andyh wrote:
See personally, i believe thats the inside joke right there.

Carbon is often called "the building blocks of life"

So these guys are taxing life itself, and the people will pay, not corporations. The costs will be passed on, as always.

And thats not even getting into the fact that big oil is in with the big banks and they are all part of the club, permits wont be a problem if you are part of the club, and thats another point, they can use this to eliminate those who arent, push them out of business.

I will always go on record to say i support proven renewables like solar PV cells, solar water heating, hydroelectric and some others... and reducing pollution that spews into the air.

I just dont see carbon trading achieving this. I see more of the same, oil and gas getting pumped out, more fracking which can ruin groundwater, plastic keeps getting made, pollution still in the air. Big oil still making obscene amounts of profit off our backs... i expect this story below to continue...

andyh wrote:
I tried to discuss other forms of pollution on one of those blogs about climate change deniers and nobody wanted to talk about it. It doesn't just affect humans though, it contaminates everything. Then there's the fact that animal testing is still widespead, even for things like bleach. Suerly we don't need to test it on animals to know what it does. There's also stealth animal testing.

I try to tell people about all of this and they genuinely don't care. Mr Pumpshaft will still buy things like Fairy washing up liquid, because it's about 20p cheaper. I tell people that their cosmetics contain carcinogenic substances and they have been tested on animals and they don't give a toss.

As for the black soot from domestic wood burners... Loads of people have installed these, believing that they are doing their bit for the environment (myself included), so there's going to be a lot of pissed off people.

We're so screwed this is just insane.

We've got austerity, cutbacks up the wazoo, taxes all over the fricking place, services being cut left right and centre and now THIS?

THEN....we've got the mother of all shitstorms coming if/when the central bank interest rate goes up.

Wood can be a true renewable energy when managed correctly, so i feel it will be targeted, as was hemp by the likes of DuPont and other big corporations not so long ago.

Wood competes with their on grid electricity and gas.

Tptb have even tested the waters in Australia in regards to banning wood heaters, the idea has been put out there, which to me is the first step.

Also, rather than carbon taxes for small businesses, couldn't the emphasis be something like tax breaks for small businesses that take steps to limit their carbon footprint? You could give incentives for becoming more sustainable.

In fact, there has been a big drive within the sustainability movement to encourage wood as a fuel.

andyh wrote:
And they have people fighting eachother, politically, looking right and left instead of looking straight ahead at the corporations.

There are people so heavily programmed to defend these carbon trading schemes simply because their 'side' or 'team' tells them so on TV, and they think they are 'getting' big oil. Its laughable and so sad at the same time. Its already been demonstrated for example that shell and others were founding partners of Al gores CCX for example, and all these big corporations have stakes in each other, including Goldman Sachs

We even have Blackrock now trying to talk up the Oz economy as it goes down the drain. m.smh.com.au/business/blackrock-gives-th...-20130116-2ctvn.html I see these things as propaganda because many people have stopped spending and going into debt, and tptb and banks dont want that. Recent successive cuts in the reserve bank interest rates thru 2012 are the true indicator of consumer spending habits, heck these guys come out and announce cuts while trying to talk up the economy... they are transparent to some but not to many.

and politicians telling displaced workers to go west and 'work in the mines' for the likes of rio tinto. Like everyone wants to be a miner ffs.

I was discussing some of these things with someone not so long ago, he said we cant do anything individually (he's right ofc imo) and summarised it with ' Let 'em find out the hard way' .. sadly it seems to be the only way many will cotton on.

rant over (for now)

'BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) is an American multinational investment management corporation and the world's largest asset manager.[2] Headquartered in New York City, BlackRock is a leading provider of investment, advisory, and risk management solutions[citation needed]. The company acquired Barclays Global Investors in December 2009, solidifying its position as the largest investment manager in the world. As of September 30, 2012, BlackRock has $3.67 trillion in assets under management.[3] '

andyh wrote:
And before litter and then CFCs and then...

In fact it is ALL of it and none of it.

Christ I am losing faith.

andyh wrote:
As ive said before, ive spent days trawling through major institutional shareholders of many many corporations, not just on the NYSE but also the LSE and ASX.

Blackrock has stakes in almost all the big names, along with Vanguard and State Street. Be it military, banking, monsanto, and anything in between.

So its in their interests to talk up the Oz economy and get people to spend (by going into more debt, they are already in debt per capita as the Economist chart WUB posts up shows).

More people not afraid to go into debt = more company profits = more returns for Blackrock.

mikey mikey wrote:
Its always about focusing attention on small issues instead of the big issues.
They've gone so far today as to actually convince people that CO2 is literally the most important problem we have....meanwhile thousands of kids are dying daily from starvation and lack of drinking water.