The making of a perfect scam …

Imagine a cause which benefits a multiplicity of constituencies: the government and its politicians, bureaucrats and their preferred special interests, the financiers on Wall Street and the evildoers who want to maximize their profit margins at the expense of their customers.

Imagine a cause that will be accepted and promoted by some people with an almost religious fervor, where the articles of faith may not be questioned in an penetrating matter without incurring derision and condemnation – and where any results of proposed programs may not be even measurable for hundreds or thousands of years. The making of a perfect scam?

Imagine a media, thought to be fair, honest, balanced and critical of government and private industries – either openly promoting the cause or, at the very least, not reporting the overwhelming negatives associated with the cause.

The perfect storm for a global scam which is rooted in corruption, complacency and special interest politics.

There is money to be made …

Newswise is reporting …

“Is Credit Stacking All It's Cracked Up to Be?”

“If you restore a stream, can you sell the individual environmental functions you restored separately? Carbon to one buyer, water quality to another, habitat to a third?”

What if that stream does not really enhance or detract from the effectiveness of the surrounding ecosystem and does not need to be restored? Is is likely that the political benefits and the commercial profit-motive will result in the ecosystem being disturbed and the stream “artificially” renovated for benefits that have little or nothing to do with nature? Will there be increasing competition to renovating streams? With the rules and regulations growing more complex and extreme in order to extend the political and commercial benefits of such renovation? Will certain companies specialize in stream renovation and attempt to influence increasingly powerful hyper-political bureaucrats with their lobbying activities – thus spreading additional corruption in government corridors?

What are the consequences of stream renovation? 

“While the controversial practice of  ‘stacking’ wetland, carbon and stream credits seems to benefit the public images of politicians as well as the pockets of the environmental credit community, there is very little hard data on its ecological or economic consequences.”

Like preserving the Sacramento Delta Smelt, certain indigenous rodents, butterflies and condors, other than the political and “feel good” consequences of such actions, it appears that these are “make work” and funding initiatives for organizations and institutions who are capitalizing on their subject-matter expertise to earn big bucks – all paid out of the taxpayer’s pocket. With little or no benefit to the ecosystem which is being artificially manipulated or mankind itself.

Another study?

“University of Kentucky geography professor Morgan Robertson, University of North Carolina's Martin Doyle and Indiana University's Rebecca Lave will be answering some tough questions about the $700 million-a-year industry.”

$700 million industry in creating, trading and using pollution credits to help the gross polluters continue polluting to wring additional profit out of their stinky plants without requiring expensive mitigation efforts. Money to the bottom line where it can be used to compute enhanced bonuses for executives who have done little or nothing to earn such merit awards. All costs being borne by the taxpayer or the ratepayer.

Are these the right people to do the study and are they free of institutional and political bias? 

“The National Science Foundation accepted the trio’s proposal, "The Emerging Commodity of Restored Streams: Science, Policy, and Economics in New Markets for Ecosystem Service Commodities" Feb. 4 and awarded the team $600,000 for further research.
"I’m extremely pleased that Drs. Doyle, Lave and I have been chosen to receive this grant," said Robertson. ‘We proposed something considerably more interdisciplinary than is usual, even for geography.’”  

“Doyle is a stream geomorphologist, Lave studies the practices of scientists and has a background in stream restoration and Robertson studies market-based environmental politics and wetland botany.”

A $600,000 project to see who will profit from green credits? 

“The research team will attempt to define the ecological, economic and political groups that truly profit from green credits. ‘A private industry has sprung up composed of people who restore streams in advance and then sell 'credits' to people who need to compensate for stream impacts,’ he explained.”

“In addition to questions surrounding the benefits of single environmental credit transfers, many environmental "bankers" offer multiple credits from a solitary restoration project. Robertson will determine if these businesses are double dipping.”

What a joke … 

"’This research is a vital part of the work that will ensure that such markets actually achieve environmental goals (such as reducing carbon), as opposed to simply generating profit for investors,’ Robertson explained.”

These pointy-head professors have no clue to the lengths at which marketers will game the system to exploit whatever advantage which will allow them to maximize the money stolen from the taxpayer’s wallets … and to the sheer gall exhibited when they loudly proclaim they are “restoring the planet” for mankind.

“The NSF grant will be jointly funded by the Geography and Spatial Sciences Program, the Geomorphology and Land-Use Dynamics Program, the Geosciences Program and the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Programs.”

It was a real challenge to write a grant that liberals would fund …

"’It was a real challenge to frame the research in a way that makes it through the various sieves that any competitive granting process imposes on ambitious work,’ Robertson said. "’These types of questions require the confluence of ecology, geomorphology and political study…and such intersections are where geography flourishes.’"

These types of questions require the confluence of chutzpah, bullshit and the idiocy of those who spend the taxpayer’s hard-earned money on nonsensical research which does not do anything other than to provide sustenance for institutions and researchers. The public and the taxpayer be damned.

Why the environmental movement is allowed to incentivize pollution control rather than simply identifying and punishing the polluters is beyond any rational reason. Why we need a $600,000 study of market dynamics is also foolish.

But then again, there goes the far-left environmentalists trying to use scientific studies (if that is what this could be called) to prove their points. The sad truth is that the pollution credit market is ripe for master manipulators and Wall Street Wizards – people who plan to create derivatives out of pollution credits much in the same manner that they created derivatives out of subprime mortgages. However, in this case, these people are literally selling smoke and mirrors.

We will follow this study and see exactly what the taxpayer received for their $600,000. However, before even reading the research, I am positive that the conclusion will include the need for further study and a request for additional funding.

-- steve

Reference links …

Is Credit Stacking All It's Cracked Up to Be?