Let's play pretend!

So from this article, I followed the link to the quoted "Harper's magazine" article and found the following nuggets:

But Kyoto also allows companies to purchase “offsets,” credits from emissions-reducing projects in developing countries. Such projects, which currently account for as much as a third of total tradable credits, are overseen not by the E.U. but by the United Nations.

That would be the UN, that most august and incorruptible organization that has brought you such examples of good governance and oversight such as the Oil-for-food and Sex-for-food scandals. Yup, they're the ones who are going to be overseeing the running of planet Earths' developed industries.

And unlike traditional commodities, which sometimes during the course of their market exchange must be delivered to someone in physical form, the carbon market is based on the lack of delivery of an invisible substance to no one.

I would bet this the first time in history that such an audacious snake-oil sales pitch has ever had such a global scope. Re-read that paragraph, let the understanding of the market for pretend goods sink in.

According to a report by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the margin of error in measuring emissions from the cement and fertilizer industries can be as high as 10 percent. For the oil, gas, and coal industries, the margin of error is 60 percent; and for some agricultural processes, the margin of error can actually reach 100 percent.

+/- 100% ??!?!?! In what field of human achievement is an error rate of +/- 100% remotely acceptable? Hell, even +/- 60% ??? Yet this is the program the UN wants the entire world to sign on to.

Also the article mentions that Goldman Sachs now hosts a carbon trading desk and is intimately involved with the setup of carbon offsets market in the US. That would be the same Goldman Sachs that aided the Greek government in cooking the books that has precipitated the current Euro(€) crisis and the possible collapse of the Greek economy.

Indeed, carbon exists as a commodity only through the decisions of politicians and bureaucrats, who determine both the demand, by setting emissions limits, and the supply, by establishing criteria for offsets.

So the entire carbon trading "market" has been invented out of thin air by people who's primary job is to lie, policed by a multinational with a reputation of dodgy accounting on nationwide scales, overseen by the world's most corrupt organisation.

What could possibly go wrong?

"World Encircler"

Apophis	Apophis	Apophis

Apep, the Egyptian demon of Chaos, also known as Apophis, 'Evil Lizard','Enemy of Ra', 'World Encircler' and 'Serpent of Rebirth' (source). He was a demon of the unknown and frightening events, and was so feared that he was never pictured as he 'appeared' so as to avoid giving the drawing magical demon power, so was often depicted as a water-snake. He battled the Sun-god "Ra" daily just beneath the horizon and solar eclipses were "interpreted as a victory of Apep over Ra".


Apophis is also the name of an asteroid (full designation: 99942 Apophis) that NASA estimates to have a 2.7% chance of hitting the earth in 2029. And factors such as "sunlight", a gravity sweet spots may push Apophis a couple of Earth lengths left or right. And assuming it misses Earth in 2029, the closeness of the 'miss' could alter the trajectory on it's return flight in 2036. The calculations are so complex that the NASA boffins cannot with a reasonable degree of confidence tell us where Apophis will end up in 2036...at this time. They will have to recalculate if and when the near miss occurs.

(But don't worry they can tell us with a "high" degree of certainty with a similar if not more complex system what the weather will be like in a 100 years or so...)

Here's an Apophis-eye view of what we hope is a miss:

Should the cosmic pinball game that is our solar system run in such a way that planet Earth becomes the 5000 point bumper, our Egyptian/NASA friends will indeed have aptly named the "World Encircler" as Apophis will have finally overcome his sworn enemy Ra (our sun) by causing a world-wide blackout:

“Nasa has estimated that an impact from Apophis... would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.”

Oh yeah, and the best bit? The date of the "fly-by" in 2029...April, Friday the 13th.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Exploding Sandcastles

Going away for a couple weeks. Postings will be light until January.

Have a Merry Xmas and great New Year and try not to let Global Warming kill you.

Here's some backwards exploding sandcastles...

Ninjas hijacked my mother

And something about apple juice...

(via DavidThompson)

Drugs

A very interesting infographic from the creator of the blog Information is Beautiful.

Using data sourced from the reporting in The Guardian. There are some surprising results.

Check out the complete picture and post available here

Red Green - Green Red

A common meme among right-wing blogs and other 'denialist' medium regarding the single minded obsession of the environmentalists, is this idea that socialism didn't die in 1989, it just transferred itself to the Green movement (something the co-founder of Greenpeace agrees with) and subsequently underpins the naked hypocrisy and power grab that has become the movement to STOP THE WARMING.

Well to put all that malarkey to rest, here's what happened in Carbonhagen this week when Hugo Chavez, el Presidente for life of Venezuela spoke at COP 15(emphasis mine):

“our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation.

Lord Monckton who alerted the world to the in-text tyranny of the Carbonhagen treaty, had asked the current PM of the Czech Republic Dr Vaclav Klaus about the 'communistic' tendency of the treaty, and his response was:

“Maybe it is not brutal. But in all other respects, what it proposes is far too close to Communism for comfort.”

And this is from a dude who lived under a Communist regime.

Now where is my tin-foil hat...

Tweepocrisy

Ms Ross and her husband Steven, who is in the Air Force, have said they want to be left alone to mourn their son.

This from the woman who tweeted her son's dying moments...