Follow the ..... Carbon?

PHOTO: Tim McGraw with his head stuck in a tree

Retrieved by Pat Darnell [SOURCE]
Hey that lump of coal in your Christmas Stocking could be worth a fortune to you.

A "carbon market" is built on the idea that,if greenhouse gas emissions are capped by law, then the legal right to emit these gasses becomes a commodity that can be traded. But without legislation, there can be no market, as IDEAcarbon (pdf) acknowledges:

The global carbon market is moving into a critical new phase of development. If it is to succeed over the long term, both in its role in reducing carbon emissions and as a financial market in its own right, legislators need to provide certainty of a regulatory framework that will be robust, flexible, and valid over the long term.

The company’s website is surprisingly candid about the influence it exerts over the UK Government:

Working with the key decision makers who are shaping the future of the market enables us to accurately predict market trends and provide tailored strategic advice to clients.

In other words, the interests of investors and national policy makers must be aligned. And it would be most fortunate if they were one and the same.

There's gold in green: profiting from climate change
The double standards of our eco accountants, By Ben Pile
Posted in Environment, 3rd December 2008 14:30 GMT

There's gold in that there green [SOURCE]
Prominent environmental campaigner, and author of Kyoto 2, how to manage the Global Greenhouse, Oliver Tickell protests of carbon trading schemes that, "Carbon fortunes are indeed being made, and many of them in the City of London, which dominates the global carbon marketplace". Instead, he favours carbon offsetting – paying poor people not to develop their economies – rather than trading.

But Oliver’s eyes are greener than his mind; he too stands to profit from his environmental activism. His father, former diplomat and patron of the neo-Malthusian Optimum Population Trust, Sir Crispin Tickell, who made the first arguments influential for the greening of the UK Government in the 1970s with his book, Climatic Change and World Affairs, was appointed chair of a committee to check the integrity of carbon-offsetting firm, Climate Care, part of JPMorgan's Environmental Markets group.

What is worse? Rumor or Reality? UPDATE

The Grass is much Greener.....
Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, warned other countries against moves that would "cost them heavily." In comments that appeared in the semi-official Mehr news agency Sunday, an Iranian general said his troops were digging more than 320,000 graves to bury troops from any invading force with "the respect they deserve."

"Under the law of war and armed conflict, necessary preparations must be made for the burial of soldiers of aggressor nations," said Maj. Gen. Mirfaisal Baqerzadeh, an Iranian officer in charge of identifying soldiers missing in action.

[Reference: retrieved from here -- July 29, 2008; PM for critical review only -- http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/29/us.iran/index.html?eref=rss_topstories]

White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.

Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.

"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.

The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran.

Report: U.S. 'preparing the battlefield' in Iran UPDATE --

War With Iran?
David A. Andelman, 04.03.08, 1:50 PM ET
"Iran could produce a nuclear weapon within the years 2008 to 2010, if that is its objective. It remains for us to determine whether that is the case. It's here that we must ask ourselves what are the motivations and the intentions of Iran," Heisbourg says.

The key motive, he argues, is "respect." Iran isn't unique here. France, India and China all went nuclear for similar reasons. The "ummah," Iran's religious powers who follow their own Shiite agenda, dream of an "Islamic Bomb," that will restore Iran's leadership role in the Muslim world.Still, there were various points along the road to the brink of membership in the nuclear club when a different path might have been taken, Heisbourg seems to suggest--but none more significant than the moment with President Bush welcomed Iran into his own, quite exclusive club--the "Axis of Evil." Suddenly, on Jan. 29, 2002, the leadership in Teheran saw itself directly in the cross-hairs of the American military machine. [Reference: retrieved from here -- July 30, 2008; PM for critical review only -- HERE]

The UN is weak But we are Strong!