• Dear Mr. President: Thanks Again For Cap And Trade

To The Office Of The President Of The United States,

Dear Mr. Obama

We are the heads of a few of your largest constituents, including Dow, GE and DuPont. This letter represents our sentiments in wishing to express our gratitude for your and Ms. Pelosi’s efforts on our behalf. We thank you, our shareholders thank you, and certainly all of us look forward to contributing to your Presidential Library, once you leave office, if we did not sufficiently contribute already prior to the election.

We can appreciate that neither yourself nor your dear friends in Congress have had time to read the new Bill that opens: “A BILL - To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy.” This Bill is very, very, very long and boring. It is also very complex. We conceived it and structured it in such way that the fewer the readers, the less editing would take place. We therefore anticipate that its passage will be swift. The sooner that train leaves the station, the more impossible its progress will be to reverse. It would also not be advantageous if the irrationality, and fear surrounding humanity’s hand in the process of global warming were to subside. Now, is an opportune time to strike.

Attaching the name “Cap and Trade” to this whole business has been a stroke of genius. No one really understands what it all means, and the media believes everything you tell them, so keep plugging it, and keep promoting the “reduction in CO2” stuff. That works really well in LA. Have you seen the air out there? Terrible. Terrible, or "turbull" as Charles Barkley would say. We are all thrilled that you have successfully reconstructed the original intent of CO2 reduction, into an energy consumption reduction program. We knew you could do it.

The impact on consumption reduction will, in our view, be minimal, and fortunately, that is not our objective. We wish you much luck in managing this monster, and in building an administration capable of verifying such things as the veracity of corporately claimed offsets. This Bill is so complex that it will provide endless possibilities for abuse and excesses, and we can smell the fraud stinking up the air already. As you know, a transparent system such as a simple graduated carbon tax, paralleled with targeted caps on emissions, would not have been as financially beneficial for us. Not even close.

We are well aware that most of our smaller brethren in the business will get put out to pasture as a result of their inability to move off-shore quickly enough, or by the fact that they will not be able to afford the carbon pollution permits. We, on the other hand, already have unregulated facilities around the world to which we can reallocate resources at a moment’s notice. Our competitors will also not have our advantage of receiving significant Cap and Trade credits based on our being able to provide all necessary products supporting this bill, from solar panels to wind mills in the sky. Our smaller competitors will also be unable to sustain the sheer costs of managing the government’s bureaucratic intrusion into their affairs, as it deploys armies of newly hired climate science experts to distribute and oversee capping and trading of carbon dioxide emissions.

We anticipate much higher costs in the manufacture of many alternate energy sources, such as solar energy absorption cells, and this will impact the expansion of solar cell farms, but well, we have no choice.

The Bill will be very effective in rendering the cost of any carbon-based energy unaffordable through overwhelming taxation. That should help you refill the government coffers somewhat, although the hole you are digging for American taxpayers is becoming rather considerable. Households across the country will bear the brunt of the costs, through higher product prices and a heavier tax burden, but most people seem very accepting of a “price” for reducing climate change. Even if most don’t believe that they impact climate, they still feel that the air needs cleaning. We are unsure, however, how taxpayers will feel about being mandated into financing the adoption of efficient technologies overseas. They will probably not be thrilled with paying to prevent the clear-cutting of the Amazon, for example, at a time when many households are barely paying their food bills. We, on the other hand, will not be affected, whatever reactions surface on that front, although a couple of us feel bad for our buddies running operations like aluminum, or steel mills. They are in for some tough times.

We note that some of our other friends on Wall Street are very preoccupied, as we write this letter, coming up with new and extremely creative financial tools which they expect to launch upon the Bill’s passing. Those boys have amazing ways of getting in on any game with the potential of throwing off billions in cash. They look forward to a whole new set of opportunities opening up for them, replacing the ones eclipsed by the recent devastating financial compression. Listening to some of them, one might conclude that they have been holding séances with Jeffrey Skilling of Enron fame.

We are anxious to be in receipt of our free Trade Allowances, but most of all, we are excited with the anticipation of enjoying astronomical growth for many years. In passing, we should thank you for having allowed, and fuelled with cash, firms like Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley to become even bigger, and more powerful than they were before the financial down-turn. This action set a tremendous precedent we look forward to duplicating in our industries. If you thought “too big to fail” applied to these giants before the crash, wait until you see how big a few of us get in the next five years.

We have one last request if we can be so bold. Could you repeat as often as possible to the Nation that this Bill will not cost over $3,000 per household each year, and that much like the national objective of being carbon neutral, so too the cost will be, … “neutral.” Explain to America that it is just a methodology for keeping track of excessive energy consumers, and polluters. Perfect, don’t you think? They’ll all buy it. The media will promote that theme for you.

We will continue to postulate assertively on the need for battling global warming, and look forward to your persistent oratory on getting this momentous Bill passed into law.

Sincerely.
Your Friendly Benefactors

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• ARGO 4900781’s LETTER TO BICKERING SCIENTISTS

Dear Quibbling Scientists,

… and the rest of you arguing over global warming. I have good news, and I have some bad news. Like it or not, consider what I’m about to disclose. I am an ARGO Buoy, my name is ARGO 4900781, and I was deployed on August 16, 2006 at Lattitude:31 (N) & Longitude: -55.555 (W). I am currently at Lat: 31.3815 & Lon: -64.2416. I am part of an oceanic data analysis program. There are about 3,000 of us traveling through the world’s oceans usually at a depth of about a mile, although we regularly go down to twice that depth before heading for the surface. We occasionally have to come up for air, I do this every 10 days, as I’m doing now. Not to breathe, mind you, it’s time for me to transmit some data sets to my satellite buddies who track me. While I may not be conscious, I’m fairly smart and rather complex. I have a computer, sensors, a transmitter, battery pack, and hydraulic pumps so I can ascend or descend on cue. We’ve been working 24/7 out here in cold and warm for five years, free-drifting and continuously gathering information about the state of the oceans, enabling extremely accurate profiling. I focus on things like temperature fluctuations, salinity, velocity, and pressure. This is data that will help you make conscious and conscientious decisions. Can you hear me? … Conscientious decisions. Haven’t you had enough of this raucous over terminology and rattling of sabers over who’s right and wrong about the future? These facts should put an end to some of the bickering. What? You don’t think we can hear? Let me tell you … you’re noisy, and I know why I’m here.

I am located in the Sargasso Sea, you know the sea that has no land bordering its periphery and includes the Bermuda Triangle? I don’t travel around much, unlike some of my friends, I circulate in an area of only a few hundred miles. Some of my buddies in the Pacific travel thousands of miles.

The good news is that the world’s oceans are not warming. Repeat, NOT warming. Things are stable down here. If anything, there has been an almost imperceptible cooling. We should know. My associates and I cover the whole globe in depth and at depth. If the cacophony I pick up when I reach the surface is to be believed, the globe is warming up, the oceans will rise to alarming levels, and those who can, will move upland to a Rocky Mountain plateau. Forget about it. Sure there are fluctuations on the surface. Endless complexities impact the upper layers of water, from salinity to cloud cover, to … nevermind, it’s really endless, plus there is both resulting effect as well as causal impact on weather and climate. The recursive loop looks more akin to a recursive pretzel. By the way, you currently have no computer models that reliably predict the future of the earth’s climate, so stop pretending. Common sense, however, can tell you the extent of the impact humanity’s footprint is having. You know that the excessive carbon with which you clog your atmosphere is akin to smoking yourselves into a cough. It’s just not good for you. It is evident that there is no recognition of any immanent threat presented by pollution to induce urgency of action.

The emotional fervor pitting scientists against scientists against pundit against politician against journalist against blogger is creating a whole industry with an eye on opportunity. That’s misleading. Even if it’s intention is to reduce your carbon imprint, launching programs from a flawed premise with dogmatic fervor will only lead to defective corrective actions. Be exceedingly careful that you do not set into motion programs that could lead to unnecessary catastrophes.

Now the bad news. Some of you should float out here for a month or two. Your antropogenic footprint is overwhelming. For example, ten days ago as I surfaced, a large plastic sheet wrapped itself over my antenna port. Which reminds me, do you folks have any idea what your untreated sewage is doing? You know, that human waste water containing microorganisms the size of basketballs, the heavy metals like the actinoids that you wouldn’t want your frozen eggs or sperm exposed to, pathogens such as hepatitis B, the lethal chemicals, and most stimulating of all the pharmaceuticals and narcotics excreted by everyone with access to a pharmacy or a hoody on two legs nervously guarding the street corner. The concentrations being pumped or drained out here are affecting every ocean on earth and all living organisms … and not in a good way.

Sometime in the recent past, you replaced animal power principally with energy sources that produce carbon dioxide. It’s understandable since oil and gas are readily available, easy to transport and you have devised endless ways of exploiting them. Convenience and availability are difficult to repudiate. Now would you please apply some of your technological prowess to the less expedient and convenient, or at the very least make a determined effort to contain their effluent discharge?

I have to go now. Time to drop to that zone where sunlight is only a faint glimmer. Time to go process more data so that you can make some educated decisions on how you’re going to reduce the sludge out here and up there.

Be well and do the right thing right.
Sincerely,
ARGO 4900781

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• GLOBAL WARMING, GLOBAL COOLING – Consensus?

Our percepts regarding the boundless complexities of our globe’s climate are confusing and confused, and while there is little evidence of immanent consensus on cause and effect, there remains room for some broad based consensus with positive residual affect. Experts can’t agree, but we can.

Somewhere between 1600 and 1900 the world experienced lower temperatures that were evident and not imaginary. Many rivers and lakes in the Northern hemisphere that were frozen have not seen ice since then. Does anyone recall the concerns of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s when serious and disquieting reports were predicting potentially catastrophic impact on the world’s food supply because the Earth was entering the dawn of another ice age? Canada’s vast wheat fields were destined to fall to the decimating resurgence of an endless winter. The devastation had numerically specific valuations.

We have suddenly entered a reversal of climactic fortunes. Global warming fears are upon us, suddenly and without warning. In one generation we have an annulment of the foregoing two centuries worth of “climate cooling trends” and related fears. Our food producing “bread baskets” require temperature stability, and historically this has been administered by westerly winds flowing over temperate areas. Air movement fluctuations in the upper atmosphere are unquestionably affecting those westerlies. The new cooling trend might permanently alter the existence of our bread baskets.

We are mesmerized by doomsayers, and although it isn’t in this article that we’ll dissect why, our media enjoys leaping to the story of the moment and fomenting panic. It sells. Such excitement then beckons the economic opportunists. Once money’s attention is captured, the euphoria becomes fuelled by too often ridiculous and expensive boondoggles. I suppose it is only time before opportunists find mechanisms to exploit the ever so subtle Milankovitch cycles.

Facts indicate that over the long term our ocean and the air we breath have been warming since the beginning of the industrial age. As observers we look to the scientific community for analysis, facts, raw data, extrapolations of evidence, and perhaps an occasional opinion. We aren’t even seeking wisdom on this, however we would feel more comfortable with “consensus” from our experts. ANY consensus. Then we could set about finding solutions. Unfortunately we forget that everyone, even our scientific community, is driven by political motivation. It is the ego’s recursive journey. We also forget that the earth is an infinitely complex system before throwing in any accommodations the sun might convery on our current or future well being. Still we seek consensus.

Long term outcomes are always difficult to predict, and although the more extreme dangers lie in what we don’t know, there are elements that should nudge us to modify our habits and behavior which in turn will affect our enthropogenic footprints.

Since consensus on the causes of climate change seems an ephemeral and unachievable concept, let’s establish some harmony where we can:
1. We are collectively polluting our air at an unprecedented rate. Wipe your brow after a few minutes of walking on any street on earth then take a few really deep breaths and while you’re breathing count the particles suspended in air – do we have consensus?
2. We are collectively polluting our rivers at an unprecedented rate. From China to the Gulf of Mexico, dead water flows all around us and we have undeniable knowledge as to what it contains, what it doesn’t contain, and we even know why – do we have consensus?

Disagreements on the degree of humanity’s responsibility for the fluctuations in our climate is a digressing and obfuscating deflection. It remains that there is an abundance of data providing very vivid evidence that we are negatively affecting our environment in serious ways that must be reversed, cooling, warming or not. Such reversal will only be brought about, not through panic, but through collective behavior modification. In addition we will require enormous doses of creativity applied to the development of more efficient methodologies for the uses of energy, and conceiving new sources and forms of energy … if only for self preservation.

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