Tweet
Re: Michael Moore has UPSET the Left
I'll give you 50% on that (which is not enough for a passing grade). The accusation of racism is completely absurd. About as credible as the accusation Bernie Sanders is a sexist.
Turning to the part you got correct, the "movers and shakers' in the environmental movement have certainly shifted towards the moneyed elite (even Michael Moore is worth some serious coin).
The original objections of the nascent environmental movement were characterized by the Greenpeace-type issues of anti-nuclear testing (Amchitka and Mururoa Atoll), anti-whaling, ocean dumping of nuclear waste, chemical soil and water contamination, industrial air pollution and so forth. Difficult to attract much funding, other than charity contributions from broad-based committed supporters, over these issues. I grew up in Vancouver, Canada and used to read Robert Hunter's column about environmentalism in the Vancouver Sun newspaper circa 1969-70, before he went on to become a co-founder of Greenpeace in my home city.
The elite money interests from Wall Street, the City of London and the Davos crowd only got involved once all that was superseded as the movement was captured by the secular global religion of climate change (the Reverend Al Gore presiding). That's what has created the all important "scalability" for the financial interests - the ability to invest hundreds*of*millions*of*Dollars*at*a*time. "Saving our Whales" is not nearly as lucrative as "Saving our Planet".
This is a view I have expressed before on this forum, and formed from my interactions with private equity "energy" fund managers, who almost universally eschew any investment in conventional energy projects or assets and focus exclusively on "renewable" - solar, wind and biogas (I don't happen to know any that are funding biomass). They love the regulated returns, the government mandated "green" content requirements imposed on utilities, the European Development Fund and World Bank credit guarantees for such projects in developing nations, the creditworthiness of long term (often 20 years!) offtake contracts with regulated utilities, and so forth. It's unbelievable what a scam this is, and who is really making the money at the expense of ratepayers and governments all over the world.
And what is the one thing they can do to make it even more lucrative? Lobby for the boycott of investments in capital intensive "dirty" energy. Where's that money going to go instead? Yep, right where they can rake off 2 & 20 building more "green". The film didn't delve into it in enough detail in my view, but they got the basics correct.
This is complete nonsense.
The world has more easily accessible oil now than it did in 2008. A LOT more. That's part of the reason the price is no longer $160. The other, equally important part of that is the US$.
Oil prices are deeply cyclical. There's a multi-decade history of its secular cyclicality going back to Nixon's removing the gold backing of the US$ in 1971.
And therein lies the other part of the reason - the relative exchange rate of the "unanchored" US$, which is how oil is priced. The $ exchange fluctuations aren't the only reason oil is cyclical, but it is coincident with most of the extremes and the extreme first derivative rate-of-change events in crude prices.
Have a look at the US$ index chart attached. Note the US$ exchange rate in April 2008, just before nominal oil prices peaked, hit 84, the same bottom it had fallen to only twice before in the previous 3+ decades since Nixon closed the "gold window". Look where the exchange rate is, in contrast, today.
I believe it is former Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani that is attributed with the quip "The stone age came to an end not for lack of stones, and the oil age will end, but not for lack of oil".
In the fullness of time, and with the benefit of hindsight, he will be proved correct. We aren't going to run out of oil. What we are going through today might the precursor to the end of the oil age...we eventually just run out of demand.
Originally posted by globaleconomicollaps
View Post
Turning to the part you got correct, the "movers and shakers' in the environmental movement have certainly shifted towards the moneyed elite (even Michael Moore is worth some serious coin).
The original objections of the nascent environmental movement were characterized by the Greenpeace-type issues of anti-nuclear testing (Amchitka and Mururoa Atoll), anti-whaling, ocean dumping of nuclear waste, chemical soil and water contamination, industrial air pollution and so forth. Difficult to attract much funding, other than charity contributions from broad-based committed supporters, over these issues. I grew up in Vancouver, Canada and used to read Robert Hunter's column about environmentalism in the Vancouver Sun newspaper circa 1969-70, before he went on to become a co-founder of Greenpeace in my home city.
The elite money interests from Wall Street, the City of London and the Davos crowd only got involved once all that was superseded as the movement was captured by the secular global religion of climate change (the Reverend Al Gore presiding). That's what has created the all important "scalability" for the financial interests - the ability to invest hundreds*of*millions*of*Dollars*at*a*time. "Saving our Whales" is not nearly as lucrative as "Saving our Planet".
This is a view I have expressed before on this forum, and formed from my interactions with private equity "energy" fund managers, who almost universally eschew any investment in conventional energy projects or assets and focus exclusively on "renewable" - solar, wind and biogas (I don't happen to know any that are funding biomass). They love the regulated returns, the government mandated "green" content requirements imposed on utilities, the European Development Fund and World Bank credit guarantees for such projects in developing nations, the creditworthiness of long term (often 20 years!) offtake contracts with regulated utilities, and so forth. It's unbelievable what a scam this is, and who is really making the money at the expense of ratepayers and governments all over the world.
And what is the one thing they can do to make it even more lucrative? Lobby for the boycott of investments in capital intensive "dirty" energy. Where's that money going to go instead? Yep, right where they can rake off 2 & 20 building more "green". The film didn't delve into it in enough detail in my view, but they got the basics correct.
Originally posted by globaleconomicollaps
View Post
The world has more easily accessible oil now than it did in 2008. A LOT more. That's part of the reason the price is no longer $160. The other, equally important part of that is the US$.
Oil prices are deeply cyclical. There's a multi-decade history of its secular cyclicality going back to Nixon's removing the gold backing of the US$ in 1971.
And therein lies the other part of the reason - the relative exchange rate of the "unanchored" US$, which is how oil is priced. The $ exchange fluctuations aren't the only reason oil is cyclical, but it is coincident with most of the extremes and the extreme first derivative rate-of-change events in crude prices.
Have a look at the US$ index chart attached. Note the US$ exchange rate in April 2008, just before nominal oil prices peaked, hit 84, the same bottom it had fallen to only twice before in the previous 3+ decades since Nixon closed the "gold window". Look where the exchange rate is, in contrast, today.
I believe it is former Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani that is attributed with the quip "The stone age came to an end not for lack of stones, and the oil age will end, but not for lack of oil".
In the fullness of time, and with the benefit of hindsight, he will be proved correct. We aren't going to run out of oil. What we are going through today might the precursor to the end of the oil age...we eventually just run out of demand.
Comment