Killing Jobs to Save the Climate ***
Posted on 17 July 2008 by Jack
The price of European emission permits is rising so rapidly that German companies are threatening to leave the country. Thousands of jobs could be lost. And the environment may, in the end, be no better off.
They sat silently through two lectures, but then they couldn’t control their anger any longer. The civil servants from the Environment Ministry, the Environment Agency and the German Emissions Trading Authority made it sound easy for industry to take up carbon trading. It was just too much for the managers to tolerate.
“If that’s the shape the trading will take, we will simply move our cement operation to Ukraine,” a cement factory manager shouted into the lecture hall. “Then there won’t be any trading here, nothing will be produced here anymore — the lights will simply go out here.”
The businessmen’s anger surprised the emissions-allowance trading experts. They had invited industry representatives to a relaxed forum at the Environment Ministry’s office in Bonn. They wanted to present international developments in the carbon trading market. However, the mood in the German business world has soured — managers no longer have the stomach for academic lectures. The reason is that emissions allowances are already burdening some companies that require a lot of energy for production purposes.
In the last 12 months alone, the price for the right to pump a ton of carbon into the atmosphere has shot up from €23 ($36.5) to nearly €30 ($47.6), according to the European Energy Exchange in Leipzig. This hike of around 30 percent has a direct effect on the electricity production of power companies.
Related: Latest from the “Goreacle”…
Note: Some of the affected companies really need to start thinking about suing Gore and his friends for the damage they are causing. Make that a class action suit and make it a humdinger. Get the stupid SOB into court and require him to PROVE everything he has been preaching.
Updated Note: I just posted a new straw poll reflecting my view in the sidebar. Feel free to vote AFTER you have read this story.
Popularity: 26% [?]
July 17th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
I know people that have been burned by joining semi-private golf clubs, that take an “initiation fee” and sign you up with monthly dues. The dues are ratcheted up over time to fine the pain threshold. Protecting the initial capital investment motivates members to continue paying the increasing dues until that threshold is reached, and then they walk, away from the club, and their initial capital.
Similarly, holiday condos have the same kind of profile. You invest capital, sign on for maintenance fees, and the fees are ratcheted up.
Beware when the contract is open ended on the variable fee portion. That’s how these scams work.
We see the same thing happening, in a way, with taxation. Once the tax is there, the spigot is installed, and the rate can be tweaked, or silently float upwards with inflation in a bonanza of beauro cash (shall we call it the Beuro?)
Europeans allowed the installation of that spigot. I suppose Beuros must be highly addictive, because, it should surprise nobody that the rates are being ratcheted up to find the threshold of pain.
You folks out in BC with your Carbon Tax. Does the legislation put any controls on the process by which the rate is adjusted upwards? You can bet Dion’s plan is nothing more than the installation of a spigot, and there will be no serious verbiage in the legislation to put a barrier in place to cranking up the rate.
I love it when the timeshare folks try to pitch to me. “Sure, let’s write down in this contract that your maintenance fees will not move up without mutual agreement”. With those words, the other side of the table understands that you know the game, and they move on.
The public must come to understand in their bones the spigot analogy. Enough have been burned with golf club scams, and holiday timeshare scams with maintenance fees that they can relate.
This is no different. The devil is always in the details, buried in the fine print in the contract/legislation. Beware. Think.
July 17th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
This might seem like a dumb question, but exactly what are Gore’s credentials, and why are people so gullible anyway?
July 17th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Joanne (T.B)
Don’t you understand this is in the name of saving the PLANET! The PLANET you fool!
This is not merely a movement, this is religion. If the Islamics don’t get us the environ-mentalists will.
They are both out to change/destroy your/my lifestyle. No more driving to work - we must use public transit.
No more driving to the store or the mall to shop, you can/must shop on the net.
Turn that thermostat down. Wait it is summer - turn that damn thermostat (A/C) up. (Horrors - The bears are drowning.)
No more driving/flying to vacation spots.
As for the Islamics, well you get the picture right?
Iwonder who will win that final battle between the envirowackos and the Islamics. Could be worth the price of admission.
CRB
July 17th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
I would like Suzuki added to that lawsuit also.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Any comment from the greenshaft or dion on this story. Notice the Garth was on tv today talking about mortgages. If this cap and trade or carbon tax takes place many cdn companies will follow the european companies to the Ukraine. Uncle Mo isn’t involved there is he.
July 17th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
I would like Suzuki added to that lawsuit also.
I would like to sue him for personal suffering from watching his horrible commercials.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:01 am
I’d love to see the Goreacle, Suzuki, Greenpeace, et al. sued. It would be even more delicious if they were sued by environmentalists for the ecological damage their policies have produced.
It would certainly open up some eyes. Don’t hold your breath, though.
It would be almost impossible to prove that our modern-day eco-Puritans and the charlatans that profit from them are one and the same. It’s question of who’s the fool? The greenie on the hill, or the huddled masses and politicians who listen to them?
Case in point: the town of Aliso Viejo, California … where the town council almost voted to ban foam containers, because they were made with this allegedly dangerous chemical, di-hydrogen monoxide (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4534017/, http://www.dhmo.org/).
So, who’s culpable? The scientist who created the dhmo.org site to educate the public into the techniques used by the greens (and other con artists), or the twits in town council who couldn’t see the obvious scam?
July 18th, 2008 at 7:50 am
This is not merely a movement, this is religion
CRB, Mea Culpa. I will say three “Our Gores” and repent to the Prophet by doing without AC today. I’m sure he doesn’t use it.
Yeah right.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Joanne, if you leave a healthy donation in His Goricleness’ Carbon Credit Alms Box over there in the last pew, you may turn on your AC for a few hours. Do it soon though, because the cost of those minutes is going up rapidly.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Now on top of companies already leaving ontario, we now have Mcguinty signing on to the cap and trade system
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=d7f4d1a6-3718-45d8-bbaa-7e401aa3fb99
As if we arent hurting enough.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Mr. Gore:
Kindly be quiet for a change, and most important of all, stop your carbon garbage. the experts, they are the ones who,” KNOW” what they are talking about, and just for your information,” it only amounts to 0.04%.
p.s.Please stay in the States we in Canada are not one bit interested in “ANYTHING YOU HAVE TO SAY”.
July 19th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Jack, SDA has just picked up on the Germany story.
July 19th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Thanks Joanne…