Tag Archives: environmentalism

Hey You, Bankers’ Stooge! THIS Is How To Save The Planet

10 Mar

This morning I am really angry.

And deeply sorrowful.

Why?

Because I watched this inspiring, brilliant, contrarian-thinking, must-watch TED talk, by someone I had never heard of before:

Did you weep a little watching that?

I did.

Seriously. I did.

But why the mixed emotions, you may well ask. Whence cometh your humble blogger’s anger, and sorrow? Surely this is good news, hopeful news, inspiring and joyful news?

Well…

I am angry because so many otherwise intelligent, educated, thoughtful, well-meaning people have been fooled into supporting the idea that population control – fewer human beings (notable exception: themselves) – is critical to the future of life on the planet. Hence, all manner of genocidal ideas wearing the mask of “environmentalism” gain support – such as reducing the world’s numbers of cattle, a major protein source in human food consumption in developed nations, and an aspirational one in developing nations.

I am angry because so many otherwise intelligent, educated, thoughtful, well-meaning people have been fooled into supporting the idea that allowing central bankers to create literally trillions of dollars out of thin air to bail out the private bankstering system from 2007-08 onwards, was and is “necessary” … but creating just $175 billion a year to end “extreme” poverty in the world, is not.

I am angry because so many otherwise intelligent, educated, thoughtful, well-meaning people have been fooled into supporting the idea that global CO2 trading schemes – “putting a price on carbon” – will save the planet from global warming; that the politically-legalised financialisation (by bankers) of carbon dioxide “units” – created as electronic digits in a computer, just like money – in order to make carbon dioxide a tradeable “commodity”, is mankind’s best hope for avoiding “catastrophic”, “runaway” climate change, because – so they claim – globalised trading in electronic carbon dioxide “units” (not to mention, their derivatives) will reduce global emissions.

It isn’t –

The world emits 48% more carbon dioxide from the consumption of energy now than it did in 1992 when the first Rio summit took place.

And it won’t –

…the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits … The new carbon credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that’s been kind to Goldman [Sachs], except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won’t even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.

… Well, you might say, who cares? If cap-and-trade succeeds, won’t we all be saved from the catastrophe of global warming? Maybe — but cap-and-trade, as envisioned by Goldman, is really just a carbon tax structured so that private interests collect the revenues. Instead of simply imposing a fixed government levy on carbon pollution and forcing unclean energy producers to pay for the mess they make, cap-and-trade will allow a small tribe of greedy-as-hell Wall Street swine to turn yet another commodities market into a private tax collection scheme.

I am angry because so many otherwise intelligent, educated, thoughtful, well-meaning people think it is a good thing that powerful lobby groups are now pressuring the government to bring forward the date when our own carbon dioxide “tax” scheme transitions to a full cap-and-trade scheme…

“The Australian Industry Group today called on all sides of politics to support the immediate removal of the fixed price carbon tax and move directly to an internationally linked emissions trading scheme,” Ai Group Chief Executive, Innes Willox, said today.

…which is exactly what the bankers have wanted from the very beginning:

Australian banks are eyeing opportunities to cash in on the proposed carbon tax by developing new financial products and services that capitalise on a market seen to be worth billions of dollars annually, according to a report by the Australian Financial Review.

Australian financial firms that have experience in European carbon markets, such as Macquarie Group Ltd, Westpac Banking Corp Ltd and ANZ Banking Group Ltd are particularly keen to establish their presence in the Australian market.

The initial three-year fixed carbon tax period from 2012 will serve as time to prepare for the release of ETS permits by 2015, when opportunities will really open up for banks to capitalise on the carbon market.

ANZ’s head of energy trading said the value of the derivatives carbon market would dwarf the $10 billion initially raised by the government, according to the AFR.

I am angry because so many otherwise intelligent, educated, thoughtful, well-meaning people have fooled themselves into believing that the recent history of unlimited, unregulated, unmonitored, off-balance sheet, “shadow” market derivatives creation and trading by the world’s bankers that led directly to the GFC will not repeat itself – think Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS), Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDO), and Credit Default Swaps (CDS); that allowing the bankers freedom to set up a new unlimited, unregulated, unmonitored, off-balance sheet “shadow” market in CO2 derivatives creation and trading is not a recipe for an even greater global financial Armageddon; that the massive “moral hazard” caused by declaring the world’s biggest banks to be “Too Big To Fail” – and now, “Too Big To Prosecute” – is a chance worth taking, in order to “save the planet” from rising CO2 emissions.

I am deeply saddened because simple, commonsense, natural, human-life enabling and enhancing ideas – practical, cheap, non-predatory solutions to the popularly-alleged imminent planetary threat of runaway global warming – from virtually unknown people such as Allan Savory – and one of my favourites, Austrian forester/forest warden, naturalist, philosopher, inventor and Biomimicry experimenter Viktor Schauberger* – continue to be ignored or belittled. And most often by … yes, those very same otherwise intelligent, educated, thoughtful, well-meaning people who, despite their intelligence and learning (and often, because of it, and the pride that follows), on this subject, are simply too dumb to see that they are really just stooges for the bankers:

1. Stooge

Someone who is used by others to get what they want, a clown, a follower.

I_see_dumb_people_800x600

Whether you are labelled a “denialist” or an “alarmist”, matters little.

Ideas such as those of Savory and Schauberger are worth placing at the top of our priority tree.

Because, unlike the legalisation of carbon dioxide “units” for bankers to trade – or even worse, their off-balance sheet creation and “shadow market” trading of unlimited, unmonitored, unregulated derivatives on top of those carbon dioxide “units” – Savory’s and Schauberger’s ideas can make life better.

For every one of us.

And for more of us. Not less.

So if you really, truly believe that we need to “save the planet” .. and even if you don’t … THIS is how to do it.

Electronic carbon dioxide “unit” trading, as the basis for a secondary, “shadow” banking pyramid scheme of unlimited, unmonitored, unregulated derivatives trading, is not.

The bankers are the problem.

Not the solution.

It is their monstrous, worldwide, daily creation and lending-for-interest/profit of electronic digits that we call “money”, that drives all economic “activity” (ie, “growth”).

When there is less “money”, the economy slows, right?

And with less “growth”, less “activity”, there are less carbon dioxide emissions:

US emissions are up for the first time since recession hit in 2008, in a sign of how closely pollution is linked to economic success.

Instead of blaming a morally nebulous, comfortable, dehumanising label titled “population growth” – that’s real live struggling and loving and caring fellow human beings you’re talking about! – for carbon dioxide emissions driving “catastrophic” “man-made” climate change, take a closer look at the real culprits.

Or as some wisely advise, Follow The Money.

Because “money makes the world go ’round”.

It is the bankers who financed the Industrial Revolution.

It is the bankers who have driven national and social (economic) inequality.

It is the bankers who finance all wars – the most unnecessary, wasteful, inefficient, selfish, and costly “activity” of all (can you believe that economic experts unblinkingly “credit” World War 2 for ending the Great Depression? All that lovely new economic “activity”, you see).

It is the bankers who finance – for profit – all the wasteful, inefficient, selfish, unnecessary consumption of ever more and more and more material “goods” (of ever declining quality/longevity) and “services”.

It is the bankers who have, over many generations, grown immensely powerful and unimaginably wealthy by taking advantage of our foolishly granting them the exclusive power to finance – at interest – all “economic activity”, period.

Activity – so much of which is of dubious real necessity, or value – that needs fossil fuel energy to operate.

Oh yes… it is the bankers who financed – for profit – the growth and power of the fossil fuel energy corporations too.

If you actually believe that a solution to the “climate emergency” that bankers unanimously support, lobby for, and stand ready to massively profit from, is a good idea that will achieve the stated purpose – saving the planet – then you really are, beyond any possibility of dispute, a willfully ignorant fool.

A bankers’ stooge.

* P.S. I found Allan Savory’s brief mention of temperature differentials for desertified soils vs non-desertified soils (at 8:10) very interesting, in light of my reading the works of the little known genius, Viktor Schauberger. Central to his observations, insights, theories, and experiments, was the critical importance of temperature differentials within every body of water.

P.P.S. If (like me) you are interested to know more about Allan Savory’s work, then visit the Savory Institute website.

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“If You Love It, Live With Me In It. If You Don’t, Leave Me Alone.”

19 Apr

Enjoy Barnaby Joyce’s speech to the Rural Press Club today (excerpt + link to full speech below):

The Australian people’s unencumbered attachment to the land is the ultimate reflection of our people’s wealth, of our people’s freedom.

Every time there has been a moral cause, a reason is given to divest the individual of ownership and transfer it to the state. This clash between bureaucracy and the rights of ownership was ably demonstrated in this part of the world at the Eureka Stockade at Ballarat.

The sympathy we showed for those small, independent miners seems to have been lost. A jury acquitted Peter Lalor even though the Eureka rebellion led to perhaps 35 deaths, including the deaths of 5 soldiers. However, over the past 100 years not much loyalty has been shown to landholders and their rights as they have been taken piece by piece.

Where was the sympathy for farmers when their vegetation rights were stolen off them by government? Or the sympathy to the farmer who has been held back by a plethora of green tape. After rights have been taken off the farmer, such as coal, oil and gas, which happened as recently in 1981 in New South Wales, have they been left in a better position to deal with issues such as coal seam gas?

In most states I am deemed a criminal if I knock down trees on land that I own yet nobody bought the asset from me, prior to it becoming an asset of the state.

The community may see it as their right to restrict the removal of trees by farmers but the community has not been prepared to pay for that right. It wants to steal them. If I were to steal property that I wanted but could not afford I would go to jail. I might have a very righteous reason to steal a car, perhaps I want to take elderly people to bingo night, I would still go to jail.

But apparently governments can steal. And once they have stolen a right they then protect that stolen right through new green regulation.

…

The time has come for us to starting cutting back the green tape lantana that is choking regional Australia. Green tape has become a weed that starves economic activity and takes away our basic property rights.

For the future of regional Australia that has got to change.

For me environmentalism is spraying the blackberries, shooting the rabbits, feral cats and pigs; throwing the carp high up the bank; having that favourite part of wilderness on the place that has been there before me, my family, white settlement, aboriginal Australia.

I do not need a PhD from the University of Google to usurp my connection, belittle my views and steal my rights bought and paid for over generations.

If you love it, live with me in it. If you don’t leave me alone.

Oh SNAP!

That closing line goes to the heart of the dysfunction in our political system.

One where laws directly impacting on the people in the country, are determined by a vocal minority of people living in the inner-city and suburbia.

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How Selfish Old People Ruined The Environment

17 Jan

Taking a break from blogging. But had to share this:

A Note From An 80 Year-Old About “Being Green”

Now that I’m 80 years young, I can tell all the younger people I know where to go with their “Being Green”.

At the checkout stand in the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should become more “Green” by bringing her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”

The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation didn’t care enough to save our environment.”

She was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an energy consuming escalator or elevator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a gas guzzling car, truck or SUV every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed our baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

When away from home, we drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a disposable cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour gas burning taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.

Remember: Don’t make old people mad. We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off.

Simple wisdom. Borne of a lifetime of … life experience.

Which is why I wrote this last year – No More Mañana Or Bananas In A Parliament Of Nanna’s

This blogger longs for the day when we will all choose (once again) to properly esteem and value the wisdom of our elders:

Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one’s emotional reactions (the “passions”) so that universal principles, reason and knowledge prevail to determine one’s actions. Wisdom is also the comprehension of what is true or right coupled with optimum judgment as to action. Synonyms include: sagacity, discernment, or insight.

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Making Man Subservient To Vegetable Matter

27 Oct

Senator Joyce writes for the Canberra Times:

Problem solving: let’s be practical and pragmatic

It would seem that the fear of a shark attack is becoming well grounded in recent weeks. If one is concerned about the attacks of a 30kg pit bull terrier, then a 1200kg shark three to four metres long deserves very special attention.

It is terribly traumatic to the family of a victim when these attacks lead, as they often do, to the brutal death of a loving and well-loved person. A very small section ofavery vast ocean is responsible for the interaction between sharks arid humans.

Preventative management is not environmental vandalism. Now I hear people are very reticent to state the obvious, which is where sharks and humans swim in the same water, and human lives are in danger, the sharks should be culled. Of course this idea has the glittering environmental illuminati, in some sections, in apoplectic uproar. Their argument goes like this; we are just another animal and if sharks want to eat us because we look like seals then that is their right.

I am not suggesting that we should patrol the entire coast and shoot every shark on sight, but in areas of dense population there is a hierarchy of needs and human life rates higher than the shark’s.

It is not just sharks that have usurped the greater cognisant dignity of homo sapiens. Bats in Queensland have also lately evolved to a higher level. In Charters Towers it goes like this, man builds park, bats infest park, bats stay, man goes.

In a children’s school in NSW an infestation of bats produced this bullet of logic from the local member Janelle Saffin. She suggested that “a long-term solution” was to move the school rather than the bats. Bats are also part of a process that spreads Hendra virus for which there is no cure, although millions are being spent on research. Janelle, they are bats not angels hanging upside down in trees defecating on all below.

Man is not just subservient to animals, we now have a movement to make man subservient to vegetable matter as well. In many areas. when bushfire season approaches you are allowed to sweep up the leaves but you are uot allowed to remove the trees. Houses must be iuciuerated for the right of trees to buru uuimpeded during a bushfire.

When you fly over many farms these days you see trees stuck right in the middle of cultivation like a cultural totem pole that dare not be touched. The Greens appear to have borrowed the logic from some Pythonesque version of Catholicism where every tree is sacred.

Maybe my opinions have been brutalised by the fact that I grew up in a family where my father was a vet.

It was all care and kindliness but to a limit that did not intrude on the greater dignity of people. Excessive heroic efforts to preserve an animal’s life, through expensive drugs, had to be seen in the opportunity costs of a human’s life somewhere else in the world, which we generally have scant regard for. In our family, a strong moral string was pulled when people started to treat animals with anthropomorphic virtues that reflected an inspired storybook fantasy rather than physiological reality.

These views also intrude into policy where the correct concern for the brutalisation of animals in the live cattle trade became extended so that no form of live cattle trade could take place. The advocates utilised the sensation to extend their cause to their ultimate goal, which was to end the trade at the expense of diplomatic relations or the protein requirements of Indonesians.

Sharks do not read Shakespeare nor have a continued endearing affection to their sons or daughters and if they weigh over a tonne it would be best if they are not swimming in the same surf as your mother aud father.

Bats cau reside iu their millions across national parks and farmland.

They do not need to live at your school or at the Royal Botanical gardens above your picnic blanket.

If there is an overarching requirement that the world needs at the moment it is the absolute necessity for both our actions and our discussions to be pragmatic.

Meetings in Europe about repaying debt do not repay debt; repaying debt repays debt, the alternative is default and calamity.

The triumph of theory over practicality is a multi-faceted, self indulgent mirage.

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