has anyone I've talked with. If there is some weird residue in the contrails other than water with traces of JP-8, you'd see aircraft taxiing into the concourse with some sort of crud over the leading edges. I've never seen any of that, nor has anyone I've talked with.
One possible explanation for those flu-like symptoms? Flu. There's tons of it going around, and it's been that way since 1918.

(5) There has never been any evidence of anyone collecting some of this "chemtrail" material in situ, having it tested by any reputable laboratory, and presented to anyone. With all the interest in this crud, why hasn't anyone ever flown up to a "chemtrail", sampled some of the stuff, and brought it back to a reputable lab for test and reported on it?

One site purporting to talk about a laboratory testing a sample told how some individual scraped "something" off the side of a house, and sent it to one of the chemtrail protagonists. This individual sent it to a laboratory where he says they reported it had some bacteria in it. But then the individual says the lab "changed its mind" and said there was nothing wrong. Not only that, but our friend said he would not tell us the name of either the lab or the investigator because of ... of... something or other. That sure raises a credibility issue to me! Another researcher says he has the information, but he wants to be "compensated" for all the work he's put in before he tells us his tale. Puh-leez!

If there were just one case of someone with any credibility collecting some of this junk before it falls to the earth and gets worms on it, then sends it to a lab where objective individuals can review it under open conditions and publish their findings, that might lend a bit more credence to the whole chemtrail business. I'm waiting, but I don't think I'll skip dinner.

(6) Every characteristic of chemtrails can be just as logically and rationally explained by normal contrails under normal (but differentiating) atmospheric conditions.

But first, lets take a minute and discuss what contrails are, anyway.

Contrails happen when the water vapor from the jets exhaust freezes into an ice cloud. If the temperature is at or below 40 degrees and the relative humidity is at a hundred percent or greater, then the ice cloud will stay frozen, and even act as a nucleus for other ice clouds to form around. This is why sometimes a contrail will spread to form larger clouds. If you have enough aircraft flying and making contrails, and the atmospheric conditions at that altitude are proper for contrail formation and persistence, then you can have the entire sky covered with thin clouds.

If the temperature is above minus forty degrees or less than 100% relative humidity, then the ice crystals will sublime (turn back into gas without going through a liquid phase, like dry ice) in about a minute or less and the contrails will disappear.

This increased cloud cover, by the way, can have serious long-term effects, when you think about it. More cloud cover means cooler days (because the clouds block the sunlight coming in during the day) and warmer nights (because the clouds block the heat radiating out into space at night). This diurnal temperature delta or the difference between day and night temperatures, could have some long-term effects, because most plants and animals in a particular environment have adapted to a temperature difference of so many degrees. When this figure is left, the plants and animals might not be able to thrive.

So when you put it this way, contrails can have a possible bad effect on the environment. But thats not what the chemtrail-believers are talking about.

Now to the weird chemtrails:

Dashed contrails? Sometimes youll see contrails that start and stop, just like dashed lines. Some Chemtrail-believers say that such things are proof of chemtrails, because the start and stop contrails are the result of the spray nozzles getting stuck or something.

Now does it seem kind of odd to you that a powerful gang running secret plot which includes a million people cant seem to be able to keep a simple on-off nozzle working? Actually, the reasons that you have start-and-stop contrails is because the atmosphere is not constant and smooth; its very turbulent (which is why we have clouds and wind). Its pretty common to have one spot at, say, 35,000 feet where the temperature/humidity is at 40/100%, yet only a quarter mile away, the temperatures a degree or so higher, or the humidity is a percentage point less. Thats enough to stop the contrail from persisting. And believe me, an aircraft flying at 550 miles per hour covers that quarter mile in just a couple of seconds!

Circular contrails? Often, an airport may be backed up and the air traffic control folks might stack up aircraft in a circular holding pattern for a half-hour (or even longer). If that plans flying in a circle at the proper temperature/humidity profile, youll see circular contrails.

Two side-by-side contrails, one that dissipates in a matter of minutes, and the other which persists for hours? The chances are that they're not side-by-side, but one is a thousand feet or more higher than another. When you're looking at aircraft at a cruising altitude, you simply cant tell which aircraft is closer. You have no frame of reference except the sky, and besides six miles high is just too far for us to have any kind of depth perception at all.

Tic-tac-toe contrails? No matter where you live in the continental United States, you are probably within view of at least one North-South and one East-West air corridor. So you might be seeing three aircraft on the DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth to LAX (Los Angeles International) corridor and four from Phoenix Sky Harbor to Seattle-Tacoma International corridor. These flights could be five minutes and two thousand feet apart, but if they're high enough, you'll see seven lines crossing just like a tic-tac-toe. (you probably won't see any X's or O's, though).

Conclusion

So why the big deal with "Chemtrails"? I think there're popular on the boards for several reasons.

1. Conspiracies are fun! If you think you know what they're REALLY doing, maybe it makes you feel more powerful and on the "inside". Only the "sheeple" believe all the government lies, where WE know better. You remember the sheeple, of course -- they were those poor fools who believed that Y2K was going to be, at worse, a bump in the road. Shows how dumb they were, right?

2. Most chemtrail conspiracy theorists simply don't know much about things that would help them to disbelieve such hypotheses: stuff like engineering, meteorology, government procurement
, military force structure, etc. But most importantly, the most of these individuals simply don't understand how scientific investigation and research works. They confuse opinion with facts, equate hypotheses with theories, do not reason logically, engage in ad hominem arguments, cannot or will not read peer-reviewed journals --- the list goes on and on.

Maybe I shouldn't get so exercised about the whole chemtrail business. In a way, it's like the belief in the Easter Bunny -- it keeps the folks happy; and as long as they don't try to shoot down a "chemtrail" plane, or assassinate or otherwise harass people who disagree with them, they're harmless.

But there are so many important things in the world that I consider a real priority -- Government intrusion into our lives, a nutburg foreign and domestic policy, the chance that a natural disaster may justify all those old Y2K preps, the pollution of our atmosphere and destruction of our environment by hydrocarbon burning -- that I hate to think that well-meaning but naive people on these and other forums are wasting their time on what is no more than a silly and cruel hoax.

Copenhagen Coal in the Stocking?

2009-12-28T10:20:00.000-08:00

Copenhagen Coal in the Stocking?
BY FC Expert Blogger Terry TamminenWed Dec 23, 2009 at 3:01 PM
This blog is written by a member of our expert blogging community and expresses that expert's views alone.

As a kid in Milwaukee, my parents told me that Santa would leave coal in my stocking if I was naughty. As the post mortem of Copenhagen is written, was it a lump of coal in our 2009 holiday stocking - - or could this global chunk of carbon actually be a diamond in the rough?

For the past three years, over half the states in the US, along with states/provinces in Canada, China, Mexico, Brazil, and Indonesia, have been acting like nations under the UN’s Kyoto Protocol for climate change policy. States like California have adopted laws and action plans, including the creation of a massive cap-and-trade carbon market (launching in 2012), that will cut carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below that by 2050 - - in line with UN goals. These “sub-nationals” didn’t wait for their national governments to act.

President Obama has now taken a page from that playbook by recruiting China, India, Brazil, and South Africa to take carbon-cutting action without waiting for the UN and the other 187 countries. This Gang of Five has effectively broken the “you go first” stalemate, because they have committed to figure out domestically what can be done - - based on what a majority of their states/provinces are doing already - - and put those pledges on the table next year. If those commitments, plus the work that Europe and others are already doing, adds up the goal of preventing a rise in average global temperature of 2 degrees centigrade, that’s the defacto new global climate agreement. If the individual pledges come up short when taken together, the world will know how much more needs to be done and can look at strategies to fill that gap. Either way, the first fundamental steps will have been taken - - thanks to the commitments of states and provinces.

The Gang of Five may also have done the world a favor by blowing up the UN process in Copenhagen, because it cleared the way for parallel international alliances to blossom. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the creation of the R20, a new “sub-national UN” (starting with 20 regions of states/provinces/cities) that will coordinate the work of these climate leadership governors and mayors, but with a major difference from the old UN. The R20 will set high standards for cutting carbon and creating green economies, then invite others to join - - if they can meet the same goals. By contrast, the UN has struggled because it needs every nation in the tent and can only get things done when all 192 agree - - something that rarely happens unless goals are watered down to the lowest common denominator.

So what does this mean to businesses, investors, and consumers? Carbon will have a price globally by 2012. Period. Much of that cost will be offset by reductions in energy bills, because of efficiency improvements and deployment of renewables (after you pay back the cost of a solar panel, for example, electricity is free), but the price of everything will change - - some going up and others going dramatically down. Copenhagen may have failed on some levels, but it succeeded in sparking the moves by the sub-nationals and the Gang of Five to ensure at least that fundamental result.

Although I was a pesky little kid, I never actually found coal in my stocking. Given the results in Denmark this month, the future uses for coal may well be limited to this kind of holiday humor - - and our environment and economies will be the better for it.

Lord Monckton, the Copenhagen Treaty, and the Constitution

2009-12-20T23:38:00.000-08:00

Lord Monckton, the Copenhagen Treaty, and the Constitution | Print |
Written by William F. Jasper
Wednesday, 09 December 2009 01:00

copenhagenIn an October 14 speech to the Minnesota Free Market Institute in St. Paul, Lord Christopher Monckton, former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, delivered a devastating fusillade against the alleged science underpinning the hysterical claims of global-warming alarmists. Lord Monckton’s brilliant presentation, combining a stunning array of slides, charts, graphs, scientific studies, and statistical facts with scathing, satirical wit, became an instant Internet sensation.

The greater part of Monckton’s discourse was aimed at dispelling the innumerable fallacies parading as “scientific consensus” concerning the supposedly imminent apocalyptic demise resulting from human-caused climate change. As such, he introduced little that was different from what he and other climate realists have been saying for years. It was several provocative statements in his closing comments that created an uproar, earning him both plaudits on the Right and venom from the Left.

Here is where he lit the phosphorus:

At [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in] Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed. Your President will sign it.... And what it says is this, that a world government is going to be created. The word “government” actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to Third World countries, in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, “climate debt” — because we’ve been burning CO2 and they haven’t, and we’ve been screwing up the climate. We haven’t been screwing up the climate but that’s the line. And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement....

So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement, and took over Greenpeace so that my friends who funded it left within a year, because [the communists] captured it — now the apotheosis as at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world.

It’s easy to see why the “greenies” and globalists, who have invested so much time, effort, and money since Stockholm ’72 (the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP) and Rio ’92 (the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, UNCED, more popularly known as the Earth Summit), would get all frothy at the mouth over having their plans so baldly exposed. But Lord Monckton is on very solid terra firma, as anyone who has read the Copenhagen treaty texts and/or has followed the continuous exposés in these pages over the past three dec-ades of the UN’s environmental agenda for global control, would surely recognize.

Annex I, Article 38 of the Copenhagen treaty (officially known as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC) states: “The scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention will be based on three basic pillars: government; facilitative mechanism; and financial mechanism.”

Yes, as the excerpt above indicates — along with many others in the text — the conveners of the Copenhagen summit envision a world government. Here’s how they describe it in the same article 38 of the UNFCCC (page 18):

The government will be ruled by the COP [Conference of the Parties] with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies. The current Convention secretariat will operate as such, as appropriate.

No checks and balances worthy of the name. No legitimate “rule of law,” despite the constant appeal to that phrase by those perpetrating this perversion of the principle. Only a blatant assault on national sovereignty and outrageous usurpation of virtually unlimited power to rule, regulate, and tax the entire planet. This is what the UN and its one-world advocates have been pursuing for decades. That is what French President Jacques Chirac was heralding in 2000 when he praised the predecessor to Copenhagen, the Kyoto Protocol, as “the first component of an authentic global governance.”

Lord Monckton’s reference to the communist character of the Copenhagen scheme has also caused predictable rage, gnashing of teeth, and catcalls from the usual quarters that object to any exposure of the Marxist-Leninist pedigree and bearing of any favored project, individual, or organization. But, once again, Monckton is spot on. Many of the communists became “Watermelon Marxists”: green on the outside, red on the inside. And the lead watermelon, Mikhail Gorbachev, founder of Green Cross International, kicked off the wholesale transformation with his celebrated 1992 “End of the Cold War” speech in Fulton, Missouri.

“The prospect of catastrophic climatic changes, more frequent droughts, floods, hunger, epidemics, national-ethnic conflicts, and other similar catastrophes compels governments to adopt a world perspective and seek generally applicable solutions,” Gorbachev declared. And to make this desired objective happen, he said, would require “some kind of global government.”

“I believe,” said Gorbachev, who still describes himself as a Leninist, “that the new world order will not be fully realized unless the United Nations and its Security Council create structures … which are authorized to impose sanctions and make use of other measures of compulsion.” Compulsion, force — on a global scale — that’s what it’s all about. That is what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was saying, in a more subtle way, in his October 25, 2009 New York Times op-ed about Copenhagen. “A deal must include an equitable global governance structure,” the Secretary-General proclaimed. Like Gorbachev, he invoked apocalyptic rhetoric to justify his proposed world government, asserting, “All agree that climate change is an existential threat to humankind.”

Where Monckton Goes Awry
As Lord Monckton’s timely speech continues to circulate, it will undoubtedly do much to awaken many Americans and speed the crumbling of the incredible non-crisis hoax known as climate change. However, in his effort to stir Americans to action against the Copenhagen treaty, Lord Monckton has inadvertently fallen into a trap, one that has claimed many another otherwise well-informed and well-intentioned Jeremiah. He warns, in these grave words:

And the trouble is this; if that treaty is signed, your Constitution says that it takes precedence over your Constitution, and you can’t resign from that treaty unless you get agreement from all the other state parties. And because you’ll be the biggest paying country, they’re not going to let you out of it.

So, thank you, America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege merely to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free. But, in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your President will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your humanity away forever. And neither you nor any subsequent government you may elect will have any power whatsoever to take it back.

Unfortunately, Lord Monckton, like most Americans, has fallen victim to the intentional campaign of disinformation concerning the “supremacy clause” in the United States Constitution. Like many other texts in our Constitution, this section has been ripped out of context and twisted by those who hope to undo the protections the Founders of our Republic struggled so intensely to give us. One of the most important proponents of this attack on our constitutional system was John Foster Dulles, who would become Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In an April 11, 1952 speech, Dulles declared:

Treaties make international law and also they make domestic law. Under our Constitution, treaties become the supreme law of the land.... Treaty law can override the Constitution. Treaties, for example, … can cut across the rights given the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights.

John Foster Dulles was a founding member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which has been the lead organization promoting the notion that treaties and “international law” trump the Constitution. As far back as 1928, in its Survey of American Relations, the Council complained against our Constitution’s checks and balances and separations of power. These features, which most Americans would consider the most cherished blessings of our form of government, the CFR authors claimed “militate against the development of responsible government.” According to the CFR, it would be more “responsible” to model our government after the European parliamentary system and make treaties easier to pass by substituting “a majority of both houses for two-thirds of the Senate in treaty ratification.” Why? Because Dulles and his one-world cohorts at the Council wanted to use the treaty power gradually to intertwine and merge the American government into a global government.

They didn’t succeed in changing the two-thirds Senate vote requirement in the Constitution, but they have very nearly succeeded by winning many politicians, jurists, and legal scholars over to the position that not only treaties, but executive agreements, “international norms,” and even “testimony” and “statements” by so-called “experts” at international fora can override the Constitution because they constitute “international customary law.”

What does the Constitution actually say concerning treaties? The treaty powers are dealt with in Article II, Section 2 and Article III, Section 2, but the main cause of confusion is Article VI, Section 2, the “supremacy clause,” which states:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Dulles and the advocates of unlimited treaty power have exploited confusion over the grammar and syntax in the above passage to make it say something that it doesn’t. It is important to note first of all that when referring to “this Constitution,” the Founders are referring to the United States Constitution, while the later “the Constitution” refers to State constitutions. Secondly, they are stating that the U.S. Constitution is the “supreme law of the land,” along with federal laws and treaties that are “made in pursuance of” and “under the authority of” that Constitution. Obviously, if a treaty or federal law clashes with the Constitution, then it does not meet those qualifications and is null and void. That is not merely this writer’s opinion, but the stated intent of the men who framed the great document and our earliest and most-esteemed jurists.

James Madison, who was the secretary of the Philadelphia Convention and has justly been called “the Father of the Constitution,” said of the scope of the treaty power:

I do not conceive that power is given to the President and the Senate to dismember the empire, or alienate any great, essential right. I do not think the whole legislative authority have this power. The exercise of the power must be consistent with the object of the delegation.

In addition to his many other famous words and deeds, Thomas Jefferson authored the authoritative reference work, A Manual of Parliamentary Practice, which became a standard handbook for both the House and Senate. In it, Jefferson said of treaty power:

1. It is admitted that it must concern the foreign nation, party to the contract, or it would be a mere nullity.... 2. By the general power to make treaties, the Constitution must have intended to comprehend only those objects which are usually regulated by treaty, and cannot be otherwise regulated. 3. It must have meant to except out of those the rights reserved to the states; for surely the President and Senate cannot do by treaty what the whole government is interdicted from doing in any way.

This is both sound legal opinion and plain, common sense. If the Bill of Rights and the whole Constitution were to have any lasting force and meaning, it could not have been intended that they could be completely undone by means of treaty. Or as Jefferson rightly observed: “I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution.”

Alexander Hamilton, one of the principal authors of The Federalist, concurs on this important point. “A treaty cannot be made,” Hamilton maintained, “which alters the Constitution of the country or which infringes any express exceptions to the power of the Constitution of the United States.” This is the consistent position taken by the authors of The Federalist on the supremacy clause in essays #33 (Hamilton), #44 (Madison), and #64 (Jay).

The United States Supreme Court in Reid v. Covert (1957) restated these foundational principles. After quoting the same Article VI, Section 2 supremacy clause we quoted above, the Court declares:

There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result.... The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and the Senate combined.

Nevertheless, the advocates of world government (or “global governance,” as they prefer to call it today) boast a stellar lineup of judges, law-school professors, Senators, Congressmen, journalists, and academics who insist American sovereignty must yield to global “necessity,” and our Constitution must give way to “international law.” And Copenhagen is but one of many UN treaties and agreements that are battering our constitutional ramparts. It is up to the American people to hold the feet of their Senators and Representatives to the fire and strike down as a “mere nullity” (Jefferson’s words) these boundless grabs for power.

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