Let Them Eat Dirt

It all started out as a simple, money-making scam. In the late nineties, members of the UN's International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were tasked with assessing the scientific validity of the Kyoto Protocol.

The Protocol was an international emissions reduction treaty which required signatories to cut overall greenhouse gas emissions.

The IPCC subsequently produced the Special Report on Land Use, Land Use Change, and Forestry.

The report found that "carbon offsets" and "carbon trading" were viable ways to barter the right to pollute, because they would fund new forestry initiatives. But one critical detail was never disclosed in the report.

That is: members of the IPCC, such as Pedro Moura-Costa (above) and Gareth Philips, had major conflicts-of-interest. They owned, created and/or worked for businesses -- such as Ecosecurities and SGS Forestry -- that would directly benefit from the report's conclusions.

In fact, the IPCC panel members' companies were positioned to earn millions of dollars from the report. But the mainstream media did not report these conflicts and instead piled on the "global warming" and "carbon offset" bandwagons.

The carbon offset market quickly exploded. In fact, $92 billion worth of offsets were estimated to change hands in 2008.

But wanton profiteering appears to be the sole rationale for "carbon trading".

Put simply, a wide range of respected scientists, environmentalists, researchers, agriculturalists, and activists believe that carbon offsets are a "scam", "fantasy", "fiction", "nonsense", "fraudulent" and worse. And they've been saying so since 2000, though to read the newspaper you wouldn't know it.

The World Rainforest Movement, for example, investigated these bizarre financial ties and concluded that the IPCC report must "...be shelved due to their clear conflict of interest and a new report instigated which will be free of the taint of intellectual corruption."

To demonstrate the fraudulence of the carbon offset market, one need only request quotes from various carbon offset sellers. The price for offseting a flight from London to Toronto and back?

• $85: from Climate Care (UK), which says 6 tons of CO2 must be offset.
• $60: Carbon Neutral (UK), which says 4.3 tons of CO2 must be offset.
• $195: Climate Friendly (Australia) asserts that 11.63 tons of CO2 must be offset.
• $180: Green Seat (Netherlands) says 8.68 tons of CO2 must be offset.

Put simply: they're all basically making it up as they go along.

Whether you believe the world is warming or cooling, there is no arguing Democrats want more expensive energy for American citizens.

All that said, the real problem — and the reason Pelosi really does deserve blame — is that Democrats’ political goal of reducing carbon emissions continues to trump their populist rhetoric on gasoline prices. The two stances are impossible to reconcile. Try as they might to blame oil companies for the pain Americans feel at the pump, the Democrats want higher prices for gasoline — and for all forms of energy that emit carbon. Economic barriers against CO2 emissions are a requirement for environmental progress in the Democrats’ view, and this is the entire purpose of the carbon cap-and-trade system they will put before the House this summer — to create economic disincentives for emitting CO2.

There's that phrase again: carbon trading.

It all comes back to carbon offsets, the "global warming" scam promoted by the UN's IPCC. And now, a group of scientists has formally petitioned the IPCC, asking that they cease and desist marketing the message that CO2 emissions relate to warming temperatures. The scientists go on to renounce the unintended consequences of the UN's position: that the policy of burning food (to produce biofuel) has driven food prices sharply higher and is causing hunger and deforestation in countries around the world (especially the poorer countries).

The net result? In Haiti, for example, citizens have been forced to eat mud patties consisting of dirt, oil and sugar.

Furthermore, scientists are now coming to the conclusion that "green" fuels can't replace oil anytime soon.

* * *
The hunger and wild fluctuations in oil prices are certain to continue until we come to grips with reality. That is, fossil fuels are required for the world to survive the next several decades. The transition to green technologies will take significant time and will only occur because of the free market, not government mandate.

Unless we wish to see mass starvation and economic ruin, we must demand that American companies be permitted to take advantage of our immense storehouse of energy. Anything else is economic suicide. Contact your representative today and tell them to stop driving us to ruin.




Update: Chosen as the post o' the week by The Watchers Council, which consists of the all-star blogs:

• Right Truth
• The Colossus of Rhodey
• The Glittering Eye
• Bookworm Room
• Mere Rhetoric
• Soccer Dad
• Joshuapundit
• Wolf Howling
• The Razor
• The Provocateur
• Rhymes With Right

Thanks!