Predatory "Green Capitalism" Is Monetizing the Air, and It's Going to Cost You

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Authored by Charles Hughes Smith, a humorously cantankerous old fart, whose musings I tend to enjoy reading.

Taxing the air is apparently the last refuge of the climate panic scoundrels.

Excerpt below, full article in the link:

Predatory "Green Capitalism" Is Monetizing the Air, and It's Going to Cost You

I recently asked What's Left to Monetize?, and longtime correspondent Mark G. provided the answer: the air we breathe, via carbon taxes and markets for trading carbon credits, i.e. financializing / monetizing Nature to benefit the few at the expense pf the many.

Here's Mark's commentary:

You asked, "What's left to monetize? It appears the answer is 'very little.'"

I respectfully disagree. The Biggest Enchilada of all is left. Air. Specifically carbon dioxide, CO2. We just have to figure how to get the yokels to agree to pay for that which was formerly free. Got it! First we browbeat them into believing its evil and that we have to tax it to save all life on Earth. Then, following in the finest traditions of the degenerate late medieval Catholic Church, we'll commission sellers of "Indulgences" to allow sinning at ever rising prices. a/k/a "Carbon Credit trading". This doesn't require any value added and the profits on "buy zero sell high" are limitless.

This is the specific outline and the very same agencies that so love financialization of all kinds, $2 trillion dollar student debt to sustain obscenely paid college administrators and academics, endless academic credentialism and huge Hipster Cities sitting on container ports and mediating the China Trade, are all promoting this financialization of CO2 as hard as possible.

This is why a nullity like the Paris Climate Accords continues to be pushed even after its proven every way possible that a) the biggest emitters like China and India won't adhere to them and b) even if they did the prescribed regimes will do nothing anyway.

And its why I "don't believe" in it. Or rather, its why I believe its just the next and biggest financial scam.

Thank you, Mark, for answering my naive question: of course Wall Street and the Davos Crowd are salivating over the hundreds of billions of profits to be skimmed from carbon taxes and trading. Not that corporations, financiers or billionaires will pay the carbon taxes; they will be passed on to consumers of everything that emits CO2, i.e. pretty much everything, including us of course.

Never mind that plant life needs CO2, and that planting trees could soak up the carbon at a fraction of the cost of neoliberal carbon taxes/credits; the goal of the "environmentalists" flying in on their private jets isn't to actually reduce CO2--it's to engineer a new source of rentier profits via monetizing / financializing CO2.

Planting a trillion trees could be the "most effective solution" to climate change, study says.

 

... If we measure the full lifecycle costs and environmental burdens of the Good Things (all electric vehicles, etc.), we find that replacing all the existing stuff on the planet will actually increase CO2 immensely--the reduction is trivial while the CO2 emitted in the extraction, processing, manufacture, transport and maintenance of the replacement stuff (i.e. "Growth") will vastly increase CO2, as will all the green capitalists' private jets.

As Mark pointed out, the majority of CO2 is emitted by nations that have no interest in reducing CO2, nor will they pay carbon taxes or play Wall Street's game of trading carbon credits.

So the net result of neoliberal "green capitalism" is higher CO2 and hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth skimmed from those who can least afford it while Al Gore and the rest of the Davos / NGO / philanthro-capitalist elites jet in for another "green" conference.

 

... For those who prefer facts to hyperbole in service of predatory private wealth, here's a chart of China's energy production: dirty CO2-spewing coal is the primary source.

This mirrors the global reality: renewables are still signal noise, and carbon taxes and trading credits will do nothing to change this.

Plastic pollution tracks CO2 and a variety of related environmental burdens: The primary sources are in Asia and developing nations. So enforcing bogus carbon trading in North America and Europe will do essentially nothing to address the actual sources of CO2 and other industrial / consumer pollutants.

...

 

[Okie + 83]

Interesting that you read Charles Hugh Smith (Of Two Minds).  You might find it strange that Charles and I share the same birthday (different years).  We used to feed off of each other's blogs prior to the financial crash in 2008-2009, when we both saw the problem with too much debt in the financial system (although we came at it from different angles).  I can somewhat see you liking his work, since he generally follows a Libertarian philosophy (although he insisted to me that he takes some from "both sides").  Back in the early days I contributed to his blog, both financially and with comments.  I keep in contact with him periodically, although it has been a couple of years now since I e-mailed him.

As for the subject of his article, I am ambivalent on carbon taxes.  I understand the reasons for it; I just don't know that it is the best way to solve the problem.  On the other hand, I am not against it, either.  Whatever.  How is that for a milquetoast answer?

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

19 minutes ago, Okie said:

Interesting that you read Charles Hugh Smith (Of Two Minds).  You might find it strange that Charles and I share the same birthday (different years).  We used to feed off of each other's blogs prior to the financial crash in 2008-2009, when we both saw the problem with too much debt in the financial system (although we came at it from different angles).  I can somewhat see you liking his work, since he generally follows a Libertarian philosophy (although he insisted to me that he takes some from "both sides").  Back in the early days I contributed to his blog, both financially and with comments.  I keep in contact with him periodically, although it has been a couple of years now since I e-mailed him.

As for the subject of his article, I am ambivalent on carbon taxes.  I understand the reasons for it; I just don't know that it is the best way to solve the problem.  On the other hand, I am not against it, either.  Whatever.  How is that for a milquetoast answer?

Interesting.  Yep, I appreciate his Libertarian bent.  And his willingness to look at issues through multiple viewpoints.

And intriguing that the 2 of you know each other.

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

20 hours ago, Okie said:

How is that for a milquetoast answer?

Suitably pathetic, Okie!  Not your style to be ambivalent!   OK, getting past that, the reality of "carbon taxes" is to perpetuate deep poverty.  It is the poor, and the working poor, that are hardest hit by carbon taxes.   In the rural areas, there is no "public transportation," no buses, no rail (or light rail), no Uber service, nothing.  Most jobs are far from the rural homes.  I know of one woman who works the night shift at the Govt rest area, manning the front desk for the tourists.  She lives 45 miles away.  So she has to drive 90 miles a day for a job that pays her fourteen bucks.  Now, if you add carbon taxes of $80/ton, which works out to about $1.30/gal., you are whacking her with a surcharge for transport of $5 a day.  It does not sound like much for a federal prosecutor pulling down $145,000, but for a single woman with children grossing $28K, it is a serious hit of $1,260 a year in pre-tax income.  There are lots and lots of poor people who do not even have $26, say nothing of $1,260.   

I was down at my local propane distributor last winter when a frazzled single mom came into the office and asked:  "How much propane can I get for $128?"    [Answer:  not much.]   You see the problem: the town I live in, a rural small community of 4,500, has 38% below the poverty line.  These are folks living in rotted old trailers in some trailer park, unrepaired,  heat energy hogs, these people have to shut off the heat at night and try to sleep with three pairs of pajamas and four blankets and hope the pipes do not freeze, because they have no money for heat.  And you want to hit them with a hefty "carbon tax" to discourage fuel consumption?  Just how abusive is that?  Can the effete greenie elites be more abusive?  Could they possibly be more contemptuous and arrogant?  Hard to imagine. 

Edited July 11, 2019 by Jan van Eck
corrected $260 to $1,260