Posted on

And Now for Something Different!

With all the doom and gloom surrounding us at the moment, it’s nice to come across something positive for a change. Something that reminds us that it’s not all bad at the moment, that good things are still happening, yes?

Like the fate of our iconic grass trees. All up, there are 28 species of grass tree, which range in size from one metre to six metres tall, and they are native only to Australia. Grass trees, which in truth are neither grass nor tree, began diversifying somewhere around 24 to 35 million years ago. They are a very slow-growing perennial, very-long-lived and at present are in danger of being pushed to extinction. Okay, so this is not the  good thing I was talking about…

Also called as the Yacca, and formally known as Blackboys, the genus Xanthorrhoea are monocots, meaning they only have one cotyledon (which is the leaf attached to the embryo within the seed). They are unique, have an amazing ability to survive a bushfire and an added bonus is, they also flower! The trees send up an impressive spear-like spike which can be up to four metres long, adorned with nectar-rich flowers which attract a wide variety of insects, birds and mammals. They are a starkly beautiful, sculptural tree, essential to the bush ecology, that can live for up to 600 years and they are among the oldest living plants on the planet, which makes it all the more concerning that urban developers see them as nothing more than an obstacle to be razed to the ground as more land is cleared to make way for new suburbs and building projects. Okay, so this definitely isn’t the good thing either.

Here is the good thing, however;  Western Australian company, Margaret River Grass Trees, has come out on the side of the iconic Xanthorrhoea and are doing a remarkable job of rescuing them, literally from the path of the bulldozers, and then propagating them in nurseries all around Australia, thus ensuring their future survival and raising their profile with gardeners and landscape designers around the country. Being such an ancient plant, that has endured and thrived all over the country for millennia, the grass tree makes an excellent choice as a specimen tree for the home gardener, for schools, public parks and the commercial sector, as it has adapted perfectly to all the various conditions that make up our Australian landscape.

Like almost all Australian natives, grass trees can be traumatised by a removal from the ground and the entire operation needs to be handled with extreme care. Fortunately, the team at Margaret River Grass Trees know their stuff and have been successfully removing the trees and relocating them to their nurseries, where the trees are carefully tended for around 18 months, to ensure their health and survival following the move.  This is vitally important, as the company wants to ensure the trees will do well when sold on to their customers. But their survival is tantamount anyway.

And why not? It would be devastating if these remarkable trees met with extinction.

Grass trees can flourish in poor, sandy soils, are drought and fire resistant and once established, are a low maintenance, inexpensive plant to look after. They love sun, there is no need to use fertiliser and climate wise, they will live happily under almost any seasonal conditions. So it is so nice to know that someone appreciates their unique beauty and is doing something concrete to ensure the grass tree does not vanish from our landscape, because that would be tragic. You can visit www.margaretrivergrasstrees.com (who operate Australia wide) to find out more about their operation, view their impressive gallery, discover more about these amazing trees and maybe even find the perfect specimen for your garden.

See? I said this was about something nice.

 

 

 

Posted on

Green means Money. For some.

For some, creating an “environmental” market is pretty much a license to print money, and this is what a small clique of money men did when they created a market called Global Warming, which would bring the money rolling in via the launch of their associated product; Carbon Credits.

Climate Change is hot news right now, so they’ve engineered it well, what with workers and students holding Climate Strikes in a futile effort to force world governments to “do something” about climate change/global warming, but as has been discussed in a previous post, much of what happens on Earth, temperature wise, is governed by solar activity and no government, no matter how committed, can control the Sun. They can do their bit to encourage recycling, to reduce landfill and to penalise blatant polluters of our air, waterways and the land itself, but for as long as the Sun shines, the temperature and the climate on Earth will do its own seasonal thing.

Which leads to the question; why do we need a global emissions trading scheme? The short answer is, we don’t, but green does mean money and anything bearing the “Environmental” stamp has the potential to generate a lot of it.

Hence the Carbon Bubble. Emissions Trading is a market-based scheme where the Carbon Market tracks emissions under cap-and-trade schemes. It is a vastly overpriced scheme where Carbon Credits are disguised as an “environmental plan” and is a virtual repeat of the commodities market. It will allow world governments to mandate rises in pricing as it will place a limit (cap) on coal plants and natural gas distributors on the amount of carbon emissions (greenhouse gases) they are permitted to produce per annum. Should they generate beyond their allotment, they will be able to purchase “allocations”, also known as credits, from other companies that have an excess of credits due to having produced fewer emissions. Which all sounds well and good, except the cap will be regularly lowered, which will result in the availability of carbon credits getting scarcer, and that’s not so good. Basically, cap-and-trade is a scheme that is carbon tax structured, and which will be profitable only for those private interests who will collect the revenue.

In 2004, an $18 billion firm named Generation Investment Management (GIM) was founded by Al Gore, founder and current Chair of The Climate Reality Project. The co-founder is former Goldman Sachs Asset Manager, David Blood. All about “sustainably focused” investments, the company raised a profit of almost $218 million between 2008 and 2011. Headquartered in London, GIM now manages assets of around $22 billion and as of 2019, has raised $1 billion for its latest private equity fund. The third and largest of its similar funds is Generation IM Sustainable Solutions Fund III, which plans to invest $50 million and $150 million each in companies aiding the health of the planet and/or individuals. The demand to invest in a sustainable manner is growing, especially throughout Europe, despite the fact that the definition of what that actually means can vary (a definition that regulators in Europe want to look at more closely). Basically though, its focus in on “sustainable investing” and demonstrating the long-term commercial benefits. Or more plainly, it’s all about the money. David Blood is part of initial working group that brought about the United Nations Principal of Responsible Investment (UNPRI), which relates principally to the interests of “environmental, corporate and social governance”, which means it nurtures the longtime interests of financial markets and investors etc.

In 2005, The EU Emission Trading Scheme was introduced and Goldman Sachs participated in this scheme from its inception as a market maker in carbon credits.

The year 2006 saw the release of Al Gore’s controversial book, An Inconvenient Truth which created worldwide concern (fear) about climate change and global warming, and did much to boost the carbon investment markets, which was good news for Goldman Sachs. In the same year, Al Gore’s film of the same name, was released by Participant Media, a company owned by wealthy businessman, Jeffrey Skoll, first President of eBay and friend of Al Gore. Goldman Sachs is eBay’s investment bank. Anyway, by 2008, Al Gore was in a position to invest $35 million into hedge funds and private partnerships through a company named Capricorn Investment Group, a Palo Alto company also founded by Jeffrey Skoll.

But after the initial panic, perhaps the shock wore off and the market stalled because in 2017, Al Gore released a sequel to his film. It didn’t create anywhere near the impact of its predecessor though, which may be an inkling that more people are beginning to see through the ruse. Because that’s what it is really.

Come 2018 and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) introduced a new index created by Euronext, the largest stock exchange in Europe (6th largest in the world) with roots that go back centuries, apparently. The index, Euronext CDP Environmental Finance is exclusively licensed to Goldman Sachs. Carbon Credits are currently trading at $11 to $20 per credit.

In September 2019, Goldman Sachs released a report which claimed “rising temperatures would lead to changing disease patterns, more intense and longer lasting heatwaves, more destructive weather events and pressure on the availability of water for drinking and agriculture.” It also warns that natural ecosystems would be damaged and human health, food and drinking systems would all come under pressure as well. Hence Goldman Sachs’ Environmental Policy Framework. They are an underwriter for “Green Bonds” and into developing an Environmental Commodities Market. Their Centre for Environmental Markets is where they partner with other corporations, academic institutions and non-governmental organisations to “unlock” lucrative environmental markets.

Well, it stands to reason those who stand to make the most money out of carbon trading will do whatever it takes to keep the ball rolling, as there’s so much money to be made. But not by you and me.

So it’s never really been about “saving” the planet. It’s always been about wealth and how much of it could be raked in by a few savvy money men who trawled through all things “environmental” until they hit on a way to create a whole new enterprise, which they then launched upon the world and turned to their own advantage…at our expense. “Green” is really lucrative for some.

But not us.

Posted on

The Climate Debate

When it comes to trashing the planet, there is a lot the world’s leaders can control, and most of them have taken steps of varying degrees to implement strategies to encourage, and sometimes compel, people to do the right thing environmentally; manufacturers, businesses and individuals can all do their bit, and that’s a good thing. No one wants a dirty planet.

But what about the issues that are beyond their control?

Right now there is a tidal wave of protests demanding that World Governments “Do Something!” to stop global warming/climate change etc, and junior climate warriors worldwide have been getting a lot of media attention for wagging school to hold strikes/protests in support of the planet. A couple of them have even managed to pave their way to media darling-hood.  Good for them. They have engineered access their fifteen minutes. But while it’s all very well to say “Do Something” and there is a lot that is within government means, there are a number of other factors that have an impact on the Earth’s climate which are, like it or not, beyond human control.

These factors are not being given much coverage though, yet they should be because they are an integral part of what’s going on and they contradict the claims cited in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) that all global warming from 1970 to 2000 is anthropogenically produced (man-made). The claims have been based on an incomplete model that has excluded the natural quasi 20-year and 60-year climate cycle contributions that most definitely do affect our Earth.

One of these factors is sunspot activity. Sunspot solar cycles are approximately 11 years long. Sunspot activity hosts solar flares and the ejection of hot gases from the Sun’s corona and the number of sunspots throughout a cycle reaches a high and then goes on the wane, and the cycle begins again. But in addition to Solar Maximum (high sunspot activity) which affects the Earth’s temperatures by creating colder weather patterns, and Solar Minimum (low to no sunspot activity) which generates higher temperatures on our planet, we experience the impact of solar magnetic fields, ultraviolet radiation and solar flares, all of which impact quite noticeably on the Earth’s climate. Sunspot activity and temperature increases on Earth happen concurrently and studies are showing that sunspot activity overall has doubled in the last 100 years.

Governments have no control over sunspot activity.

Another factor is solar winds. According to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre, solar winds consist of magnetised plasma flares, which emanate from the Sun. These solar wind flares influence the galactic rays which then affect atmospheric phenomena on Earth. Changes in the Sun’s solar output affects our planet both directly, via the changing rate of solar heating and indirectly, by altering the processes that form clouds.

Governments have no control over solar winds either.

Then there’s Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), which is the rate of which the energy from the Sun reaches the top of the Earth’s atmosphere. TSI fluctuates daily and the 11-year cycles in TSI measurements relates to sunspot activity.

Any form of Government control is zilch here too. Sorry.

The Earth’s climate cycles, also know as Climate Oscillation, fluctuate all on their own. Atmospheric temperatures, sea surface temperatures and precipitation are all quasi-periodic and climate changes noted since 1850 have been linked to cyclical, predictive, naturally occurring events in the Earths solar system. The natural quasi 20-year cycle/60-year climate cycle contributions have been clearly detected since that date, in all global surface temperature records in both hemispheres. The 60-year modulation cycle also corresponds with warming and cooling of the ocean’s surface temperature. The records are particularly easy to note in significant surface temperature maxima that occurred in the years 1880 – 1881, 1940 – 1941 and 2000 – 2001. These warmer periods happened to coincide with times when the orbital positions of Jupiter and Saturn were relatively close to the Sun and the Earth.

Fascinating, but again, completely outside of any Government control. The Sun, and the planets, do their own thing.

Now, if the above was made more public there might be a more balanced view on climate issues, and if students spent the day in school instead of trawling the streets, they might even find this information for themselves, plus get a handle on their spelling (jealous, environment and emergency on placards as “jelous”, “enviroment” and “emergancy”) which would serve them better in the future. Or they could just hold their protests during the school hols. Sure, I realise that would mean doing it on their own time, which may not be as attractive, but at least it wouldn’t cost them a learning opportunity.

Thing is, people have been fed a highly edited account of how and why the Earth’s climate changes. Yes, Governments can do much to ensure industries and individuals exercise more practical care when it comes to controlling pollution, but to blame “Government inaction” and previous generations for naturally occurring climactic fluctuations is just feeding that little clique who stand to make a great deal of money from our ignorance.

But more on them later.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on

Green, or Greed?

Environmental issues have been a hot topic for decades, and on the whole, they have centred around issues like air, water and land pollution with consecutive governments taking steps to prevent it. This has been a good thing.  Ditto the phase-out of plastic bags in supermarkets and the like, and Council depots providing recycling points at rubbish tips and encouraging people to use them, which is also a good thing. No one really has an excuse not to separate and recycle their rubbish anymore.

If it all goes toward preserving the planet, it’s a good thing. Trashing the place until it is no longer habitable is definitely not. People are a lot more aware now, which is another good thing. Many good things here. Which is good, yes? Basically, yes.

The problem with good things, however, is the potential for them to be exploited (very bad thing!) and the “environment” word pushes a lot of emotional buttons with a lot of people, which leaves it wide open to exploitation. It can be a money train if you manage to milk it the right way. A few years back, one of the electricity supply companies in Australia began promoting “green” power; electricity from sources such as wind turbines and solar power plants. The television ads were very people-friendly, the smiling woman in the ad all sacharine and vaccuous (I just wanted to swat her) in her pitch to encourage people to switch to electricity from “green” sources, as a positive step towards reducing one’s “carbon footprint” (if I hear that one more time I’m going to spit!) etc, etc, etc. Well, yes, it would be a little more expensive than the electricity supplied via the coal fired power stations, but what’s a little extra cost when it comes to “saving the planet”? Firstly, it was not a “little” extra cost to the consumer (it was designed to make a nice profit for the power company after all) it was a rip-off. At the time of airing, there were  insufficient alternative energy plants to guarantee the power people would be paying more for would be “green” because the availability of alternative power was only so-so during off-peak periods, and during peak periods would more than likely be supplied via a coal fired power station, as the alternative sources could not meet demand. And there was no way to check either way what they were using. People signed up for it though, not realising they were just paying more for the same thing they’d been using all along. There’s no absolute guarantee of it’s supply even now, unless you are using the power generated via the solar panels on your own roof.

This was a very deliberate exploitation. The power company knew the supply of “green” power was sketchy but they promoted it anyway.

But why stop at a small deception designed to bring in some extra cash if you can pull off something a lot bigger, with the potential to make billions? If greed is your god then you would have already cottoned on to that potential and if you are smart enough, you will have mapped out a plan to fool the masses while making yourself very, very wealthy. If you can pull it off.

You may need a few powerful allies with credible backgrounds to assist with the launch, but you’ll keep the number within reason as you don’t want to have to split the potentially massive profits too widely. There will be kickbacks, of course, which will be nice little earners for those assisting you in your ruse and the payouts will be generous enough to keep them on-side, but no matter, because the money will come rolling in. If you can pull it off…

Well, someone did cotton on, and while they haven’t quite managed to pull it off to their satisfaction just yet, they have certainly managed to lay the groundwork. They just need to convince us all now that there is a genuine threat to the planet. That’s proving to be a little easier said than done, because some of us are not buying into it, but they are not letting it go because of the potential it has to generate more wealth than they can poke a stick at. This one’s a global exploitation and it’s a biggie.

Do you know where I’m going with this?