Hedge Fund Manager Earns Millions on Carbon, Spends it Financing Global Warming Initiative Campaign
by Stephen KruiserThe state that is home to Hollywood often leads the nation when it comes to creating illusion. Sometimes, the illusion becomes a law like AB32, the so-called “Global Warming Solutions Act”. Two Democratic presidents and one Republican agreed in deciding that the Kyoto Protocol was a fundamentally flawed idea and refrained from having the United States commit to it.
California, however, is governed by legislators who are clueless about the fact that the state is teetering on the edge of a cliff and are more than willing to pass laws that will help push it over. AB32 is a Kyoto-esque bill that seeks to reduce the state’s carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. It was sold to the citizens with the dubious “stimulate green jobs” sales pitch that, so far, has proven to be more of a dream than a reality.
The law purports to create an economic green tech boom in California through the research and development of solar and wind power (the latter of which is becoming increasingly problematic).
California now faces unemployment levels second only to Michigan and a perpetual budget crisis that is only made worse by laws that kill jobs and financially prop up industries that are unable to compete in the marketplace on their own merits. Prop 23 is a ballot initiative that would suspend AB32 until the unemployment level in the state hits 5.5% (or lower) for four consecutive quarters.
As this is such a hot-button issue for those on both sides, the money is flying all over the place to fight it. The largest financial contributor to the “No On 23″ effort is is hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, who heads up Farallon Capital in San Francisco. Steyer is bankrolling a counter campaign that paints Prop 23 as a public health hazard. A quick look at the companies Farallon invests in would indicate that his deep concern for the havoc being wrought on the public health by carbon fuels doesn’t extend much beyond the California border, however.
Farallon owns almost ten percent of a company called FreightCar America, a company that boldly proclaims on its website that, “No one builds more aluminum, steel, and stainless steel coal cars than FreightCar America.” That’s a significant investment in a company that’s solely in the business of transporting environmentalists’ least favorite fuel.
Farallon also invests in the second largest coal company in Indonesia, Adaro. Check out the picture Adaro has on the linked page. Getting that “committed green evangelist” vibe about Steyer yet?
Coal isn’t the only thoroughly non-green fuel Steyer is directing investors’ money towards. His fund also has stakes in two oil and natural gas exploration companies: Sandridge Energy and Energy Partners, Ltd
It is often pointed out by climate change skeptics that the deeds of the most prominent voices preaching climate doom rarely match their apocalyptic caterwauling. How many times a year does Al Gore circumnavigate the globe in a gasoline fueled jet to condescendingly tell the masses that their use of gasoline is killing the planet?
And how worried can Tom Steyer be about the ill effects of carbon fuels if he’s helping to fund the development and delivery of them?
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76 Comments
and here is why the environmental sustainability movement through global warming legislation is completely and utterly disingenuous. It's all about power and money. It's about enriching the "ruling" class and screw the little guy.
Wonderful and informative article.
Doesn't it just make you love a capitalist system?
In the interim, whilst everyone is in the process of being re-educated, be sure to "do as they say, and not as they do".
Even economics boils down to one thing: Honor.
California is bankrupt for a reason.
Of course Clalifornia seeks to bankrupt the rest of the US, they do not wish to look different.
What? You are going to say that you are somehow surprised that environmentalist liberals are just as corrupt and hypocritical as mainstream liberal-progressives?
All you need to know is that when it comes to getting to the bottom of something, the bottom will always be lined with the failed ideas, plans and programs of liberals who never consider what the reality of life will require of them. They have lived their lives trying to avoid the consequences of their actions and decisions by thrusting them upon the rest of us to deal with. On November 2nd we can let them know that the era of taxpayer subsidized liberalism is over and will never happen again.
Power and money…yep, vote "green" and make Al Gore and Tom Steyer rich while you go without a job!
We can thank Schwarzenegger the fraud for AB32. I wonder whats in it for him $$? I hope he has a miserable life once he leaves office. He is a fraud, a joke and an embarrassment!
Look a little futher and see how much he has invested in the Chicgo Climate Exchange. Check and see if he would profit off of a cap and trade bill. This is a guy that hedges his bets right?
Its all about wealth redistribution, just give us your money, and we can save the world! Funny how it doesn't apply to people like Gore and Schwarzenegger. Its fine for them to fly their private jets everyday and live in their mansions which use more power in a month than most people use in a year.
well, there's nothing wrong (or unusual) about a lib being a hypocrite.
Karl Marx himself could not have come up with a better scheme, I think these ecoterrorist would have made him blush with envy.
Here is a good article today in the Daily Caller, so many companies involved in the profit making potential of these regulations … http://dailycaller.com/2010/09/02/the-untold-stor...
The idiots of California keep voting for bond after bond and referendum after referendum, all of which they cannot afford. Then they have the gall to expect the rest of the country to pay for their "credit card debt". Not only should we not help them out, but I think that anyone that voted for this sh*t should be banned from leaving CA – they voted for it – they need to stick around and pay for it.
CL,
A little clarification:
This ass is not engaged in "capitalism", he is engaged in fraud and corruption by using the levers of governmental power to create an unearned advantage for himself. I realize you are a bit beyond a simple Rand quote, but this one captures the disease our economy suffers from pretty well:
"In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions and interests dictate."
He is engaged in political and economic fraud, not capitalism…
I thought I read some where that the Founding Fathers envisioned that each state would be able to try out ideas as they saw fit and that other states could watch the outcome with out being effected. The govt has eliminated this individuality and tied each state to the others so that when one fails the others are being drugged along with them.
I guess this is what it means to be part of the collective.
How many times a year does Al Gore circumnavigate the globe in a "gasoline" fueled jet to condescendingly tell the masses that their use of gasoline is killing the planet?
Jet fuel.!!!!
One of his trips to evangelize is as much CO2 as 20,000 old ladies use going to church and home on sunday morning.
Dammit people, with Owlgore’s divorce too Tipper, she wants her own G-5, these damn things are expensive. So lets xnay with the climate change con talk, could we…sheesh!
Yes.
Thanks my friend. I appreciate your comments. I need good people like you to keep me in check. I did make the original comment tounge in cheek; but I should have written it better, for clarity.
As far as Rand quotes, give them to me all day long. I cannot get enough. I have been a student of Rand for thirty plus years. I am amazed at the things I have seen, and seen change. it is almost as if she wrote a script, a playbook. It is alarming, at best.
Off topic, but a question:
Has anyone here been to Beck's website, theblaze.com?
I tried signing up several times the past several days, but can't post. I requested several times to get my password reset, and it doesn't wok. I thought they might be having technical difficulties. It doesn't take me much, to lose interest.
Anyone else having this problem?
I sure hope I'm not persona non gratis.
Enter…….the scam to justify the scam…….Carbon Credits!
if you REALLY want to see criminal activity disguised as 'green economy' checkout the Chicago Climate Exchange…
THAT's Barry's baby. Along with Valerie Jarrett, and that commie none of them knew, Van Jones. Oh, Maurice Strong,too. Interesting timeline- became a fully functioning corporation six months before The One's inauguration.
An insider said it will be a '$10 billion a month' concern soon…
Hey I bet a bunch of people don't know you can convert coal to liquid gasoline and diesel? Yep, been around since the 1920s, coal refining. First coal is converted to a gas, then refined the rest of the way into what you want. Did you know this is how they make some of the synthetic oil? Refine it from methane?
So what about the coal to gasoline, what's it cost? According the the 2009 Texas University study and pilot production done for Canada, less than $30 a barrel oil equivalent.
Search Fischer-Tropsch … China is already been constructing new coal refineries and even the Crow Indians of Montana are trying to get a plant built … But the EPA is trying to stop them. Hah, I bet $30 a barrel equivalent would stop the Obama war on oil wouldn't it.
Did you know the USA has about 30% of all the coal reserves worldwide?
I wonder why the media doesn't want to report on this … or why you don't know about it.
Carbon credit scam, it's for the Al Gore hucksters.
Yes.
I am aware of it.
If you really want to follow it out, check out David Luscian and Switchback Ranches.
He unfortunately is one of Montana's favorite sons. SOB as far as I'm concerned. He ran the Energy Desk at Goldman Sachs. He is a partner with David Blood, who ran Goldman Sachs, who is also Al Gores joint venture partner in Gore's Green scam.
Originally, they were going to call the firm "Blood and Gore"/
Appropriate, eh?
I finally got a password on the third try, it was a long combination of letters and numbers. Wanted to change password to something I could remember, but failed. They are definitely having some issues.
Amen to that.
Wait !! Let's first see what Eco-Chicken James Cameron has to say about this !!
James: BAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKK BAAAK BAAAK — BAAAAAK
A friend once told me that we could take all the wealth in this country, evenly distribute it among the entire population and within a year we would be right back where we are today. He was right because some would take their money and invest it wisely in order to make it grow and some would just spend it o things from strippers to Heineken , you know, the "let them touch these things" dogma.
Proof positive of this – the debit cards FEMA handed out to Katrina victims……..
Do I want more money than I have? ABSO -SMURFLY!!!!! Do I want more money taken from others to facilitate it? Heck no. The " He has more than me, so take some away from him and give it to me" notion is something I learned to be THEFT. That covetous and jealous attitude is the very thing destroying this country it is the REAL greed killing individual Liberty. Folks like this article describes, those who foment that mentality, while living it up the way they do, well, they are even worse. Not only do they advocate such stealing, but they are straight up liars to boot.
Thanks!
I thought I was banned from another one………..
I wondered when someone would bring up that group again. It is also rumored that Gore had a steak in the company but sold his share for something like 10 million.
http://www.examiner.com/orange-county-conservativ...
http://warofillusions.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/ob...
Thanks again for the update.
I learn alot from you two "young" men….thanks.
You do bring up a good point there. Coal to gas conversion along with drilling inland and in shallow waters, should give us gas anywhere from $20-$40 a barrel given the room for variables. That would finally set us up to become truely energy independent again.
A question, WHY THE HELL NO ONE IS BACKING UP THIS BASIC STRATEGY?
From Fox news
"Mile-long oil sheen spreading from site of new rig explosion in Gulf of Mexico"
Just in time so No Bama can get his way with the drilling ban……
Can anyone say higher fuel prices….maybe cap n trade….
I like to put it this way-
Do-gooders often live in the world of "what if" and the most times ignore the world as it is. They refuse to deal with the world as it is and as such never seem to be able to justify how to get from here to there.
Yes we can make good "progress" in November, but just electing people with (R)'s behind their names isn't the answer. Ahem. That would lead to Cap and Trade supporting Mark Kirk being elected in Illinois. The best message to send this fall is this. if you have been there already – you are going out the door now. Yes, this would mean some good folks would lose, but sometimes ya gotta spend capital to make more of it.
The real bad part that is missing is the extremely widespread indoctrination of society that has already taken place, all over the world. The reason I promote CHP is CHP is the path to stop all of this madness. It lowers cost of power and GHG, they all hate it.
You are, I told them all about your posts…..
I am thinking more along the lines of;
When are people going to ask "why are rigs exploding in the first place"???????????????????
Most are too dumb or do not care…..but do not preempt their favorite TV show.
I can't see anything to disagree with in that statement.
yes, I'm having the same problem…..still had it this morning…..think I'll write to gb and ask him to fix it…..
Great article with the exception of one point: California is behind Michigan and Nevada in unemployment.
Nevada has the distintction of ranking first in unemployment and home foreclosures thanks to Nevada Senator Harry Reid doing sooooooooo much to help other states (Cornhusker kickback, Louisiana Purchase, etc.) while screwing his own state. Out of every dollar that gets paid by Nevadans in federal taxes only 65 cents comes back to Nevada thanks to 65% Harry. He didn't even have the cojones to berate Barrack for bashing Las Vegas.
Yper. That's that's the new plan. They don't have to be fiscally responsible because they can just pass the bills on to the federal taxpayer to pay. This is the "new normal" for fiscal financing as we get to pick up the tab for New York, California, Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida and Nevada. It pisses me off that I am starving to death so that I can keep these people in tall cotton. I live in Texas and we have to pay our bills and it isn't fair!
This was an accomplishment of Nazi Germany as a result of oil shortages in World War II. The technology has been around forever, but since it had a $30 BPOE price tag, for many decades it wasn't practical. Now it looks doggone practical, but nobody will back it because the Saudis will flood the market with crude to kill these businesses and protect long-term market share.
This global warming fraud better not be getting to the point of no return, with entrenched special interests to push it forward forever.
I fear there are so many special interests, including academia, that are making money off of this thing that they will fight and spend money like this to make it stay.
About a month ago I was flown to Ca. to the area we lived for 15 years San Luis Obispo. An old friend offered me a job that would have almost doubled my salary. I was very excited. After being there a few days and talking to old friends who all said they can't wait to move out of there when they can I decided to stay put in Fl. Half the weapons I own are also illegal in that state. I have had second thoughts since then. But every time I read another story like this I know I made the right decision.
Sometimes, my mouth, or in this case, my keyboard precedes me……….
I was just doing the same. Still don't have a password yet. perhaps the overwhelming response to a new sight crashed the system?
And yet the nutjob liberal media in this state would have the citizens think we need both dirty harry and his boy rory to lead our state. we need all the help we can here. It was bad enough when we had to put up with the offspring of jimmahh cahhtah in the last election. At least then there were smart people that still understood "carpetbagger".
Yep, me too – it's been a few days and still no password.
He married into the Kennedy clan – how much of a conservative can you expect. RHINO
Things that make you go 'hummm?' –
Such convenient timing, I for one am NOT that freakin niave!
Thankfully none of the 13 men were injured -
I don't think that sissy old man has any cojones – ugh
You should check the math of the $40. I spent 10 years in Colorado during the boom of oil shale. The number being used then was $60-80 per barrel, sustainable over a long term… I would assume that technology has changed some, but inflation should have raised the number as well…
The problem was mentioned this morning on the feed.
That's why it's not about global warming, but wealth distribution and power of a few elites to control the world.
Thanks Gary.
Rather than talking about the problem, why don't they simply fix it?
Yep the Germans ran their whole war machine on Fischer-Tropsch conversion technology.
It's that old saying…"As California goes, so goes the nation." God help us!!!!
This is not oil shale, it's coal — The University of Texas did the study for Canada, including building a pilot plant. Their study paper cited less than $30 a barrel oil equivalent costs. They published the results, I just can't find the copy online right now. It's not my number, it's UTs.
Oil is now what $75 a barrel, so does it really matter?
It's worth noting the study would not say exactly how the conversion coal to liquid was done. Plenty of secret stuff going on.
But hey, anything that produces at less than $75 a barrel oil equivalent, shouldn't we be pursuing that????? What are we, stupid or what????
That's another reason why November is so important. And why we need to get rid of people like John McCain and these people who have spent their life in DC. They only care about their own power and self interests. They are really know different than the Discovery Channel Bomber, they view the rest of us with disdain as parasites.
And we have more coal than they will ever have in oil…
Yeah, I couldn't get on either. Not sure what is up with that.
It is an off site web site….so I imagine the company that runs it has been told.
I'm sure he will be glad to debate you. He'll even let you name the terms this time…
Germany has lots of coal, and lots of stupid leaders. They have almost no oil.
Imagine that, more rich guys with a vested interest in a particular policy pushing an agenda. Wasn't it Pickens who made a big bet on natural gas then wanted the government (meaning you and me) pay for making it easier for cars to run on nat gas. I am always thrilled when billionaires want to get at the tax money of ordinary americans.
Thankfully these elites are being exposed for what they are – hucksters. They smell out the money and they go after it regardless of their public positions on the issues. They and their political partners know how to lie, manipulate and guilt a very gullible public into supporting their acquisition of wealth. We willingly follow these pied pipers to our detriment both financial and cultural. However, it's one thing for us to willingly spend our money in support of these hucksters it's another to vote in politicians who, by force of law, seize our assets against out will.
And for some reason, that is exactly what happened when Obama was elected. We have a government that is closely modeled after the Hugo Chavez dictatorship in Venezuela right here in the U.S. and it is a shameful situation that many blindly led us into it (the MSM) and the adoring throngs that voted for the abominable one in the Oval Office.
Shocker, Govt holding peopoe hostage for Taxes.
But coal is green now, didn't ya hear? This is sort of like Al Gore being a closeted oil man, they want to make money poluting the world and help finance laws that punish the rest of for it…typical crooks.
Good, that means I can still leave…I've voted against bonds in CA since I was 18 years old..I'm sure I was in a very small minority of voters.
Yes, honor amoungst theives…
Just finished reading the Fountainhead last week (first time), it was written in 1943.
Just amazing insight that lady had. Give it two thumbs up!
I think 2012 will be time to let some of us Texans give the the boot to the Cali libs.
The problem is not today's price but the price over time:
http://www.mongabay.com/images/commodities/charts...
Need to run that price average above $60 for 10 years… that will take the volatility out of the forward curve and allow investment capital to dive in. Until then it’s just a roller coaster
Is capitalism the problem though? Or is it the gullible fools in search for a reason and a God (anything but that ratty Christian God – by God!) that enable or the politicians who work at the capitalists' bidding to force their schemes on an unwilling population? Or a poltician who is deeply beholden to capitalists for his position who have to return the favor?
Do as they say not as they do? Politicians. What do you care what a business person does? But a guy making laws that will determine how you live your life and how much money you will be shelling out for his projects?
Don't get me started on honor. IS there honor among those thieves?
Def. an interesting article. And it IS disgusting.
like duuuuhhh dude, it's only the republican's oil & gas that can kill the planet. liberal's oil & gas does nothing but make rainbows & feed unicorns.
Well according to the study, it's all no more complicated than building a conventional refinery … China has about a half dozen being built right now. Since it's old technology, apparently there isn't much risk.
I sure would bet a bunch of these plants would stabilize the price though.
Simply put, the US is getting crushed by Germany and China in the manufacturing of renewable energy components. We are falling behind as a result of inconsistent policies.
Renewable are the most conservative investment for countries and corporations to pursue, because the fully loaded costs are typically lower than conventional energy and there is certainty in the price of the inputs far into the future. As we have seen over the last few years, the price of oil is highly volatile, therefor a riskier, less conservative energy input.
Los Angeles alone spend over 100 million a year in energy costs responding to UHI. It turns out it is all wasted energy responding to the symptoms of buildings interacting with solar radiation.
Buildings and their energy systems are designed as well as insulated for specific temperature. Here is a link to building when the weather station is reporting 89 deg. F and you can see parts of the building are 199 deg. F in the infrared spectrum. That is 110 deg F warmer than atmospheric temperature and super heating the atmosphere. We are responding to the symptoms with air conditioning which is really refrigeration and requires a big electrical load without stopping the heat. There will be more emissions with the energy waste. http://www.thermoguy.com/blog/index.php?itemid=42
Here is a link to a time lapsed infrared video showing how fast buildings are radiated in the morning. http://www.thermoguy.com/blog/index.php?itemid=41
Depending on where you live, here is a link to a 12 hour time lapsed infrared video showing what happens inside the building when the exterior is radiated and you will see how people are cooked by their buildings. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AEgopYYmtI
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