“It’s hard to get a man to understand something when his job depends on him not understanding it.” (1)

Those are the words of Al Gore, quoting Upton Sinclair, in his Academy Award/Nobel Prize winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. It’s the good ol’ follow-the-money line. It presupposes that American corporations oppose any measure to cap carbon emissions because it will hurt their profits. And this makes sense: if we move away from oil, oil companies will be devastated. Thus, we must push through a carbon trading scheme to offset emissions, even if, no, because corporations oppose it. Paul Krugman went so far as to call anyone who opposed such a bill a “traitor to the planet.” (2) This same sentiment is best articulated by the most liberal member of congress, Dennis Kucinich:

“[H.R. 2454, the cap-and-trade bill] is regressive. Free allocations doled out with the intent of blunting the effects on those of modest means will pale in comparison to the allocations that go to polluters and special interests. The financial benefits of offsets and unlimited banking also tend to accrue to large corporations. And of course, the trillion dollar carbon derivatives market will help Wall Street investors. Much of the benefits designed to assist consumers are passed through coal companies and other large corporations, on whom we will rely to pass on the savings.” (3)

Wait a minute Dennis, carbon trading is a regressive tax to benefit the rich, well-connected corporations? Nonsense! Or perhaps, we should go ahead and take Al Gore’s advice and follow the money. And perhaps, we should start with Al Gore’s own words, taken from the bonus material on the DVD release of An Inconvenient Truth:

“A lot of business leaders are changing their positions. New businesses and CEO’s and corporations every week are now joining this new bandwagon saying ‘we want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.’” (4)

Where did Al Gore’s skepticism go? I thought businessmen just wanted to pad their bottom line; now they want to save the planet? If we follow the money, we can see that there’s a lot of money in “being green.” Just the image of being green helps a company’s brand name, as IBM seems to have taken note of:

Saving millions on energy costs is one of those win/win things they talk about in business school so often; unfortunately, it goes deeper than that. Dennis Kucinich is right. The carbon trading scheme that passed the House and is making its way to the Senate is a new derivatives market set up at the behest of Goldman Sachs and other major Wall Street financial firms. Out of curiosity, how did the last financial derivatives market turn out? And yes, it is also a regressive tax, (Who do you think is hurt most by higher energy bills?).

While it’s true that major energy companies are not fond of having to cap their emissions, financial firms can only gain by having a new market to trade in. What people miss when looking at the corruption caused by corporations and government being in bed together is that different corporations have different goals. Many companies may oppose government health care, but companies such as GM and Ford, who are drowning in health care costs, could benefit significantly from government-run health care. Google supports net neutrality, AT&T opposes it. And on and on it goes.

So who stands to benefit from cap and trade? Well, Goldman Sachs for one. In January of 2009, Goldman Sachs bought Constellation Energy’s carbon trading operation. (5) Maybe, just maybe, they see a potential market to exploit. Even Al Gore himself is getting in on the take. Al Gore is an owner of the venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. His company backed a small start-up firm named Silver Spring Networks, which produces equipment to make electricity grids more efficient. In October of 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy gave out $3.4 billion of “smart grid” grants; $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts. (6) The Telegraph predicts that “Al Gore could become the world’s first carbon billionaire.” (7) Maybe that’s where Al Gore’s skepticism went: right to the bank.

This may seem outrageous, but that whole mess of corruption pales in comparison to the company that helped draft the initial concept for a carbon trading system: everyone’s favorite, now-defunct, energy trading firm, Enron.

In 1997, then Enron CEO, Ken Lay wrote an op-ed entitled “For Prevention’s Sake: Focus on Climate Solutions.” In it he strongly advocated the Kyoto Protocol, which would cap carbon emissions worldwide. On August 4^th, 1997, Ken Lay met with Bill Clinton, Al Gore and others at the White House to discuss Kyoto. Ken Lay was an enthusiastic supporter. This may seem odd to some because George Bush was a close friend of Ken Lay, but Bush refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Apparently, George Bush either had other special interest groups to appease, or he simply disagreed with his friend (almost certainly the former). Ken Lay never gave up, though. In 2001, Lay sent an emissary to the Bush administration to lobby for Kyoto. Why would Enron support cap and trade? The answer is the same as the answer for Goldman Sachs: it created a new energy market for them to trade in. Enron went bankrupt soon afterwards however, before it could influence any more politicians. (8)

But even though Enron is now gone, its baby lives on. Investigative Magazine, a New Zealand journal, concluded that “…without Enron there would have been no Kyoto Protocol.” (9) This may be a bit hyperbolic, but Enron did help establish and trade extensively in the $20 billion-per-year sulphur dioxide cap and trade scheme the EPA set up to deal with acid rain. Enron’s link to carbon trading is simply undeniable.

Furthermore, making money off of global warming solutions extends beyond trading carbon credits. Archer Daniels Midlands, the company TJ Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductors Corporation, calls “the pork barrel champion of all time,” (10) has made a fortune off of corn ethanol subsidies. Regardless of whether corn ethanol reduces carbon emissions (it doesn’t), it should be quite telling that Archer Daniels Midlands has received billions of dollars from the federal government to grow corn, (and you thought farm subsidies went to poor farmers and not big corporations). Does the president of ADM care whether corn ethanol is effective? Perhaps, but he certainly cares that it is effective in padding the bottom line.

Archer Daniels Midlands has consistently donated to both parties and received massive direct subsidies as well as sweetheart regulations. Dan Carney, writer for the liberal Mother Jones magazine, states “no other U.S. company is so reliant on politicians and governments to butter its bread.” (11)

ADM benefits in three ways. First are direct subsidies, which are notably the least important. The second is an enormous tariff on sugar, (at the behest of both ADM and the Fanjul family’s sugar dynasty, which has also donated consistently to both parties) (12).  This makes sugar more expensive in the United States and thereby increases the demand for corn ethanol. The final relates to corn ethanol, which Dan Carney describes as follows:

“The third subsidy that ADM depends on is the 54-cent-per-gallon tax credit the federal government allows to refiners of the corn-derived ethanol used in auto fuel. For this subsidy, the federal government pays $3.5 billion over five years. Since ADM makes 60 percent of all the ethanol in the country, the government is essentially contributing $2.1 billion to ADM’s bottom line.” (13)

And while it’s true that Mother Jones is very skeptical of corporations and the free market itself (not that ADM represents a free market) it’s worth noting that the libertarian Cato Institute agreed with them completely, calling Archer Daniel Midlands a “case study in corporate welfare.” (14)

It becomes quite obvious that there’s a lot of green to be made in being green. But since we’re following the money, why stop with just corporations? Two other institutions come immediately to mind as possible global warming benefactors: the government and universities.

Government’s incentive should be obvious. If corporations all too often seek money without regards to the human cost, governments all too often seek power without regards to the human cost. An extremely short glance at the blood-soaked 20^th century should be evidence enough of this. And the more of the economy that the government controls, taxes, or regulates the more power they have. European governments have gone so far as to ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs. (15)

Universities are a little more complicated. It works like this: many academics are reliant on government grants to fund their research. Donald Miller, of the Science and Public Policy Institute describes how a system so reliant on government financing creates—what he refers to as—”scientific dogmas.” (16) Namely, once a “consensus” has been reached, funding dries up for any alternative theories. This is what I would refer to as the “anti-scientific method.” The scientific method involves proposing a theory and then watching as everyone and their brother attempts to obliterate said theory and make a fool out of you. If a theory can withstand the initial barrage, then it simultaneously becomes accepted while awaiting the next onslaught of skepticism. So what happens when scientific theory becomes “dogma” and scientists are reliant on government funding? It creates a major incentive for scientists to fall in line. And when that “dogma” involves a political hot-ticket, there’s major incentive to get in line for government grant money.

The recently-released emails between leading climate scientists lend a lot of creditability to this argument. For example, look at this one from climatologist, Kevin Trenberth:

“If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted.” (17)

Basically, Trenberth is trying to oust a scientist from a professional organization for disagreeing with him. Dogma indeed. Other emails allude to manipulating data to fit with this “dogma.” Furthermore, we have to ask whether academics and scientists proposing solutions such as cap-and-trade (a system that would give the government more power) would be more likely to receive grant money and political attention than those proposing, say, deregulating nuclear power. It may sound a bit conspiratorial, but it’s a question worth asking.

Now none of this is to say that corporate-financed research is any less biased. It would seem that smoking isn’t bad for you if you trusted the tobacco companies’ research back in the day. It’s just to say that skepticism needs to be applied everywhere. And the money needs to be followed everywhere.

And following the money leads to some interesting conclusions doesn’t it Mr. Vice President? As I illustrated in my previous article, there are plenty of other, better ways to deal with global warming than cap-and-trade, assuming it’s worth dealing with at all. Unfortunately, those methods don’t enrich the special interests. So understandably, albeit shamefully, those methods are ignored.
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Previous: The Market and Global Warming: Alternatives to Cap and Trade
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(1) Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Lawrence Benders Productions, 2006
(2) Paul Krugman, “Betraying the Planet,” The New York Times, June 26, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?_r=1
(3) Dennis Kucinich, “Passing a weak bill today gives us weak environmental policy tomorrow,” Speech on House floor, June 26, 2009,  http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=134813
(4) Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, Lawrence Benders Productions, 2006, the bonus section can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPem4XLr-Bc
(5) “Update 1-Constellation to sell London unit to Goldman,” Reuters, January 20, 2009, http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN2031523720090120
(6) John M. Broder, “Gore’s Dual Role: Advocate and Investor,” The New York Times, November 2, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html?_r=1&em
(7) “Al Gore could become world’s first carbon billionaire,” The Telegraph, November 3, 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html
(8) See Dan Morgan, “Enron Also Courted Democrats,” Washington Post, January 13, 2002, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37287-2002Jan12?language=printer and Timothy P. Carney, The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money, Pg. 200-203, John Wiley & Sons Inc., Copyright 2006
(9) Thomas Lifson, “Enron, Kyoto, and trading pollution credits,” American Thinker, March 12, 2007, http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/03/enron_kyoto_and_trading_pollut.html
(10) T.J. Rodgers, “The Free-Market Case for Green,” Uncommon Knowledge, September 26, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCjM2leF5F8
(11) Dan Carney, “Dwayne’s World,” Mother Jones, July/August 1995, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1995/07/dwaynes-world
(12) Timothy P. Carney, The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money, Pg. 56-63, John Wiley & Sons Inc., Copyright 2006
(13) (11) Dan Carney, “Dwayne’s World,” Mother Jones, July/August 1995, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1995/07/dwaynes-world
(14) James Bovard, “Archer Daniels Midlands: A Case Study in Corporate Welfare,” September 26, 1995, http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-241.html
(15) James Kanter, “Europe’s Ban on Old-Style Bulbs Begins,” The New York Times, August 31, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/business/energy-environment/01iht-bulb.html
(16) Donald Miller, “The Trouble With Government Grants,” Science and Public Policy Institute, April 21, 2008, http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/gov_grant_system_truth_or_innovation.html
(17) See “ClimateGate – Climate center’s server hacked revealing documents and emails,” Examiner.com, November 20^th, 2009, http://www.examiner.com/x-25061-Climate-Change-Examiner~y2009m11d20-ClimateGate–Climate-centers-server-hacked-revealing-documents-and-emails#update

There’s been a lot of discussion lately about a series of emails among climate scientists that were released after some hackers got into the computer networks of a top university. The emails, some of which you can see here, show that many of these global warming scientists had doubts, possibly manipulated data and attempted to censor skeptics. It’s certainly caused an uproar and is pushing public opinion against the cap and trade scheme that has made its way through Congress and is awaiting a vote in the Senate. But let’s ignore the emails and skepticism for now and simply assume global warming is man-made. Is a carbon trading system really the best we can come up with to deal with the problem?

The carbon trading concept seems very reminiscent to the history buff in me. Back in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church and some other unaffiliated snake oil salesmen, sold what were called indulgences. These indulgences offered penance for a variety of sins and could either commute or completely eliminate one’s arduous trip through Purgatory.

Today, we have a similar situation; we have an entire market of carbon credit traders (even now, when in the United States, it is not mandatory). Basically, you buy offsetting carbon credits (for someone, probably in a third world country, to plant trees or something like that) to make up for your “carbon footprint.” This allows one to pollute conscience free and Al Gore has notoriously used these to “offset” his enormous personal “carbon footprint.” Hmmm, perhaps we should consider this for other “sins.” As Michael Kinsley of Time magazine analogized:

“What’s needed is a market in child-abuse credits. Somewhere in the world there is a parent who is slugging his kid every night. For a price, he would refrain for a night, or even two. By paying that parent not to slug his kid twice, you gain the right to slug your kid just once.” (1)

Maybe that’s going just a wee bit too far; regardless, carbon credits will hereafter be referred to as carbon indulgences. And now, the Obama administration is trying to institutionalize these indulgences throughout the entire economy, via cap and trade.

Cap and trade works like this: carbon dioxide emitting industries will be given certain arbitrary quotas, which they cannot exceed. If they are above their quota, they must buy offsetting carbon credits from firms that are below their quota.

Cap and trade is undeniably a tax increase. Unless the carbon indulgences are set so high that no firm ever has to buy any (making the whole scheme pointless), firms will have to raise their costs to meet the expenses imposed by the new quotas. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will cost $175 per family, annually (2). The conservative Heritage Foundation estimates that the CBO has grossly underestimated this figure by not including the effect the bill could have on reducing the nation’s GDP, among other issues. According to their own estimates, by 2020, institutionalized carbon indulgences will reduce GDP by a $161 billion, translating to $1870 per household. (3)

It’s also not, as John McCain called it during the election, “a market-based solution.” Yes, there is a market, but it’s a market the government created at its own whim. It would be similar to calling the lobbying industry a free market system for political favors. As economist Robert Murphy put it, “the number of permits is an arbitrary scarcity imposed by government fiat” (4), i.e: not a free market.

However, it should be noted that there is some validity to a carbon indulgences trading scheme. First a little background, though. As shocking as it may be to environmentalists, one of the best ways to protect the environment is property rights. People always take better care of their own property than someone else’s (think used cars) and no one has the right to pollute someone else’s property without due compensation. Furthermore, the tragedy of the commons comes into play with collectively owned resources. Essentially, if land is not privately owned (or properly regulated), there is no incentive for people to use the resources of that land judiciously. Biologist Richard Dawkins explained it well when describing Port Meadow in 1987:

“Ecologically speaking we do have the makings of a tragedy here…ragweed is poisonous plant and cattle won’t eat it. And it’s an indicator plant of overgrazing…for the past fifteen years [ragweeds have] been taking over this meadow as there has been an increasing overgrazing problem… which is of the city government’s own making. Fifteen years ago they asked each commoner how many animals he would like legal rights to graze on this common land. Naturally each of them, being human, submitted his own selfish estimate of the most he could possibly want. All those bids got accepted. So even if each farmer is only grazing what he’s legally entitled to, there’s a huge overgrazing problem.” (5)

When land is either privately owned or regulated properly (which, given the influence of various special interests, is rare), maintaining the land increases its value. There is a natural, economic incentive to be environmentally conscious. But with the lack of either private ownership or proper regulation, that incentive is removed. Thus, it should be no surprise that the worst environmental degradation has taken place in communist countries and countries that lack de jure property rights. Contrary to popular wisdom, Stalin was not a tree hugger and Mao did not spend his nights drenched in patuli oil, singing “Kumbaya” around a campfire while smoking some dank ganja he picked up in Amsterdam. A 1970 article for Time Magazine entitled “Communist Pollution,” concluded, “[The environment] is often worse in Communist countries, where technocrats toil to boost industrial production with little thought to environmental consequences.” (6) And Chinese expert, James Kynge, assessed China’s state-run capitalism, without de jure property rights, effect on the environment as follows:

“Streams and rivers are drying up all over the northern half of the country… Acid rain falls over 30% of its territory…The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently reported that a third of the nation’s lakes and nearly a quarter of its rivers are now so polluted with mercury that children and pregnant women are advised to limit or avoid eating fish caught there.” (7)

Unfortunately, pure, unfettered capitalism runs into an environmental stumbling block with the oceans and an environmental roadblock with the air. How could you possibly privatize the air? Regulation is almost a must, assuming the regulatory burden is worth the cost it would impose to protect the environment. So government regulation is almost certainly necessary regarding air pollution. Furthermore, indulgence trading is also supported by the successful use of a similar program for acid rain in the early 1990’s.

However, air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions are not exactly the same thing. Set aside the fact that the European’s version of cap and trade basically failed: why are the only solutions being proposed government programs and tax increases? Carbon dioxide is harmless to people, the danger it poses is to hasten global warming. Compare a factory, bellowing out mercury or other toxic fumes, to a one bellowing out carbon dioxide. If it were the only factory emitting carbon dioxide, it would be irrelevant. It’s the grand total of carbon dioxide emissions, not individual ones which cause the problem. Given that distinction, as well as the large costs institutionalized indulgence trading would bring, why not look at some market alternatives that seem to have been mostly, if not completely, ignored. Five that come to mind:

1. Strictly enforce property rights. We’ve been getting away from this for years, but in obvious cases where a company causes significant harm to other people or property via pollution (be it air pollution or otherwise), they should be liable for those damages. In some ways, regulation can simply allow a company to violate other people’s property rights to whatever extent the regulation deems acceptable.

2. Deregulate nuclear power. Nuclear power certainly poses the risk of a catastrophic meltdown, but no one in the United States has ever died from it. We had one accident 30 some years ago at Three Mile Island, and although no one died, and we’ve had 30 plus years of technological improvements, we haven’t built a new plant since. On the other hand, we hear stories of coal miners dying every other week. Nuclear power is very clean burning (it boils water), produces almost no waste and the little it does can be fairly easily stored away. 80% of France’s electricity is nuclear; they are a net energy exporter, have the cheapest energy in Europe and very low CO2 emissions. (8)

3. Reduce our military presence abroad. How much oil do we use funding two wars, one of which certainly did not need to be fought? In addition, how much unnecessary oil is used by having our military spread over the world with over 700 bases in 130 countries?

4. Eliminate subsidies to oil companies and corn-ethanol companies such as pork barrel champion of the world, Archer Daniels Midland. It’s obvious that we should eliminate the subsidies to oil companies; however, corn ethanol subsidies are even dumber. Corn ethanol requires an enormous amount of energy to produce and must be transported in trucks instead of pipes because it degrades. University of California Engineering Professor, Tad Patzek, wrote that corn ethanol requires 29% more fossil fuel energy than the ethanol contains. (9) Furthermore, by pushing resources into a faulty method of emission reduction, the government discourages capital from finding its way to an effective method, such as…

5. Legalize hemp. The government wouldn’t even have to legalize marijuana (although they should do that, too). Hemp ethanol, unlike corn ethanol, does significantly lower emissions. Hemp can produce a whole host of other products as well. Yet, hemp is illegal to grow in the United States, despite the fact we have a fertile climate for it. (10)

Furthermore, there are many cheaper methods that could be done with limited government involvement, if any at all. Environmental economist, Bjorn Lomborg discusses global warming in an almost unique way; namely, a purely rational way. He discusses proposed solutions in terms of costs and benefits. We have to remember that not only will cap-and-trade cost the industrialized world a lot, it will make development in the third world much more difficult, if not impossible.

Lomborg invited a group of eight top thinkers, including four Nobel Prize Winners (sorry, Al Gore and Barack Obama were not among them) to form the Copenhagen Consensus. They looked at 10 major problems in the world from malnutrition to government corruption to global warming. Their goal was to determine which areas would investment yield the best returns for humanity. They voted micro-nutrient supplements for children first and lowering trade barriers second. The first solution to global warming comes in at 14th; and it’s research into new technologies, not cap and trade. (11)

Salt Water 1, Global Warming 0

Indeed, technology seems to offer much more cost-effective solutions. We could go with nuclear power or hemp fuels like I mentioned above, or other technologies that have, for the most part, been ignored. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, authors of Superfreakonomics, propose geoengineering to combat global warming. Levitt describes one possibility, we could implement today if we wanted to, as follows:

“[One possible solution is] a cloud whitening scheme. Dark things absorb a lot of heat and the oceans are very, very dark. There are not very many clouds over the ocean because there are not the nuclei that seed the clouds which is usually from dust. There’s not much dust over the ocean. Salt can also seed clouds. And so what you need to do is figure out how to spray some salt water up into the air and that can serve to make the clouds. The belief is, from the models, that if you can just have 10,000 little, solar powered dingies that just puttered around in the ocean and flipped up some salt water into the air, that that would generate enough cloud cover over the oceans that would reflect enough of the sunlight that through that channel you could also lower the temperature of the Earth to offset any effects of warming.” (12)

These projects could be government funded for sure, but they’re cheap and would require very little interference in the economy. They would also be more effective. The Kyoto Protocol for example, was expected to make very little, if any difference, even when it was enacted. By 2050, it’s supposed to reduce the mean temperature by perhaps 0.2 degrees Celsius, or maybe as little as 0.07 degrees. (13) Either way, it’s an irrelevant reduction. It would be just about as useful to simply burn money (as long as burnt money is carbon neutral of course).

Furthermore, we have to ask whether dealing with the consequences of global warming would be a more effective than trying to prevent it. Despite the hysteria, many of the consequences could very well be manageable. For example, the International Panel on Climate Change estimates that sea levels will rise between 0.6 and 2 feet over the next century. (14) That sounds quite manageable.

Yet the solutions being discussed, such as indulgence trading, are all big government solutions. Despite the existence of alternatives, our wise leaders can think of little other than massive tax hikes and intrusive schemes. This makes me very skeptical of our noble politician’s goals. Could politicians be looking for a power grab? Or perhaps well-connected firms are looking to profit off the new system? Oh, there I go again, questioning our wise, benevolent leaders. I’m trying to break the habit… honest.

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Next: The Market For Global Warming: Green is the Color of Money
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(1) Michael Kinsley, “Credit for Bad Behavior,” Time Magazine, June 21, 2007, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1635840,00.html
(2) “Cap-And-Trade Costs,” Congressional Budget Office, June 19, 2009 http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/103xx/doc10327/06-19-CapAndTradeCosts.pdf
(3) David Kreutzer, Karen Campbell and Nicolas Loris, “CBO Grossly Underestimates Cost of Cap and Trade,” The Heritage Foundation, June 24, 2009, http://www.heritage.org/Research/energyandenvironment/wm2503.cfm
(4) Robert Murphy, “Cap & Trade Is Not A Market Solution,” Institute of Energy Research, June 4, 2008, http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2008/06/04/cap-trade-is-not-a-market-solution/
(5) Richard Dawkins, “Nice Guys Finish First,” copyright 1987, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3494530275568693212
(6) Author unnamed, “Environment: Communist Pollution,” Time Magazine, November 30, 1970, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904549,00.html
(7) James Kynge, China Shakes the World, pg 151-152, First Mariner books, Copyright 2007
(8) See “Nuclear Power Now,” NuclearPowerNow.com, http://www.nuclearnow.org/ and “Nuclear Power in France,” Wikipedia.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France
(9) Robert Bryce, “Corn Dog,” Slate Magazine, July 19, 2005, http://www.slate.com/id/2122961/
(10) See “Pollution: Petrol vs Hemp,” Hempcar.com, http://www.hempcar.org/petvshemp.shtml
(11) See Copenhagen Consensus Center, http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/CCC%20Home%20Page.aspx and “Copenhagen Consensus,” Wikipedia.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus
(12) Steven Levitt, “Superfreakonomics with Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner,” Commonwealth Club, Fora Tv, http://fora.tv/2009/11/04/SuperFreakonomics_with_Steven_Levitt_and_Stephen_Dubner
(13) For a 0.2 degree reduction from a proponent of Kyoto, see Niklas Hohne, “Impact of Kyoto Protocol on Stabilization of Carbon Dioxide Concentrations.” ECOFYS energy and environment, http://www.stabilisation2005.com/posters/Hohne_Niklas.pdf, from a skeptic claiming 0.07 degrees see “Kyoto Count Up,” Junkscience.com, http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Kyoto_Count_Up.htm
(14) Parry, Martin L., Canziani, Osvaldo F., Palutikof, Jean P., van der Linden, Paul J., and Hanson, Clair E. (eds.), IPCC. 2007 – Climate Change 2007; Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, Pg. 1000, http://www.ipcc-wg2.org/index.html