The 'Fatal Conceit' of Kyoto
Daffy Duck
http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/kyoto-green.htm
The 'Fatal Conceit' of Kyoto
By Ken Green
The Toronto Star, Apr. 25, 2004
A suppressed report by the federal government {Canada} evaluating the
effectiveness of spending $500 million since the year 2000 to reduce
emissions of greenhouse gases has shown - surprise! --- that the spending
was largely wasted, producing neither a reduction in gas emissions, nor the
development of new "cleaner" technologies.
An anonymous source that participated in the mid-term review is quoted in
the Star, saying, "We seriously underestimated the difficulty of getting
reductions and overestimated the payoff from new technologies."
How did the government manage to blow $500 million of taxpayer money?
It put it into "Action Plan 2000," which committed $210 million to promote
technologies that reduced greenhouse gas emissions in industry and
transportation; it gave $125 million to cities to encourage them to use the
non-existent new technologies. And another $100 million was spent on
promoting foreign demand for the non-existent new technologies.
The lack of value Canadians received for their half-a-billion dollars should
come as a surprise to ... well, nobody. Governments are notoriously bad at
"inspiring" development of new technologies and encouraging their adoption.
The idea that government can inspire the development of new, beneficial
technologies is an example of "industrial policy," a type of governmental
steering of industrial development thoroughly discredited outside the halls
of Ottawa. Industrial policy relies on what the Nobel Prize-winning
economist Frederick Hayek called "the fatal conceit," that somehow,
government planners have special knowledge that markets, investors, and
industry lack.
Examples from abroad are even more spectacular.
For decades, the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry
(MITI) was responsible for industrial policy in Japan's high-tech sector.
Analyses of MITI's performance showed a dismal failure to usher in new
technologies or to create new industrial sectors in electronics, aircraft,
aerospace, and biotechnology. Worse yet, MITI was shown to have slowed the
free-market development of these sectors when their activities were found to
be at odds with planners' desires. In 1953, for instance, MITI tried to
block Sony from getting into the transistor business. Fortunately, for those
of us who watch television, Sony managed to get MITI to back off.
A third example of the fatal conceit comes from California, a state with
environmental policies that many Canadian activists want to emulate.
In 1991, the California Air Resources Board passed a "zero-emission vehicle"
mandate calling for 10 per cent of vehicle sales to be "zero-emission"
(battery electric) by 2003. At the time, agency planners assured everyone
that their initiative would "force" the creation of new technologies, and
millions of dollars poured into battery research and subsidies for the few
people willing to buy overpriced and underperforming battery-electric cars.
Carmakers, forced to plow more than $1 billion into attempts to please the
planners, failed to develop a market-ready battery electric car.
As money flows into Kyoto-implementation programs, auditors are finally
getting the information they need to show its futility. And it's not just in
Canada.
European Union members are having trouble coming up with emission reduction
plans in the face of escalating cost estimates, and EU Energy and Transport
Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has implied that the EU may have to
reconsider its implementation of the protocol altogether.
Meanwhile, countries around the world are pointing out that Kyoto emission
targets are simply unattainable. Norway's greenhouse gas emissions are far
above their targets. Spain and Germany have expressed reservations about
being able to meet their Kyoto targets without economic dislocation. And
despite numerous attempts to bribe Russia into signing the Kyoto Protocol,
Russia has called both the science and economics of Kyoto into question.
The $500 million that the government has already wasted is only a taste of
things to come unless Prime Minister Paul Martin walks away from Kyoto.
Canada has already spent or allocated $3.7 billion on climate change
boondoggles of various sorts, and is planning to throw another $1 billion
from the sale of Petrocan into the same pit of bad policy.
This is an industrial policy that Canada can do without.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Kenneth Green directs the Centre for Studies in Risk, Regulation, and
Environment at the Fraser Institute. He is the author of Global Warming:
Understanding The Debate, a high-school textbook recommended by the U.S.
National Science Teachers Association
Michael Tobis
frequently is. It's easy to cherry pick evidence to support an
absolutist case.
In my opinion, for example, the Enron story does *not* prove that
private energy companies are wasteful and destructive so that the
entire energy sector should be socialized. It's not hard to find
people who argue otherwise, though.
How absurd that this drivel is propagated on the web and usenet via
the internet, all of which technologies were entirely developed in the
public sector. Where was the "knowledge of the markets, investors and
industry" in the early 90's when the open standards of the net
emerged?
Of course, once it emerged that the net *would* be important, then the
vast knowledge of industry and the marketplace blew granny's pension
on dogfood.com, but that's a story for another time and place.
mt
"Daffy Duck" <du...@disney.com> wrote in message news:<oAW7d.2168$Cb5....@newscontent-01.sprint.ca>...
> From:
> http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/kyoto-green.htm
...
Mike Portwood
their heads. The clear bias/intent present in such 'net groups aside,
any side of an argument can be justified by finding the required
"experts" that follow one view or another. Its never hard to find the
quantity of supporters from the population of experts necessary to
"prove" one's pet idea/belief. Then it comes down to the number of
usenet posters who support one idea over another; whichever side has the
most posters then becomes the "dominant" idea and thus seem to "win" all
the arguments, usually by being the most insultive or demeaning to the
opposition. All this shows in a place such as this, is that "experts"
for each side are easy to find, making the only valid conclusion
possible: "we don't know enough and can prove nothing as of yet".
charliew2
hanson
news:10m420e...@corp.supernews.com...
> Attention HANSON! Are you reading this thread?
> Do you care to comment?
>
Why do you think that I continue with trying to wake up the
folks and specially all the well meaning little green idiots who
fuck themselves by believing that they do something for the
"environment" when in reality they simple act as unpaid
enablers and facilitators for
= The green movement 'twas always & only a sick machination=
= & a cover to get $$$ grants, permit charges & user fees to =
= feed green shits, be they politicians, consultants, activists or=
= regulators. Environmentalism is just a despicable evil green=
= $$$$$$ game without any redeeming value, nor any intent =
= to save anything. This 40 year old scam is now threatened =
= which is why all those leeching green turds are whining =
...and now the green turds push for graft from the CARBON TAX
even after the experience of the DECADE long CALIFORNIA EMISSION
TRADING Program, where from 1991 to 2002, under the disastrous
and failed leadership of air-quality boss, Mr. Flatu Lenz, California
had tried such a Kydioto-type carbon trading scheme that was so
horribly fucked up that they stopped the debacle after 10 years
during which, it now turns out that, $$$$$ corruption was so rampant
that justice is beginning to catch up with this green shit:
Re: Smog Credit Trader is Held in Fraud Case
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/?track=mainnav-environment
or http://www.ocefoundation.org/LATimes061704.pdf
or http://www.faultline.org/archives/2004_06.html
or http://reason.com/hitandrun/005705.shtml .....wherein ....:
......... the LA Times reported on Friday, June 18, 2004
Subjects: Smog, Fraud, Incentives, Arrests, Emissions trading
Locations: Los Angeles California --- People: Sholtz, Anne
Companies: South Coast Air Quality Management District-Los Angeles
"that $13 million passed through [Anne Sholtz]'s personal bank account at
Wells Fargo alone during 2002. .... Amongst the schemes she concocted
was the selling of the same pollution credits to different companies"
There, there, all you well meaning enviro activists, green turds,
enablers, facilitators and promoters of Carbon trading scams, IPCC
and Kydioto protocols: THAT IS WHAT CAN LOOK FORWARD TO!
Some sharp green turds will make $$Billions and you little green
idiots WILL PAY & PAY.......and the GW WILL CONTINUE! Unabated!
$$$$$$ == ONLY GREEN DOLLARS WILL BE TRADED == $$$$$$$
Either you fools are suspect of abetting such enviro crooks or you
are extraordinarily naive, stupid and brainless green assholes.........
But now, the Carbon Trading story gets even better......ahahaha..:
The Russians apparently just have ratifyed the Kydioto scam:
Smart move on their part.....and now all you little green ididots
can sing in/with great cheer:
----------- "...it's green, green, green
----------- on the far side of the hill
----------- and now that we got the carbon tax
----------- life is much more red-green still....."
ahahaha......BUT, listen you little green idiots, you obviously
do not realize that you have been fucked by the Ruskies,
galore!,...ahahahahaha...because you don't even know that
you are/and have been an unpaid enabler and facilitator
to this grand red-green con scam........ahahahaha.....
The Russians will get and take their CO2 emission credits,
these green $$$$$$....NO doubt!....and then they'll pay with
these green $$$$ for their just announced upgrading of their
missile und nuke arsenal...AHAHAHAHAHA...the RUSKIES
fucked you little green idiots!!!!!...ahahaha.....AHAHAHAHA..
The Ruskies, as usual, have no intent with Kydioto complyance
in the first place....but you dreamy-eyed, well-intended
little green idiots do not believe it. ....ahanahaha...But, then
when you finally complain to the Ruskies, they will prove
to you immediately and proudly that they indeed did & do so,
by showing you their brand-new shiny, upgraded arsenal
of ballistic missiles tipped with their latest multimega ton
nukes and they'll insist that this their way of complying!
They'll even offer you caviar & vodka to thank you for your
help....for that "carbon tax" which YOU have paid....and that
carbon that you now can be POTENTIALLY incinerated into
because of your own green greed and enviro fanaticism.....
AHAHAHA.........ahahahaha........AHAHAHAHHAAHA.....
See, how you fucked yourself, AGAIN, you little green idiots
and you didn't even make a fucking dime.....AHAHAHAHA..
When will it dawn on you little green idiots that
= The green movement was always & only a sick machination=
= & a cover to get $$$ grants, permit charges & user fees to =
= feed green shits, be they politicians, consultants, activists or=
= regulators. Environmentalism is just a despicable evil green=
= $$$$$$ game without any redeeming value, nor any intent =
= to save anything. This 40 year old scam is now threatened =
= which is why all those leeching green turds are whining =
ahhahahahaha........ahahahanson
Thank you, Charlie, thank you Daffy, for exposing more and more
of the true nature of environmentalism..... Good article below.