Al Gore: "Warm up the escape pod, Tipper!"

Al Gore came under fire last week from The Tennessee Center for Policy Research. The organization issued a report which said that during August 2006 Gore burned through 22,619 kilowatt-hours at his house; which is more than twice the electricity than an average American family uses in an entire year.


Eco-warrior Al Gore congratulates GIM Chairman Al Gore for his purchase of carbon offsets from GIM
Bill Hobbs linked to Nashville's daily, the Tennessean, which offered more details. Andrew Bolt, writing in the Melbourne Herald-Sun, summarized the story:

...Gore responded through a spokesperson that he's in a utility program that sells blocks of "green power" or "carbon credits" for an extra $4 a month. He purchases 108 blocks every month, which covers 16,200 kilowatt-hours and helps to "subsidize renewable energy sources," they claim... ...But according to a story published at Ecotality by former Tennessean reporter Bill Hobbs, Gore buys these credits from Generation Investment Management, a company he co-founded, and serves as chairman. That's right, Gore "buys" his "credits" [stocks in "green" companies] from himself, through a deal set up to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. For a fee, the firm invests other people's money into these stocks as well... By promoting the purchase of these "credits" along with all of his "the end is near" talk, it would appear that Gore is actually profiting from hyping the "global warming" crisis.

A spokesperson for Gore, Kalee Krider, explained that Gore had helped found Generation Investment Management (GIM), through which he and others purchase 'carbon offsets.' The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe, she said.


One of GIM's 'green' investments
Well, as it turns out, only about 15% of GIM's investments can truly be called 'green'. Unless you count jet engines (like GIM investment General Electric builds) as 'green'.

Yesterday, Hobbs provided additional clarity into Gore's claim that he purchases 'carbon offsets' from GIM. Quoting GIM:

...we work with two offset providers (The Chicago Climate Exchange and the Carbon Neutral Company) to ensure our London and Washington D.C. offices are fully carbon neutral...

Hobbs goes on to dissect Carbon Neutral, which changed its name recently. It was once called "Future Forests" and it has a controversial past. The BBC and Indymedia UK have been after the company of late:

Climate campaigners have occupied the offices of one of Britain's leading carbon management companies to protest against carbon offsetting... London Rising Tide activists say offsetting, which sees firms pay for emissions cuts elsewhere rather than curbing their own emissions, is a scam... The group has occupied meeting space of the CarbonNeutral Company, formerly Future Forests, in central London... ...activists allege that many schemes funded by companies and government bodies do not generate emissions reductions, and do little to benefit developing countries... The government has just launched a consultation on setting a code of practice for companies and organisations running offset schemes.

Ecology site Off-Grid claims that some companies like Future Forest are "[m]arketing firms... cashing in on public concern about the environment to sell PR services rather than solutions":

Future Forests claims to be the market leader in helping companies and individuals become more environmentally friendly. The company offers extrememly expensive “consultancy” on how to reduce your emissions of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas. It also offer to “trade” your emissions by investing in climate-friendly technology and forestry, on the principle that trees soak up CO 2 and thus offset the pollution you have caused. But the company is being accused by other green campaigners of being less eco-friendly than it claims. Trading standards officers in London are investigating a formal complaint...

Ecotopia goes further, claiming that an expert UN panel on climate change is guilty of "intellectual corruption." The World Rainforest Movement (WRM) says that many panelists were businesspeople "in a position to profit financially from the tree-planting schemes likely to follow in the report's wake." Among them:

* Richard Tipper of the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management (ECCM), a consulting company which earns money from designing, assessing and monitoring forestry projects to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. ECCM works closely with Future Forests, company which contracts with Mazda, Avis, British Telecom, Access Freight, J. Walter Thompson and other firms to plant trees to "compensate" for their emissions. ECCM staff have also been involved in a forestry project financed in part by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile in Mexico. Using lands inhabited by highland Mayan Tojolobal and lowland Mayan Tzeltal communities, the project is designed to "offset" the 5,500 tons of carbon emitted annually by Formula One car racing at a price of approximately $60,000 a year. Tipper helped form ECCM some months after being appointed to the LULUCF panel. * Mark Trexler of the United States, who runs Trexler & Associates, Inc., a pioneer "carbon firm" poised to make millions of dollars by promoting and monitoring carbon sequestration and other "climate mitigation" projects. * Pedro Moura-Costa, an executive of Ecosecurities Ltd., a consulting firm specializing in the "generation of Emission Reduction Credits" from activities including tree-planting. Ecosecurities has offices in the UK, Brazil, Australia and The Netherlands as well as the United States. * Gareth Philips of SGS Forestry, a division of the Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) of Geneva, the world's largest inspection, auditing and testing company. SGS Forestry earns money from designing, monitoring and certifying carbon forestry projects. SGS certifies the certified tradeable offsets offered by Costa Rica and hopes to expand its work elsewhere in the carbon forestry field. * Sandra Brown of the United States, a senior Program Officer for Winrock International, an Arkansas-based nonprofit organization which accepts contracts from "public and private" sources. Winrock provides forest carbon monitoring technical services to U.S. government agencies and a wide range of private sector and non-governmental organizations.

In other words, some on the UN's panel on climate change are simply executives, members of an emerging sector that will profit by brokering carbon credits.

Coincidentally, Trexler was NPR's source for a story that didn't delve too deeply into Gore's relationship with GIM. And Bill Hobbs also mentioned Trexler recently in the context of the NPR interview.

Gore, Trexler, and others appear poised to profit directly from the sale of carbon offsets. It's a pity that most of the media has glossed over this essential component of the story.

And now that even eco-activists are calling carbon offsets a 'scam', the alarm claxons are probably going off in Gore's Belle Meade manse.


Artist's depiction of Al Gore's "Green Escape Pod", possibly powered by a GE jet engine
Al's 'green' escape pod is probably warming up in his estate's smokestack chimney.