This article is a repost with the kind permission from CovertAction Magazine
Has Carbon Taxation Become an Expedient Way to Redistribute Wealth, Cover Up Environmental Crimes, Promote Hazardous Energy Policies, and Control the Working Class and Developing Nations?
Does the Threat of Climate Change Misdirect the Anti-War Movement?
During the early 2000s, only a few left-wing magazines with limited circulation warned about the threat of Global Warming. Now mainstream news media link virtually every weather disaster to global Climate Change.[1]
Groups like Extinction Rebellion get international coverage for their publicity stunts, and supranational organizations like the United Nations as well as presidents and even King Charles offer support through lip service and radical energy policy changes.
The New York Times hosted a “Climate Event with Bill Gates, Marie Kondo and Others” on September 21st. Gates’s environmental stewardship plans involve chopping down forests and burying trees to combat climate change, and blocking out sunlight with dust to prevent global warming.
To analyze this shift in positive press coverage for Climate Change, it is necessary to understand how the carbon tax policy creates new exploitable markets, benefits the fossil fuel industry, hides polluters, and promotes energy policies that are in effect hazardous to the environment and negatively impact the working class and developing nations.
Fossil Fuel’s Big Bonanza
Within this context, the latest industry giveaway is President Biden’s $500 billion in new spending and tax breaks under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which is slated to go into effect in tax year 2023, according to the IRS. It is the third piece of environmental-related legislation passed by Biden since late 2021.
It is considered by analysts as a “Bonanza for the Carbon Capture Industry.” Accordingly, its intent is to increase government subsidy for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from polluting sources from $50 to $85 per metric ton and to simplify the process of receiving tax credits. The net result is a bigger handout to oil companies.
The fossil fuel industry views emerging CO2 capture technology as a revenue stream. This costly and experimental technology is intended to vacuum CO2 out of the air so it can be collected and buried in the ground. Scientists argue that a cleaner and more cost-effective solution might be found at the front end with better processing methods and filtering.
A pipe installed as part of the Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project carries carbon dioxide captured from the emissions of the NRG Energy Inc. W. A. Parish generating station in Thompsons, Texas. [Source: time.com]
Carbon Credit Global Compliance Market
The charts below show the ideological shift in the fossil fuel industry that took place in the mid to late 1990s as increased subsidies and international protocols, such as the Kyoyo Protocol of 1997 and the Paris Agreement of 2015 took effect. Additionally, the histogram depicts the steep transactional value of the Carbon Credit Global Compliance Market which shows a market size of US$261 billion, according to Refinitiv (formerly the financial and risk business of Thomson Reuters). This emerging market is projected to grow to US$480 billion by 2050.
[Source: carboncredits.com]
Scientists and Politicians Split Between Climate Deniers and Climate Alarmists
The scientific and political debate over man-made Climate Change has been heated, with both sides accusing the other of being either climate “deniers” or “alarmists.” While all scientists believe in global Climate Change, the root cause of it is the sticking point.
The alarmists blame it on “man-made” CO2 emissions and the deniers blame it on natural events that emanate from our solar system, such as sunspot activity, cosmic rays, and resulting cloud formations. Scientists in the denier camp do not discount the effects of regional or local man-made ecological disturbances caused by weapons of mass destruction, mismanagement and neglect.
There is a political side to this debate as well. Members of the Democratic and Green Parties mostly fall into the alarmist camp and deniers mostly fall into the Libertarian and Republican camp.
Climate Change deniers are accused of being paid by the fossil fuel industry, which may be true in some cases, although that does not nullify rigorous scientific research and well-documented conclusions. All industries fund research in their specific fields from aviation to pharmaceuticals. Should it all be invalidated? We think not.
Geologist Gregory Wrightstone provided an informative webinar for the Green Renaissance-Sovereign Rights Movement (GRSRM) on El Nino and La Nina. He serves as the executive director for the CO2 Coalition — whose mission is to promote education about CO2 emissions into the environment. The CO2 Coalition takes a critical view of climate change alarmism because its members disagree with the science it is based on and the policy decisions that it generates.
While Mr. Wrightstone has worked for the gas industry, the CO2 Coalition consists of many distinguished scientists, including Nobel laureates, who have not.
The fossil fuel industry ironically appears to be playing both sides of the debate. It donates to both the Democratic and Republican Parties and is hedging its bets because of the tax subsidies.
Shifting Sun Patterns and Nuclear Winter
Theodore Postol is an MIT physicist and weapons specialist who draws on the research of Dr. Henrik Svensmark, professor in the Division of Solar System Physics at the Danish National Space Institute (DTU Space) who has found that climate change has resulted largely from shifting sun patterns and a flux in cosmic rays.
According to Postol, the Earth may soon enter a period of cooling, followed by a heightened period of warming 20 or 30 years from now.
At a webinar that he gave for the GRSRM on Climate Change and the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Dr. Postol strongly reminded his audience that the greatest existential threat to humankind is nuclear war and not man-made global Climate Change, and that a nuclear winter is a real threat. In a nuclear winter scenario:
Surface temperatures would plunge for a few weeks as a consequence, perhaps by as much as 11° to 22° C (20° to 40° F). The conditions of semidarkness, killing frosts, and subfreezing temperatures, combined with high doses of radiation from nuclear fallout, would interrupt plant photosynthesis and could thus destroy much of the Earth’s vegetation and animal life. The extreme cold, high radiation levels, and the widespread destruction of industrial, medical, and transportation infrastructures along with food supplies and crops would trigger a massive death toll from starvation, exposure, and disease. A nuclear war could thus reduce the Earth’s human population to a fraction of its previous numbers.
Doomsday Clock and a Diversionary Ruse?
Dr. Postol has expressed concern that we are closer to a nuclear exchange with Russia and North Korea than ever before. The Doomsday Clock, which tracks the potential of a human-made global catastrophe by atomic scientists, of which Dr. Postol is one, was moved to 90 seconds to midnight.
A key reason is because of the U.S.’s invasive and provocative foreign policy in Ukraine since 2014 and its destruction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, as detailed by award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh.
Disingenuously, many Climate Change alarmists are not focused on egregious environmental warfare — like the destruction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline or pollution produced by the military-industrial complex.
Climate alarmism as such can be seen as a ruse to misdirect a once cohesive anti-war movement, as well as a method used to keep the Global South underdeveloped and subservient to U.S. and European powers by denying its use of inexpensive and dependable fossil fuels — especially in Africa.
While fossil fuels cause pollution in many different ways, they are also the most cost-effective and consistent energy available presently, which have resulted in the rapid industrialization and progress of the U.S., Europe, Russia and China. The extraction, refinement and use of fossil fuels must be done as cleanly as possible to remove harmful chemicals and soot from contaminating the Earth’s atmosphere and groundwater.
CO2 Defined
For clarity, all life on Earth is comprised of carbon. When carbon burns, decomposes, is released by the ocean in warm temperatures, or is exhaled in breath, it becomes CO2, which is classified as a greenhouse gas. The greenhouse effect maintains our atmosphere. Without it, our planet would be too cold for life.
Nuclear Energy
The exaggerated fear of CO2 emissions becomes a backhanded endorsement of nuclear energy. However, nuclear energy remains costly to taxpayers to fund and remediate, as accidents are mostly uninsurable, plutonium by-products can be repurposed to develop nuclear weapons, and spent fuel rods remain dangerous to communities when stored locally or transported.
Lithium
Also, fear of CO2 promotes carbon tax policies that reward environmental degradation, such as open-pit and strip-mining for rare-earth minerals and regime-change coups to make lithium batteries that are ultimately a disposal hazard.
Notebookcheck.net reported that “Tesla made U.S. $1.5 billion from selling government-mandated carbon tax credits to legacy carmakers, mainly overseas, as well as various smaller subsidies. That is more than a quarter of its US$5.5 billion net income in 2021, forcing the SEC to mandate it report regulatory credits as a separate line item in its annual financial statement.”
Bait and Switch
Further, electric car charging stations use electricity made by the burning of fossil fuels and lithium battery replacement is often necessary after 70,000 miles or eight years and is prohibitively expensive for consumers. Another bad policy is the ban on gas stoves in new construction in New York State (NYS) beginning in 2026. This is especially hypocritical since NYS is highly dependent on natural gas for its energy needs statewide, as shown in the chart below.
Richard Lindzen
MIT atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen dissented from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which he was part of, displaying concern for the mistaken narrative of climate alarmists.
According to Dr. Lindzen, “the goal of Carbon Net Zero in 2050 will cause immense pain and suffering and diminution of all the advances people have made and will reduce their future.” Dr. Lindzen has further claimed that the scientific working group’s key finding that there is “no climate catastrophe” was disregarded by the alternate non-scientific working groups involved in the panel to achieve an “agenda.” He considers this a “scam.”
Like Dr. Lindzen, physicists such as Theodore Postol and Nobel Laureate in Physics Ivar Giaever, who resigned from the American Physical Society due to its promotion of Man-Made Global Warming, consider the relationship between the Sun and the Earth to be of prime consideration when evaluating climate.
Theodore Postol’s presentation on The Role of Clouds in the Earth’s Climate System is here and other recommended articles are here.
The Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project provides satellite-based observations of Earth’s Radiant Energy Budget (ERB) here.
Researchers at the Danish National Space Institute at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem confirm the Sun/Cosmic-Ray Climate Connection here.
“Solar explosions produce magnetized gas that sweeps past the Earth, reducing the cosmic ray flux reaching us. These events are called Forbush decreases, taking their name from the American physicist Scott E. Forbush, who first noticed them more than 80 years ago. They lead to temporarily lower production of small aerosols—molecular clusters in the air—that normally grow to seed the water droplets of low-level clouds. This, in turn, reduces the cloud cover which is known to affect climate.”
Large Sunspot Activity
Dr. Postol explained that large sunspot activity warms the Earth. During the Little Ice Age, between roughly 1650 and 1715, there were almost no sunspots observed on the Sun’s surface. In the period between 1950 and 1990, sunspot activity was at a high that had not occurred for somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000 years.
This meant the magnetic field of the Sun was extremely intense during this time interval. The result was a significant diminution in the cosmic ray flux at the top of the atmosphere, a reduction in the reflectivity of the Earth, and an increase in the Earth’s surface temperature.
This correlation can be seen over thousands of years of Earth’s temperature records. It can be found in temperature proxies like carbon-14 and beryllium-10. Both isotopes are produced by proton spallation of oxygen and nitrogen nuclei in the Earth’s atmosphere. They show a clear record of temperature variations for thousands of years in the case of carbon-14 and for hundreds of thousands of years in the case of beryllium-10, which is a much longer-lived isotope that is trapped in ice cores.
There is a high correlation with oxygen-18 ice core records which directly track the Earth’s temperature before instrumentation was available. When the Earth’s temperature is high, the ratio of oxygen-18 to oxygen-16 is higher. Since the oxygen-18 comes from the evaporation of water rather than from the cosmic ray flux, the correlation indicates that cosmic ray production of carbon-14 and beryllium-10 and oxygen-18 concentrations in ice cores correlate with fluctuations in the Earth’s temperature.
Ivar Giaever
Ivar Giaever, 1973 Nobel Prize recipient in physics, provides his analysis of global warming due to CO2 emissions here. His objection to the measurement of the Earth’s temperature follows below:
“The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole Earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is [sic] that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.”
– quote from Ivar Giaever’s resignation letter.
More than 1,000 International Scientists Are Deniers of Man-Made Global Warming
A report titled “More Than 1,000 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims” can be found here. The “World Climate Declaration: There Is No Climate Emergency” is listed here. It is from a global network of more than 1,500 scientists and professionals who have prepared this statement:
Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.
The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.
Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as global policy tools. They blow up the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.
There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts, and such like natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, there is ample evidence that CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly.
There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050.
Further, by tracking solar activity, physicists conclude with certainty that CO2 levels are a function of solar activity. The graph listed below shows the close correlation between solar irradiance and temperature, in contrast to CO2 and temperature. A detailed video explaining this graph can be viewed here.
Piers Corbyn
Piers Corbyn, a British astrophysicist and Director of WeatherAction.com, states that “man-made climate change does not exist.” Corbyn agrees that the most significant factor in climate is the Sun, and that global climate change is the result of variations in the Sun’s activity and the Earth’s orbit. According to Corbyn, “the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, over the long run, is an effect, and not a cause, of temperatures and lags behind the climate by about 500-800 years.” But Corbyn’s assertion does not preclude human activity from playing a localized role.
Corbyn’s hypothesis involving CO2 is shared by many other scientists and covertly by the oil industry. As detailed by Corbyn, “The oil industry will go along with anti-CO2 measures as long as there is a uniform price for carbon across the board. Because the increased energy charges (subsidies) needed to make biofuels, wind farms, etc. economical means a huge ongoing increase in their profits.”
He chides “new or old celebs generating large carbon footprints by attending ‘Save-The-Planet’ stunts where they tell us all to not fly, not eat meat, not drive cars, not breathe, etc.” Apparently, there are two sets of rules for carbon usage that are based on class status.
Corbyn asserts that deindustrialization and rising energy costs, due to the prevailing CO2 global warming narrative, disproportionately affect the impoverished and working class and that “millions die of fuel poverty-related causes due to climate policies every year” and that the largest victimized group is “African women suffering and dying from smoke inhalation due to open cooking fires because ‘sustainable’ climate policies hold back coal-fired power station electrification of Africa (and thus hold back economic development)– effectively, UN-EU Climate policy is racist.”
Corbyn also argues that scientific consensus does not equal truth. Consensus is often achieved through the targeted distribution of grant money that promotes topical politically advantageous positions.
Corbyn points out that CO2 in the oceans is 50 times more abundant than in the atmosphere, although he neglects to mention pollution that is leading to acidification that affects the capacity of crustaceans and mollusks to form shells.
Hijacked Environmental Movement, Amped Up Fear, Deindustrialization and Depopulation
While it is generally accepted that unbridled mass combustion of fossil fuels causes environmental and public health concerns, other underreported factors require consideration as well. However, the environmental movement has been hijacked, public fears are amped up, and all are hyper-focused on the carbon footprint of eight billion individuals. Since all life on Earth is carbon-based, this theory promotes not only deindustrialization but also depopulation.
Henry Kissinger linked overpopulation to U.S. national security in 1974 while he was President Richard Nixon’s National Security Adviser through National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200). Once he became secretary of state, NSSM 200 became Washington’s covert policy on population matters. It is important to note that Henry Kissinger’s work has been supported by elite eugenicist families such as the Rockefellers, Fords, Turners and Gates.
Kissinger has been closely involved with the development of the World Economic Forum (WEF). A spokesperson for the WEF, Yuval Noah Harari is emboldened to say the quiet part out loud. He disdainfully refers to the working class, displaced by technological advances, as “useless people” and he recommends “drugs and computer games” to occupy this “worthless/meaningless” grouping.
CO2 Climate Change Narrative Deflects Energy Away from Environmental Stewardship
The media and government’s hyper-focus on CO2 emissions deflects attention away from geo-engineering, big industrial polluters, the military-industrial complex, nuclear detonations and power plant waste, rocket launches into space, depleted uranium in weaponry, worldwide bombing campaigns, the use of defoliants, pesticides, napalm, fracking, open-pit and strip mining methods, non-regenerative mono-crop and Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) agribusiness farming practices, and the destruction of the Amazon jungle.
Instead of protesting endless regime-change wars and displaying solidarity with the struggles of working class people and trying to revive a moribund left, socially conscious youth are being diverted into the “climate justice” movement, which has nebulous goals, and support organizations like 350.org which has championed U.S. weapon supplies to Ukraine.
Further, climate change hype is being used to rationalize more detailed surveillance that accomplishes greater socioeconomic control over the public.
Need for Better Designs
It is important to note the failure of big industry and government to support the design of cost-efficient, effective, scalable, and renewable energy options. Instead, technological designs favor centralized and monopolistic control and military applications, such as those funded by the Department of Defense (DoD), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and In-Q-Tel (the CIA’s Silicon Valley venture capital entity), etc.
Without controversy, hydroelectric and geothermal technologies can be expanded in addition to solar energy. Discussions that Tesla’s Tower also produced wireless decentralized electricity are interesting but remain speculative.
Designs that win wars make money and ensure control for those already in power so they, therefore, take precedence over designs that predominantly serve the public good or are environmentally sustainable and regenerative. Nonetheless, military-driven scientific inventions are also used in the private market and purchased by consumers (i.e., motors, planes, cars, telecommunications, internet, etc.)
Alternate Influences on Localized Climate Change/Return to Environmental Protection
While reusing or avoiding plastic, recycling glass and metal, and turning off lights when not in use are still important, these measures are inconsequential compared to the fallout from bombs, industrial pollutants, nuclear explosions, and faulty nuclear reactors such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. Despite the opposition of nearby countries, Fukushima will again release its stored radioactive water into the ocean.
Localized Climate Change
While the threat of Climate Change and Global Warming does appear alarmist to a large group of scientists, localized environmental damage occurs due to military and industrial pollution and human activity.
Aerial spraying (not normal contrail condensation) occurs worldwide, especially a day or two before predicted precipitation for cloud seeding. Wildfires are far more frequent and have an intensity previously unknown.
Dane Wigington
As documented by Dane Wigington, from GeoEngineering Watch, fires can be linked to geo-engineering because sprayed aluminum nanoparticles settle onto forest foliage. Additionally, spraying fire-suppressing chemicals from airplane tankers, while useful in suppressing fires, may have long-term negative ecological consequences as well.
Fire-retardant chemicals used on military bases pollute groundwater and destroy marine life. Neither scientist who presented to the GRSRM considered Dane Wigington’s work, which is summarized in his informative documentary titled The Dimming.
Unfortunately, Mr. Wigington’s work includes supportive references to CO2-driven Climate Change which appears to be a red line for dismissal in the scientific community that we consulted.
Also contributing to localized climate change and vast deforestation is the use of mono-crop agriculture on an industrial scale in huge territories, including, most unfortunately, tropical rainforests in Brazil and Indonesia. The destruction of these long-evolved ecosystems by cutting down thousands of square miles of forests and dislocating animal life is an environmental hazard.
Ocean contamination by plastic and chemical dumps in rivers affects aquatic life and, consequently, decimates aquatic species, including oxygen-releasing plankton.
Top CO2-Emitting Countries
While there may not be a consensus amongst scientists regarding Global Warming and Climate Change or the role of CO2, material changes for the wealthiest and most powerful nation regarding environmental damage are necessary if other countries are to be kept de-industrialized by CO2 concerns. The U.S. holds first place in CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement, according to the chart listed below.
Researchers Claim Global Warming Distracts from Ecology and Promotes Neo-Liberal Agenda
As early as 1952, Murray Bookchin, an ecological revolutionary, warned about the problem of chemicals in food and the dangers to the environment and society by industrialization.
In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring which cataloged the horrors of chemical pollution on bird populations. Bookchin’s Our Synthetic Environment was published a few months earlier. Earth Day was started in 1970 and sought to draw attention to the problem of the environmental degradation of the planet and the need to enact safeguards.
Of particular concern is the genuine issue of our natural well-being. Environmental protection is necessary to keep water, air and land clear of toxic contamination, and to reserve natural space for the preservation of species.
These fundamental needs for ecological action are being undermined, according to skeptics who believe that the environmental movement was usurped in the 1990s and greenwashed, as shown here and here.
Several researchers, such as Peter Koenig, Dr. Claudia von Werlhof, and James Corbett, believe the environmental movement has been hyped by fear to advance a neo-liberal agenda and totalitarian objectives.
They look cynically at the “solutions” proposed by international organizations, ranging from the United Nations, World Health Organization (WHO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), to networking entities such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) and Bilderberg.
Further, “carbon-neutral” solutions greenwash corporate polluters and shift blame and responsibility onto individuals. They seek to restrict the movement of the working class through the required use of electric-powered smart technologies.
Biased Greta Thunberg
While Greta Thunberg’s commitment to environmental activism may be perceived as honorable, Western leaders have used her youthful and innocent, appealing image to advance policies designed to keep the Global South in check and to criticize Russia for ecological damage in Ukraine. Notably missing from Thunberg’s analysis is any criticism against the United States for prolonging its proxy war against Russia by supplying Ukraine with weapons that include depleted uranium and its hand in the massive ecological damage that was caused by blowing up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
James Corbett
James Corbett, a researcher, points out that, at present, the atmosphere has just over .04% carbon dioxide (425 parts per million). It has had far greater percentages throughout history and, according to the chart below, the CO2 level is presently at starvation level.
A Way Forward
Consumers are encouraged to think globally and act locally by using regionally produced organic food whenever possible. This eliminates hydrocarbon-consuming air, train and truck transportation that now averages 1,500 miles per meal from farm to plate. It is advantageous to achieve self-sufficiency and food sovereignty by growing fresh produce when feasible on window sills, balconies, rooftops, pocket parks and community gardens.
This can best be achieved by respecting Indigenous knowledge and using regenerative permaculture techniques in agriculture. Encouraging politicians to support eco-friendly technology based on tidal and geothermal energy that can support a network of electric high-speed rail transportation is also useful.
Endless regime-change wars must be immediately stopped. This is the true existential threat faced by all of Earth’s inhabitants. As such, the military-industrial complex and its supportive intelligence agencies must be disbanded and required to remediate all the environmental damage caused domestically and internationally.
Oversight authorities, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), must be independent of lobbyists, and corporate capture, and held beyond the reach of supranational organizations. It is critical to resist and reject technocratic totalitarian dictates that are allegedly enforced “for our own good.” We must instead promote solutions that promote truth, justice, peace and prosperity for all and not a select few.
Co-founding members of the Green Renaissance-Sovereign Rights Movement (GRSRM) and Green Liberty Caucus/Block contributed to this article.
[1] Global warming was renamed Climate Change since the atmospheric temperature has only increased approximately one degree in 150 years, according to scientists from both the climate-denier and climate-alarmist camps. Climate Change is by any standard a more nebulous title, as it is difficult to quantify and relies on anecdotal evidence. Some scientists claim it is impossible to derive an average planetary temperature even though there are extensive tests in use.
