tinydancer
Diamond Member
If we are going to have an honest debate about the environment one has to recognize that there are thousands making millions in climate profiteering.
Ken Lay from Enron actually dreamed up the carbon credit. So for all you AGW zealots you cannot point your finger at deniers and say that we are all backed by "big oil". Give it freaking up.
The truth is that $$$$$$$ have been made in the global warming scam.
If Ken Lay + Enron + carbon credit = Billions in profits doesn't give your little AGW heads a shake I don't know what will.
But you can take a flying leap if you want to turn the debate into "big oil" versus little environmentalists in this discussion.
The "green lobby" is as powerful and as corrupt as any other lobby. And sorry AGW parishioners, your religion blows dead bears.
Almost two decades before President Barack Obama made “cap-and-trade” for carbon dioxide emissions a household term, an obscure company called Enron — a natural-gas pipeline company that had become a big-time trader in energy commodities — had figured out how to make millions in a cap-and-trade program for sulphur dioxide emissions, thanks to changes in the U.S. government’s Clean Air Act. To the delight of shareholders, Enron’s stock price rose rapidly as it became the major trader in the U.S. government’s $20-billion a year emissions commodity market.
Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, keen to engineer an encore, saw his opportunity when Bill Clinton and Al Gore were inaugurated as president and vice-president in 1993. To capitalize on Al Gore’s interest in global warming,
Enron immediately embarked on a massive lobbying effort to develop a trading system for carbon dioxide, working both the Clinton administration and Congress. Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren’t curbed.
An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried.
To magnify the leverage of their political lobbying, Enron also worked the environmental groups. Between 1994 and 1996, the Enron Foundation donated $1-million to the Nature Conservancy and its Climate Change Project, a leading force for global warming reform, while Lay and other individuals associated with Enron donated $1.5-million to environmental groups seeking international controls on carbon dioxide.
The intense lobbying paid off. Lay became a member of president Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development, as well as his friend and advisor.
In the summer of 1997, prior to global warming meetings in Kyoto, Japan, Clinton sought Lay’s advice in White House discussions. The fruits of Enron’s efforts came soon after, with the signing of the Kyoto Protoco
An internal Enron memo, sent from Kyoto by John Palmisano, a former Environmental Protection Agency regulator who had become Enron’s lead lobbyist as senior director for Environmental Policy and Compliance, describes the historic corporate achievement that was Kyoto.
“If implemented this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural-gas industries in Europe and the United States,” Palmisano began. “The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous.”
The memo, entitled “Implications of the Climate Change Agreement in Kyoto & What Transpired,” summarized the achievements that Enron had accomplished. “I do not think it is possible to overestimate the importance of this year in shaping every aspect of this agreement,” he wrote, citing three issues of specific importance to Enron which would become, as those following the climate-change debate in detail now know, the biggest money plays: the rules governing emissions trading, the rules governing transfers of emission reduction rights between countries, and the rules governing a gargantuan clean energy fund.
Palmisano’s memo expressed satisfaction bordering at amazement at Enron’s successes. The rules governing transfers of emission rights “is exactly what I have been lobbying for and it seems like we won. The clean development fund will be a mechanism for funding renewable projects. Again we won .... The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us.”
Palmisano’s hard work had paid off, thanks to the many allies Enron had enlisted. Deserving special emphasis was the environmental community, whose endorsement was crucial to Enron’s achievements at Kyoto.
“Enron now has excellent credentials with many ‘green’ interests including Greenpeace, WWF [World Wildlife Fund], NRDC [Natural Resources Defense Council], German Watch, the U.S. Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI [World Resources Institute] and Worldwatch. This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monetized),” Polisano explained.
With this company Enron had been propelled to a leadership position at Kyoto Palmisano had been given no less than three occasions for speeches, including one on the role of business in promoting clean energy, and he had received an award on behalf of Enron:
]The Climate Institute honoured Kenneth Lay and Enron for their work promoting clean-energy solutions to climate change — the other recipients were Denmark’s energy and environment minister and the U.K.’s former environment minister. As Palmisano noted: “Parenthetically, I heard many times people refer to Enron in glowing terms. Such praise went like this: ‘Other companies should be like Enron, seeking out 21st-century business opportunities,’ or ‘Progressive companies like Enron are ...’ or ‘Proof of the viability of market-based energy and environmental programs is Enron’s success in power and SO2 trading.’”
Excellent series by Solomon.
He lays it on the line.
Lawrence Solomon: Enron's other secret - FP Comment
Ken Lay from Enron actually dreamed up the carbon credit. So for all you AGW zealots you cannot point your finger at deniers and say that we are all backed by "big oil". Give it freaking up.
The truth is that $$$$$$$ have been made in the global warming scam.
If Ken Lay + Enron + carbon credit = Billions in profits doesn't give your little AGW heads a shake I don't know what will.
But you can take a flying leap if you want to turn the debate into "big oil" versus little environmentalists in this discussion.
The "green lobby" is as powerful and as corrupt as any other lobby. And sorry AGW parishioners, your religion blows dead bears.
Almost two decades before President Barack Obama made “cap-and-trade” for carbon dioxide emissions a household term, an obscure company called Enron — a natural-gas pipeline company that had become a big-time trader in energy commodities — had figured out how to make millions in a cap-and-trade program for sulphur dioxide emissions, thanks to changes in the U.S. government’s Clean Air Act. To the delight of shareholders, Enron’s stock price rose rapidly as it became the major trader in the U.S. government’s $20-billion a year emissions commodity market.
Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, keen to engineer an encore, saw his opportunity when Bill Clinton and Al Gore were inaugurated as president and vice-president in 1993. To capitalize on Al Gore’s interest in global warming,
Enron immediately embarked on a massive lobbying effort to develop a trading system for carbon dioxide, working both the Clinton administration and Congress. Political contributions and Enron-funded analyses flowed freely, all geared to demonstrating a looming global catastrophe if carbon dioxide emissions weren’t curbed.
An Enron-funded study that dismissed the notion that calamity could come of global warming, meanwhile, was quietly buried.
To magnify the leverage of their political lobbying, Enron also worked the environmental groups. Between 1994 and 1996, the Enron Foundation donated $1-million to the Nature Conservancy and its Climate Change Project, a leading force for global warming reform, while Lay and other individuals associated with Enron donated $1.5-million to environmental groups seeking international controls on carbon dioxide.
The intense lobbying paid off. Lay became a member of president Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development, as well as his friend and advisor.
In the summer of 1997, prior to global warming meetings in Kyoto, Japan, Clinton sought Lay’s advice in White House discussions. The fruits of Enron’s efforts came soon after, with the signing of the Kyoto Protoco
An internal Enron memo, sent from Kyoto by John Palmisano, a former Environmental Protection Agency regulator who had become Enron’s lead lobbyist as senior director for Environmental Policy and Compliance, describes the historic corporate achievement that was Kyoto.
“If implemented this agreement will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural-gas industries in Europe and the United States,” Palmisano began. “The potential to add incremental gas sales, and additional demand for renewable technology is enormous.”
The memo, entitled “Implications of the Climate Change Agreement in Kyoto & What Transpired,” summarized the achievements that Enron had accomplished. “I do not think it is possible to overestimate the importance of this year in shaping every aspect of this agreement,” he wrote, citing three issues of specific importance to Enron which would become, as those following the climate-change debate in detail now know, the biggest money plays: the rules governing emissions trading, the rules governing transfers of emission reduction rights between countries, and the rules governing a gargantuan clean energy fund.
Palmisano’s memo expressed satisfaction bordering at amazement at Enron’s successes. The rules governing transfers of emission rights “is exactly what I have been lobbying for and it seems like we won. The clean development fund will be a mechanism for funding renewable projects. Again we won .... The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us.”
Palmisano’s hard work had paid off, thanks to the many allies Enron had enlisted. Deserving special emphasis was the environmental community, whose endorsement was crucial to Enron’s achievements at Kyoto.
“Enron now has excellent credentials with many ‘green’ interests including Greenpeace, WWF [World Wildlife Fund], NRDC [Natural Resources Defense Council], German Watch, the U.S. Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI [World Resources Institute] and Worldwatch. This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monetized),” Polisano explained.
With this company Enron had been propelled to a leadership position at Kyoto Palmisano had been given no less than three occasions for speeches, including one on the role of business in promoting clean energy, and he had received an award on behalf of Enron:
]The Climate Institute honoured Kenneth Lay and Enron for their work promoting clean-energy solutions to climate change — the other recipients were Denmark’s energy and environment minister and the U.K.’s former environment minister. As Palmisano noted: “Parenthetically, I heard many times people refer to Enron in glowing terms. Such praise went like this: ‘Other companies should be like Enron, seeking out 21st-century business opportunities,’ or ‘Progressive companies like Enron are ...’ or ‘Proof of the viability of market-based energy and environmental programs is Enron’s success in power and SO2 trading.’”
Excellent series by Solomon.
He lays it on the line.
Lawrence Solomon: Enron's other secret - FP Comment
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