Carbon credits: Just another excuse to "print money"
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If this was Exxon pushing a PDF promoting skeptical views, it would be on the front page tomorrow. Where are the front page headlines?
“Bankers feed scare-mongering report”
Instead it’s just Deutsche Bank try to save the world their profit line.
Just in case you are missing your daily dose of being spoon fed propaganda by Bankers who want your money, see Climate Spectator Balancing reason and risk, where Deutsche Bank is helping the skeptics by giving us yet another example of just how desperate they are to get carbon trading running.
Q: When will the bankers worry about whales?
(Ans: When they can trade Humpback Credits.)
The good news is we are getting to them, and we are marking the lines they need to jump over. They now admit it looks bad when they denigrate scientists (they finally “get” that they shouldn’t call scientists deniers):
Although the scientific community has already addressed the sceptic arguments in some detail, there is still a public perception that scientists have been dismissive of the sceptic viewpoint,
Watch how they pretend to care about the science (science-schmaltz), even as they trash the scientific method by arguing from authority:
…we at Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors (DBCCA) have always said that the science is one essential foundation of the whole climate change investment thesis. Navigating the scientific debate is therefore vitally important for investors in this space.
For these reasons, we asked our advisors at the Columbia Climate Center at the Earth Institute, Columbia University, to examine as many as possible of the major sceptic claims in the light of the latest peer reviewed scientific literature and to weigh the arguments of each side in the balance.
The result is, [a 51 page document!] we believe, a balanced, expert, and detailed assessment of the scientific case for climate change that will help investors navigate these extremely complex issues.
As always, there’s “that line” where the basic physics that might give us 1.2 degrees is hailed as if it explains it all:
To us, the most persuasive argument in support of climate change is that the basic laws of physics dictate that increasing carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere produce warming. (This will be the case irrespective of other climate events.)
But lookee here. The feedback argument makes an appearance. So Deutsche Bank are forced to come up to another line we’ve drawn in the sand. They admit they have to answer:
The only way that warming can be mitigated by natural processes is if there are countervailing ‘feedback mechanisms’, such as cooling from increased cloud cover caused by the changing climate.
Then there is the straight out deceit:
A key finding of the current research is that there has so far been no evidence of such countervailing factors.
No evidence? Douglass 2007, Spencer 2007, Lindzen & Choi 2010, McKitrick 2010, McShane 2010, Spencer 2010 and of course, the entire radiosonde record going back to 1959.
In fact, most observed and anticipated feedback mechanisms are actually working to amplify the warming process, not reduce it.
That’s according to the models that predict things we know don’t happen.
This is an information war
The lesson from this is that even the most well resourced advocates armed with PR, marketing and teams of scientists can’t endlessly back a false claim, not as long as we have free speech. With next to no resources we’re setting the rules. We’ve pointed out their bad manners, their censorship and their name-calling, and so even the bullies recognize there’s a price — they can’t afford to be “seen” doing those things. So they finally start being polite, finally admit there are “uncertainties”, and admit the feedbacks are worth talking about.
Next step: we need to point out why “Bankers Really Want Us To Trade Carbon” and show it for what it is. When bankers push it on us, it marks them as profit hungry corporations who are happy to see their customers cheated, who have no interest in protecting their investors, and are keen to join in the propaganda war. We need to make their every attempt a net negative for them. The alarmists made it too painful for Exxon to support skeptics with pitifully small amounts, so we are only returning fire with fire. If Exxon can’t support unpaid skeptics, why should Bankers get away with pushing their power-hungry, profit-seeking legislation that is backed-by-a-fake-consensus and supported by scientists who cheat, hide data, and declare only half the truth?
When the public starts to associate bankers pushing carbon-scares as being bad corporate citizens, the bankers will sit it out quietly. They’ll still fund the PR, but they won’t want their name on it. It will be another small win for us.
Note their Disclaimer:
Disclaimer
This material is intended for informational purposes only and it is not intended that it be relied on to make any investment decision.
ie: we can lie to you and it’s ok, you can’t sue us.
Who would trust this bank?
Their 51 page pdf report attacks all the usual Strawmen.
See Deutsche Bank exposed in a previous post for advertising for climate change, and (if you want) see more Deutsche Bank propaganda on their site.
Banks make their living by syphoning a percentage of the money that circulates in the economy. The more money that circulates, or the more circulation of the same money, the more they make.
What’s better than a few trillions more circulating via carbon trading?
It’s difficult to write a post about banks without using the words cheat lie and deceit.
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Banks make money by putting a price on risk. If they can jack up a pretend risk, they can make a greater margin.
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I’m shocked at Joanne using: “…A Wunch of Bankers” in her title!
Well not exactly shocked, surprised maybe, no, that’s not the word for it either, hilariously delighted – yes that’s it.
I didn’t even know Carl Wunsch was a Banker!
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I hope you sent Deutsche the list of negative feedback papers with a suggestion that their good friends at Columbia Climate Center at the Earth Institute, Columbia University clearly missed a whole lot of peer reviewed papers and may have a vested interest.
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Hell yeah!
But what is the collective noun when bankers, insurance executives, lawyers & the odd politician get together? It would be messy.
All that awesome power & one to bind them all … the MSM?
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jaymez,
Joann ought not bother. They aren’t interested. In Germany AGW is irrefutable dogma. Cold winters, IPCC corruption, climategate? Germany just sticks its head deeper into the sand.
Germany decided years ago already and passed Laws and Acts to push green energies with abandoned, and now they are more than knee deep in it, way past the point of no return. Investments have been made, companies have been started, jobs have been created – all based on the premise tht AGW is a fact. And so marches Germany in lockstep, ignoring reality. They have set themselves up in a such way where they can’t afford AGW not being true.
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Don’t forget Joe Hockey’s wife works for Deutsche Bank. Joe is keen on carbon trading. I wonder why?
Turnbull had his legal difficulties solved by the Vampire Squids – Goldman Sachs, in a confidential agreement. GS is keen on carbon trading so is MT. Co-incidence?
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You think DB is bad, you ought to look into re-insurer Münchener Rx. That’s a cesspool of insurance sharks out spreading panic like you wouldn’t believe.
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I guess that’s why Malcolm Turnbull and most of the voters from Wentworth are so “Green”.
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From midway down page 3 of the pdf, the editorial summary:
Indeed, how can one undermine something that has nothing underneath it to be undermined in the first place???
Bold typeface is theirs, not mine. The pdf, by the way, doesn’t permit copying so much as a single sentence for quotation. I had to type that myself. If I get a document that won’t let me copy a quotation from it I wonder what they’re afraid of.
All the usual suspects are lined up and shot. It’s too bad they don’t die! Isn’t the truth a marvelous thing? No matter how deep you bury it, up it comes again.
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So:
Here’s some reasons why you should invest in the carbon market, but don’t rely upon it to invest in the carbon market.
Got it.
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The success of the CAGW faith relies almost totaly on it’s followers
not doing any simple research on the validity or otherwise of what their being told.
If I could understand why, in 2010, astrology, tarot reading, faith
healing etc is such huge business, it would help better understand these sad people.
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Never hear that the carbon market is investing in “New Clean Technology”.
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Deutsche Bank (et.al.) and just leaked UN Secret Policy Agenda
The end of National Sovereignty – the Dangerous Stumbling Block to Global Governance!
Watch for “Climate Change” and ETS – by Regulation – via new and older “Sustainability” Portfolios – to avoid Legislation.
(United States Supreme Court ruling on EPA’s legal obligation under Clean Air Act.)
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/09/08/years-setbacks-looks-world-leader/
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This all smacks of another “too big to fail” scenario. Except this time the banks will have to grin and bear it — there’ll be no money left in the piggy bank especially in Europe.
P Gosselin @ 6 –I wouldn’t argue with your comment but I thought there were a few “positive” signs coming out of the German polis lately with their extending the date of closing down older nuclear power stations ( a type of admission of defeat on some of the so called green energy solutions ) and earlier in the year I though Merkel was looking at ways to get around their announced emissions commitments.
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Jo, the intentional dyslexia is amusing. However when it comes to exposing misinformation and Propaganda is there any reason to be so politically correct.
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Is there a problem with the forums? I tried posting my experiences with my bank earlier but it didn’t appear. When attempting to repost it claims it is a duplicate post. In neither case has the text appeared… so this is a test of a different nature… feel free to delete.
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Baa Humbug @ 1:
Ain’t that the truth. I learned this first hand in the last weeks. Here’s my latest banking experience:
Two Thursday’s ago I went to Westpac to transfer US$675 to an account (not mine) in the US. Their computer systems were down but they promised to fix my personal banking portal so I could do the transfer from home. When I got home that evening I couldn’t transfer the funds because the system does not know what a “routing number” is, because most countries use the SWIFT system.
Anywho, the following day I revisted the bank and they organised the transfer for me for a Aus$30 fee. I emailed the intended recipient that the funds were on the way and would probably get there in 2-3 days.
Wednesday this week I got an email from the recipient saying they received funds but there was only US$650 deposited (i.e. US$25 short). I asked them to check with their bank (a relatively smaller regional bank judging by the name) to see if they charged a handling fee for receiving the international transfer. Yesterday morning they emailed back that their bank did not charge fees for incoming wire transfers. So back to Westpac for the third time.
I had a chat with the counter staff and supervisor and they said they would phone the international desk to verify what happened. Needless to say i wasn’t going to waste more of my time (I had been on hold for 30-40 minutes with the bank help line that morning trying to figure out what happened) and told them to email me at home.
I have an email from a chap at Westpac with the “confidential… yadda yadda yadda” standard banner at the bottom so let me paraphrase the contents rather than quote them. Essentially they handed the money to a major bank in the US that handles their international transfers who then transferred the money to the intended recipient’s bank for depositing. The problem is that this bank wasn’t going to do this onerous electronic work for nothing, so they charged a US25 handling fee.
Now we have the dilemna which I explained in an email back to the bank chap who wrote me… I was not made aware of the fee so I am hardly responsible for mystery banks that elicit fees en route to the recipient. Had I known another US$25 was to be extracted I would have sent US$700 in the first place to ensure the correct amount was deposited.
The recipient is hardly liable for the fee because they aren’t even aware of it. The monies came out before their bank even received the transfer. It is therefore not a cost of them doing international banking with their bank. As I said… they are lawyers and probably quite capable of defending that position 🙂
I explained to the Westpac chap that it would be quite ridiculous for me to pay them another Aus$30 to transfer US$50, to lose another US$25 to the mystery bank, so that the remaining US$25 goes where it should have been in the first place. So I concluded with the suggestion that they should find a more suitable solution to this problem.
So the waiting game begins…
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Nope strike three… this is annoying.
[the spam filter caught your post. It is free now] ED
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Investment banks are slavering at the prospect of a whole new market of tradable securities and it is not only greed making their mouths water. Post 2008 and the great deleveraging process equity returns are looking less attractive and shares have been shown to be more vulnerable to volatility. Worse again, bond yields are evaporating as demand increases. The clowns of finance know the bonus pool is shrinking to a puddle. No wonder the are talking up a prospect that has so much tax payer money behind it. There is an urgent need to find replacement sources of fee income if the investment banking model we are familiar with is to continue.
But trading carbon credits would only be the beginning. As everyone gets in on the action there will be pressure to come up with new, more complex investment products. Just like residential property ultimately underpinned bizarre creations like synthetic collateralized debt obligations, it would only be a matter of time before the wizards developed pollution-backed securities using the legislation-enforced obligation to pay a fee for a carbon credit as the underlying asset. If the treasure of the citizenry of the West wasn’t at stake, I’d love to watch what they come up with. But unfortunately, this is serious.
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Hallo P Gosselin
Your’re generally right about the situation here in Germany but I think the message is slowly getting though: the government last week voted to extend the life of all nuclear power plants by 12 – 16 years, in the face of very vocal opposition by the greens, who basically wanted them taken out of the net immediately.
Even “Der Spiegel” – a kind of popular lefty current affairs magazine – recently published a series of articles critical of some aspects of AGW:
(German language)
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,688175,00.html
although they’ve since being toeing the party line pretty well,
cheers
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Invest in this. This is not a scam. For real! There are some people out there
who think this is a scamwho have some questions, but by and large, most people agree this is not a scam.Famous people. Important people. Knowledgeable people! They all agree, this is not a scam.
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Bulldust:@17
That is just staggering! What’s the difference between a fee and straight out theft?
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The notorious swindler, Alfredo Ponzi, became extremely successful at what he did in fraud schemes because he learned never to mention “this is not a scam” to potential victims.
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It would seem that the Columbia University people do not understand Thermodynamics. They either have not read or ignored the peer reviewed paper by the Russians Chilinger, Kilyuk and Sorokhin “Cooling of the Atmosphere Due to CO2 emission” Energy Sources 30, Jan 2008
Do the so-called climate scientists study Thermodynamics? I could not find the subject in any of the University course syallabuses (syallabi -take your pick)I looked at in a number countries. Oh! silly me that is an engineering subject.
Of course Miskolczi’s papers would be beyond their level of knowledge.
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Bulldust: #71
I am not a banking expert (one has to have one or two small imperfections) but I understand from people who are (appeal to authority) that this is actually illegal if your bank has not informed you that there is an international handling fee.
The bank in the states that you have never heard of, is probably paid a retainer by the small banks to provide the service on their behalf – think of it as outsourcing. If they have removed money in transit, it is really no different to theft – imagine if a freight forwarding company decided to keep say, a table lamp, for moving your household goods from one country to another.
They are double-dipping on the basis that nobody is going to object about $25. But all those $25 mount up – a nice little earner if you can get it.
If you want to follow it up, try to find out what state the bank is registered in, and write to the District Attorney’s office.
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This will not stop governments from bailing them out. They will simply create the necessary money and allow taxpayers/consumers/savers to foot the bill through the resulting inflation.
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Seen as we are swapping banking experiences, I have one which also involves Westpac.
Some years ago, I went to my local branch and told them I wanted to pay out the loan I had with them for some time. The teller looked up the loan and told me what the payout figure was (a few thousands).
I didn’t bother doing any exact calculations myself but the figure was around about what I had expected.
About 6 months later, I received a letter informing me that they had made an error and that I still owed them 18 hundred dollars and that I had 14 days to pay.
I told them that I’d be happy to pay any amounts outstanding if an error was made, HOWEVER I DO NOT HAND OVER MONEY JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE SENT ME A LETTER. I asked for a detailed account and invoice showing where the error had occurred.
Well, it turns out that my original branch had been shut down, and the micro-fisch had gone missing. (no, really)
Letters and phone calls went back n forth a few times. The bank wasn’t going to let go, they threatened me with a lawsuit. As soon as I said “I’d be happy to test this infront of an independent magistrate”, their demands stopped.
So I guess on a technicality, I STOLE FROM THE BANK. (Isn’t that great?)
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Noting that Nova was cited 5 times in the Deutsche Bank paper, I did a bit of a survey. Here is the result:
Mann 28; RealClimate 13; Lindzen 10; McKitrick 9; McIntyre 8; Watts 6; Nova 5; Trenberth 4; Pielke 3;
Then I checked one more and found:
Likely; 25
Says a lot about the arguments, I think.
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Rereke @ 25:
I am a charitable sort, so I shall give the bank the opportunity to make amends first 🙂 If it all goes pear-shaped I might pursue more, shall we say, vigorous avenues of seeking restitution. Let’s see what the bank chap says in response to my email. I am almost enjoying the sparring… it can be good sport.
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Bulldust: # 29
Indeed. It is always fun. And sometimes very satisfying — especially when you win.
But don’t be too charitable. Remember, the Lord helps those who help themselves, and that is precisely what they have done in your case 🙂
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Pat Cusack: #28
Can you please confirm that the references to “Likely” were peer reviewed?
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Bob Malloy: #15
Nicely put! Very droll!
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Coincidentally, I ran across an earlier essay by John Brignell. Here’s a key quote:
BTW: Ask Deutsche Bank how “energy-efficient” their new headquarters are. Get the MJ per year for electricity and heating. Then divide by the number or people based there. Every position consumes about as much energy as an average, German household.
They don’t actually make anything there; except poor people. No artifacts are produced. No wealth created. They simply contrive how to best line their own pockets by taking it out of those who have far less. People who’ve been tightened their belts and foregoing wage rises.
And if they fail to capitalise, they are too big to fail and that the German taxpayer will joyfully jump to their aid and bail them out, as has happened in the past within their industry and is still happening now.
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Roy Hogue 10
Try A-PDF Restriction Remover from http://www.a-pdf.com
Its free and convenient
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Rereke Whaakaro:
September 11th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Thank you, for your kind words.
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PJB-253,
I didn’t know there was a pdf restriction remover. So thanks for the tip and I’ll keep that gizmo around.
Of perhaps 30 – 40 really important pdf documents I’ve needed on the job or for general information, only this one is so restricted that you can’t copy a line out of it. They’re really uptight.
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Example of why not to trust bankers:
Try doing an International money transfer. I did a few years ago, went through the process $X Euros will be transferred to this account and it will cost you $X AUD. Simple. Away it was sent
The only problem was the amount in euros that got there was less than what was explained. I rang up the bank. I get some little SOB who arrogantly explains to me that “well the money doesn’t go directly to the account you know, it goes through any number of intermediaries who can take their percentage”
So I ask the obvious- what intermediaries and what percentages? The response was, quite literally “we don’t know”.
My view is that this is simply an act of piracy. If I had put an envelope of Euros on a ship and people intercepted the ship on it’s way to europe and “took their cut” it would be regarded as piracy.
But oh no, somehow we have allowed the wunch of bankers to be above all decency in this regard.
So yeah, let’s redistribute the worlds wealth via institutions who have all the ethics of the pirates of the high seas who also appear to enjoy the privilege of being protected by the governments our taxes fund. Good one.
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Bulldust, the International credit card networks have become so good for small payments that the banks don’t seem to try anymore. I know there are small merchants who don’t accept credit cards but compared with the time you have wasted you can see why just paying by VISA over https website is a whole lot easier.
You might find that AMEX offer a service of generating an international cheque that the person at the other end can take to their local AMEX office. Of course there will be a fee, but I rather suspect it will be smaller than what you paid.
Baa Humbug,
I rather feel that you prevented the bank stealing from you. Let’s suppose you went to a dentist and was then issued with an invoice which you paid. Then 6 months later you get a letter from the dentist claiming that the invoice was calculated wrong and you actually owe a bit extra. As far as I’m concerned, the price on the original invoice is final and once settled, stays settled. Without final settlement on a transaction you can never issue a true statement of profit and loss because someone might arbitrarily try it on with asking a bit extra.
Very likely the bank knew they had no leg to stand on but figured they could bluff a bit of money out of most people. I’ll bet they had a got at a whole lot of other folks with the same trick (and probably got away with it in many cases).
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MadJak:
I am not sure you should compare bankers to pirates, because at least pirates have the pirate code, right?
Speaking of which, next Sunday is ITLAPD:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day
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The most important part of the bank report is the disclaimer. Fortunately disclaimers are not a bar to litigation for loss based on representation.
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Binny@22
You don’t have to use a bank. Send the money some other way. If the bank provides a service, and you choose to use it, they can charge a fee – free market eh? Get off your backside and start an international money transfer business…..
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There is more than one disclaimer in this document – how can these guys be serious about anything other than their desire to rip you off.
Disclaimers:
and
– God knows why this is relevant or why the document is freely available on their website – don’t these guys have a brain?
– this is a great relief
– what’s the point of publishing all of the garbage that I have just read?
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George Lloyd 43:
Those disclaimers are typical. You find similar disclaimers in CSIRO publications. BoM media. UN-IPCC reports. etc. etc.
I always ask: “What the hell are we paying for?”
Followed by: “Who’s stupid/arrogant enough to put any value on that pap?”
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For further debunking of the banks report see Ross McKitrics reply.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/misinformation_deutsche_bank.pdf
http://www.dbcca.com/dbcca/EN/_media/DBCCAColumbiaSkepticPaper090710.pdf.
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Listening to Ross Greenwood’s program this evening. Big Business wailing away on the “uncertainty” of life without some sort of carbon tax.
Grrrrrr…….!
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Moderator,
Quite likely that I’ve missed a notice on posts with links. Just posted two which have not appeared. Please delete the first one.
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Who would have guessed Ralph Bunche was a Junker ?
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There would be CERTAINTY WITHOUT a CO2(oops sorry!) CARBON TAX …
Surely Big Business understands certainty works either way!
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[…] $2 Trillion market to trade carbon, who would have found millions to install 70 foot Carbon-Clocks, 50 page science reports and to donate and push into “green” education campaigns? Funny money makes for funny decisions. […]
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