The Russian energy avalanche is approaching...

...I posted earlier this week on the next move for the green left now that their fantasy of AGW is losing credibility and international political pulling power. It seems likely that TINA 'there is no alternative' will be wheeled in because of so called 'peak oil' - the finite reserves of fossil fuel energy. Hence of course, 'green' energy; wind, solar, tidal and pedal powered bamboo bicycles. It's TINA, you see...I also mentioned Julian Simon's wonderful book 'The Ultimate Resource 2' whose central theme is technological innovation and ingenuity. Fellow blogger Al Fin observes that Russia is poised to take a huge leap forward by exploiting its colossal energy reserves...
...Russia is full of valuable energy and mineral assets -- enough to make any oil sheikh envious. For a number of reasons, Russia's energy assets have remained largely undeveloped up until now. But with enormous discoveries of unconventional natural gas in North America, and with increasing development of Canada's oil sands, Russia is beginning to understand that if it doesn't develop and sell its energy assets now -- it may never have the chance. As young ethnic Russians disappear from the planet, the ability of Russia to defend its vast mineral wealth is shrinking daily. And as unconventional fossil fuel use, plus nuclear energy infrastructure, plus bioenergy development all expand, the world's need for Russia's product is beginning to shrink. The lesson to Russia: use it or lose it...more here...
...and this just in...“Exxon Mobil (XOM) announced today that in 2009 the company’s proven reserves increased by 133% of the amount of oil produced. Exxon now has 23.3 billion oil-equivalent-barrels of reserves comprised of about half liquids and half gas. It’s the largest amount in the company’s history.Amazingly, Exxon, who has been accused in the past of being too conservative in terms of exploration and development, has been finding more oil than it produces for each of the last 16 years, to the dismay of peak oil proponents.” H/T Heliogenic Climate Change...more here...

...and, from Charlie Martin, a word of caution...Climategate: Skeptics Can’t Relax Yet — Real Fraud Is Measured in Dollar Signs, Not Degrees...while the world's attention is focussed on academic and scientific misconduct the questions remaining are ...'Once the theory of AGW was politically established, it was inevitable that the so called 'scientific consensus' leaned in that direction. So... how did the theory become politically established, and who are the beneficiaries?
...Al Gore had already been a devotee of the CO2 apocalypse before he lost the 2000 election...He joined in several financial ventures with people like Richard Sandor, who had been a faculty member at Berkeley...and... with Peter Knight, his one-time aide, and David Blood, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and Gore’s campaign manager for 2000. Another part of this group is Maurice Strong, (see the masthead above ) who moved from involvement in the UN “Oil for Food” scam into environmental issues, and now lives in the People’s Republic of China where he advises the Chinese government. Sandor and Blood, along with Goldman Sachs and its then-CEO, Hank Paulson, founded the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), using seed money from the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation. One of the major stockholders, along with Goldman Sachs, is Generation Investment Management (GIM), a trading company co-founded by Al Gore and David Blood...The scientific climate clique of Jones and others provide the scientific basis for the political action, which in turn provides the need for the carbon credits that are created and traded by the carbon and climate cartel of Strong, Gore, Blood, and Knight. (Boy, that sounds like a Steve Reeves movie, doesn’t it?) And the money provided by these trading schemes then supports the science — as long as it’s the “right” science. And this is why we can’t get cocky. There’s no question now that the science must be re-examined. Re-examining the science, though, doesn’t mean that the political and financial machine just stops operating. There’s a lot of money involved. A whole lot of money. Potentially trillions of dollars. So we’re not done yet...more here...

...and, doesn't it strike anyone else as odd, scandalous even, that this issue has not been taken up by the MSM ? Why would that be do you think ?

The number one, non fiction best seller in NZ...

...this week and last week is "Air Con" by Ian Wishart (Howling at the Moon Publishing Ltd.) Subtitled, "The Seriously Inconvenient Truth about Global Warming", its prominent placement 2 weeks in a row in the best seller lists neatly deflates the green bubble heading the front page of the Sunday paper. (Although memo to author, when printing the second edition, consider printing the subtitle in a contrasting easily read colour. )

Air Con subjects the science behind global warming/climate change to scrutiny, and examines the individuals and institutions behind climate alarmism. In the process Air Con skewers the fright merchants with an up to date summary of the scientific facts (data analysis closed only last month), including the latest data from the ARGO experiment revealing no warming of the planet's oceans since data collection began in 2003...It is evident that the AGW hypothesis, as it now stands, is either false or fundamentally inadequate. One may argue that projections for global warming are measured in decades rather than months or years, so not enough time has elapsed to falsify this hypothesis. This would be true if it were not for the enormous deficit of heat we have observed. In other words, no matter how much time has elapsed, if a projection misses its target by such a large magnitude (6x to 8x), we can safely assume that it is either false or seriously flawed...Anthony Watts WuWT...
In addition to a thorough debunking of the IPPC version of the science behind climate change, and the fear tactics of the green/left, Air Con takes us on a tour of the one world agenda of the individuals who finance green pressure groups. Prominent among them is George Soros, whose background and public record make interesting reading...explains the author...an expose of George Soros is not the aim of this book, but what I've tried to do is illustrate that behind all the scare stories...lies a left wing billionaire with an agenda and the means to pull it off...That's what this is all about.

Maybe so. And perhaps this comment, including a quote from Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment programme (also quoted in the masthead above) makes the analysis even clearer...
... In 1991, Strong wrote the introduction to a book published by the Trilateral Commission, called Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World’s Economy and the Earth’s Ecology, by Jim MacNeil. (David Rockefeller wrote the foreword). Strong said this: “This interlocking…is the new reality of the century, with profound implications for the shape of our institutions of governance, national and international. By the year 2012, these changes must be fully integrated into our economic and political life.”

Air Con is a book the green/left climatastrophists could do without. It comes at a time when governments are struggling to re-balance their teetering economies, and marks the start of a desperate campaign by the left to frighten politicians and the general public into futile and totalitarian, socially destructive measures. This struggle, and the response of governments, could be the Waterloo for dark forces bent on shaping the world and us to their will. Air Con is one man's attempt to defeat those forces, and here in New Zealand at least, Air Con is proving to be a hit with a major weapon.

2009 ?... No, it's still 1984...

...and George Orwell's newspeak is popular among the green/left... although today of course, it's IPPC UN Internationalism which demands unquestioning obedience. When Maurice Strong, the founder of the UN Environment Programme said "Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? " he created today's 1984 style Ministry of Truth. True to the Ministry's message, socialists around the world have embraced Maurice Strong's dictum, and with the help of a compliant news media, have branded climate change sceptics as deniers, who wish to condemn future generations to a polluted, unlivable planet.

Cometh the hour, cometh the technology...The failure of the main media to live up to their investigative past leaves the field open to independent bloggers to disseminate the sceptical message. Opinion polling shows that the sceptics (assisted by an uncooperative cooling planet) are winning the day. When the accolades are distributed, taking the gold medal will be Anthony Watts, who continues to rage, rage against the dying of the light...

The international man of mystery...

...after selecting the masthead quote above I thought a quick validating search on Google would be worthwhile. I found this 1997 National Review article...
"The survival of civilization in something like its present form might depend significantly on the efforts of a single man," declared The New Yorker. The New York Times hailed that man as the "Custodian of the Planet." He is perpetually on the short list of candidates for Secretary General of the United Nations. This lofty eminence? Maurice Strong, (left) of course. Never heard of him? Well, you should have. Militia members are famously worried that black helicopters are practicing maneuvers with blue-helmeted UN troops in a plot to take over America. But the actual peril is more subtle. A small cadre of obscure international bureaucrats are hard at work devising a system of "global governance" that is slowly gaining control over ordinary Americans' lives. Maurice Strong, a 68-year-old Canadian, is the "indispensable man" at the center of this creeping UN power grab... It's not a conspiracy, of course: just a group of like-minded people fighting to save the world from less prescient and more selfish forces - namely, market forces. And though the crises change - World War II in the Forties, fear of the atom bomb in the Fifties, the "energy crisis" in the Seventies - the Left's remedy is always the same: a greater role for international agencies. Today an allegedly looming global environmental catastrophe is behind their efforts to increase the power of the UN. Strong has warned memorably: "If we don't change, our species will not survive. . . Frankly, we may get to the point where the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to collapse." Apocalypse soon - unless international bodies save us from ourselves....more here...
And I wonder, does Maurice ever get together with that wonderful humanitarian George Soros ? Well, as a matter of fact, yes he does...