Paris climate agreement was legacy of Bush #1, Obama just followed his lead. Bush's 1990 law, USGCRP, mandated US creation of new global industry to address human caused global change and "promote discussions toward international protocols." Bush #1 mentioned in passing that CO2 is a pollutant--the rubes would never notice, and globalists would be home free

.  

Above chart shows massive diversion of US taxpayer dollars by the White House as a result of Bush #1's 1990 climate spending mandate, USGCRP. The chart only includes Executive branch spending on climate research. It doesn't include congressional climate science funding. page 167, Independent Review, Fall 2015, "Causes and Consequences of the Climate Science Boom," Butos and McQuade, pp 165-196

New World Order, says Bush

 






Bush's 1990 Global Change Research Act: "Reference: Global Change Research Act (Public Law 101-606, 104 Stat. 3096-3104), signed on November 16, 1990," data.globalchange.gov

"To require the establishment of a United States Global Change Research Program, Nov 16, 1990, aimed at understanding and responding to global change, including the cumulative effects of human activities and natural processes on the environment, to promote discussions toward international protocols in global change research, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Global Change United States of America in Congress assembled, Research Act of 1990."...

["The new phrase “global change”, if it means anything, is a more accommodating substitute for “global warming”."]

Bush #1 mentions adverse "global warming" and rising "global sea levels": 

(continuing): "SEC. 101. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

(a) FINDINGS

.—The Congress makes the following findings:

(1) Industrial, agricultural, and other human activities, coupled with an expanding world population, are contributing to processes of global change that may significantly alter the Earth habitat within a few human generations.

(2) Such human-induced changes, in conjunction with natural

fluctuations, may lead to significant global warming

and thus alter world climate patterns and increase global sea levels."...

"President George H.W. Bush on climate change in 1990" at Georgetown:

Bush #1: "We all know that human activities are changing the atmosphere in unexpected and in unprecedented ways."

 

(continuing): "SEC. 203. INTERNATIONAL DISCUSSIONS

(a) GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH- The President should direct the Secretary of State, in cooperation with the Committee, to initiate discussions with other nations leading toward international protocols and other agreements to coordinate global change research activities. Such discussions should include the following issues:

1. Allocation of costs in global change research programs, especially with respect to major capital projects.
2. Coordination of global change research plans with those developed by international organizations such as the International Council on Scientific Unions, the World Meteorological Organization, and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
3. Establishment of global change research centers and training programs for scientists, especially those from developing nations.
4. Development of innovative methods for management of international global change research, including: (A) use of new or existing intergovernmental organizations for the coordination or funding of global change research; and (B) creation of a limited foundation for global change research.
5. The prompt establishment of international projects to: (A) create globally accessible formats for data collected by various international sources; and (B) combine and interpret data from various sources to produce information readily usable by policymakers attempting to formulate effective strategies for preventing, mitigating, and adapting to possible adverse effects of global change.
6. Establishment of international offices to disseminate information useful in identifying, preventing, mitigating, or adapting to the possible effects of global change.

(b) ENERGY RESEARCH- The President should direct the Secretary of State (in cooperation with the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Commerce, the United States Trade Representative, and other appropriate members of the Committee) to initiate discussions with other nations leading toward an international research protocol for cooperation on the development of energy technologies which have minimally adverse effects on the environment."...http://www.globalchange.gov/about/legal-mandate 

  (Section 102, continuing): "MEMBERSHIP.—The Committee shall consist of at least one representative from—

(1) the National Science Foundation;

 (2) the National Aeronautics and Space Administration;

 (3) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the Department of   Commerce;

 (4) the Environmental Protection Agency;

  (5) the Department of Energy;

  (6) the Department of State;
  (7) the Department of Defense;

 (8) the Department of the Interior;

  (9) the Department of Agriculture;

 (10) the Department of Transportation;
 (11) the Office of Management and Budget;
 (12) the Office of Science and Technology Policy;

(13) the Council on Environmental Quality;

  (14) the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

 of the National Institutes of Health; and p. 3, pdf:

     (15) such other agencies and departments of the United States

     as the President or the Chairman of the Council considers

      appropriate.

    Such representatives shall be high ranking officials of their agency or department....(e)"

............................

Bush #1 like others saw the CO2 danger industry as a way to cut America down to size and sell it off to global fat cats. Therefore Bush used his 1990 mandate to establish CO2 as a pollutant, mentioning it in passing as if it were something already established. He placed it quietly in Section 204 item 4, near the end of the text, obliquely, as if it weren't anything new, to draw as little attention as possible from annoying US taxpayers. Like most in the US political class but more so, Bush #1's constituents were global fat cats, and he delivered for them. The seedling of the multi-trillion dollar imaginary CO2 danger industry (genocide of the US) was planted in US law. (No science was mentioned)  

Section 204, page 9: "4) promoting the conservation of forest resources which help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere;"... 

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-104/pdf/STATUTE-104-Pg3096.pdf


................................

 Because of Bush #1's 1990 mandate, US taxpayers, without their knowledge, were forced to create what would be seen as a booming new global industry, global climate science:

3/6/2015, "Causes and consequences of the climate science boom," William Butos and Thomas McQuade 

"2. By any standards, what we have documented here is a massive funding drive, highlighting the patterns of climate science Rand D as funded and directed only by the Executive Branch."...1. The Government’s Role in Climate Science Funding...took a critical step with passage of the Global Change Research Act of 1990. This Act established institutional structures operating out of the White House....

5.5 Funds administered by the Treasury Department in Table 2 are credit lines and loans channeled through the World Bank earmarked for international organizations to finance clean technologies and sustainable practices; consequently such funds would also more accurately be considered as climate-related sustainability and adaptation.... 

11....The funding efforts are spread across a bewildering array of sources and buried in a labyrinth of programs, agency initiatives, interagency activities, and Presidential Offices, but what they seem to have in common is an adherence to the assumption that human activity is primarily responsible for the warming observed in the latter part of the 20^th century. Funding appears to be driving the science rather than the other way around. And the extent of this funding appears not to have been heretofore fully documented.[32]"...

 ..............................

US taxpayers were "mandated" "to assist the world" in a new industry requiring extensive global jet travel in perpetuity:

"Legal Mandate," From Globalchange.gov

"The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was established by Presidential Initiative in 1989 and mandated by Congress in the Global Change Research Act (GCRA) of 1990 to “assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.”"
...........................

Added, Butos and McQuade: Points below follow Introduction:

"3. The operations of the IPCC are found to entail “crony science”. We highlight the political nature of the organization, its unscientific procedures for generating “consensus”, and the editing of its summaries by political appointees, and we document the alleged violations of scientific procedure by some of the more ideologically committed scientists. 

4. In assessing the sustainability of the boom, we note the complex and unpredictable nature of the climate and the inconclusive nature of the evidence amassed so far in establishing a case for any of the hypotheses put forward to account for the warming trend observed over the past century. 

5. With policy preceding the science, there has emerged a host of crony capitalist enterprises that have seized on government support of the AGW hypothesis to obtain loans, tax breaks, and other financial backing from public sources, and we document the overall performance to date of these entities. 

6. Our overall conclusion is that a confluence of scientific uncertainty, political opportunism, and ideological predisposition in an area of scientific study of phenomena of great practical interest has fomented an artificial boom in that scientific discipline."...

Alternate link to 1990 USGCRP:


http://www.globalchange.gov/about/legal-mandate




................

Vatican humiliated by endorsing carbon credits scam in 2007, considered legal action to redeem its reputation, NY Times hailed Vatican carbon strategy. CO2 scammer went on to defraud Canadian indigenous group of $2.5 million-CS Monitor, NY Times

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"A Vatican spokesman says “the case is being studied to take legal action in order to defend the Vatican’s reputation.”" (4/20/2010)

Photo of carbon offset certificate being handed to a Vatican Cardinal on July 5, 2007, went global. 13 days later on July 18, 2007, the scammer made famous by the Vatican sat before the US Congress as an esteemed global warming expert. He was joined by Joe  Romm and three others. In Sept. 2007 the NY Times hailed The Vatican's announcement that it would become the world’s first carbon-neutral state. 3 months later, in Dec. 2007, the carbon offsets company, "Planktos abruptly closed.

7/5/07, Vatican accepts CO2 certificate fr. Russ George

4/20/2010, "Carbon offsets: How a Vatican forest failed to reduce global warming," CS Monitor, Doug Struck, Budapest, Hungary 
 
"From a scheme to create an algae bloom in the South Pacific to a Vatican forest in the plains of Hungary –how one carbon offset developer's ideas failed to reduce global warming."
 
"Russ George described himself as a man of vision. He certainly envisioned making money.

The San Francisco promoter saw the profit of promising to remove carbon dioxide from the air and selling that promise,  as carbon offsets to polluters, a plan he touted in interviews, press releases, and even to a congressional committee"...

7/18/07, Russ George before US Congress

 



 
 
Image above: On July 18, 2007, 13 days after his priceless Vatican photo-op, Russ George was before the US Congress Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, as an esteemed expert on carbon offsets and global warming. "Witnesses: Derik Broekhoff, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute; Joseph Romm, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress; Thomas Boucher, President and Chief Executive Officer, NativeEnergy LLC; Russ George, President and Chief Exeuctive Officer, Planktos, Inc.; Eric Blatchford, CEO, TerraPass." Image of Russ George and others before Congress, 7/18/2007 from RussGeorge.net

(continuing, CS Monitor): "He just needed seed money. Nelson Skalbania, a high-profile Canadian real estate trader who had spent a year wearing a court-supervised electronic bracelet for a conviction in Canada of misappropriating $100,000 in investor funds, was just the kind of “green angel” – as Mr. George called him – who would put up the money.

With Mr. Skalbania’s backing, George bought the 152-foot research vessel Weatherbird II, repainted it with his new company name – Planktos – and hired a crew to sail for the Galapagos Islands in summer 2007.

His plan was to enlist one of nature’s carbon sponges, algae. He’d scatter a fertilizer of iron dust on 2.4 million acres of the South Pacific, he announced. In three weeks, it would produce a massive bloom of phytoplankton algae, which would inhale carbon dioxide, then sink with the carbon. George would sell his estimate of the absorbed carbon as “carbon offsets” at $5 a ton and make millions. 

The Weatherbird II was under sail preparing to scatter 50 to 100 tons of iron dust when an outcry stopped it. Scientists said there was no way to tell what the iron or algae would do to the ocean environment. Diplomats cited treaties against dumping at sea. The captain of a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship threatened to ram the vessel. The Weatherbird II diverted to the Atlantic. 

But George already was working on another plan: to plant millions of trees in rural Hungary and sell the carbon dioxide those trees could be expected to absorb. 

He formed a Hungarian company, KlimaFa – “Climate Trees.” His publicity strategy: Present the Vatican with carbon offsets to make the Holy See carbon neutral based on the trees he’d plant.
. 
The photo of George handing Cardinal Paul Poupard the offset certificates at the Vatican on July 5, 2007, went worldwide.
.
In the glow of that publicity coup, George offered offsets for sale on his Planktos website. There are no public records of how much he sold. But with the growing outcry over the sea-seeding scheme, Planktos abruptly closed in December 2007.

KlimaFa – and the Vatican’s still unfulfilled offsets – were left in the hands of a Budapest partner, David Gazdag. He blogged a few times about the project, occasionally stopped by government offices to talk, but planted no trees.

“This is a problem,” Gyorgy Dallos, a World Wildlife Federation official, said in Budapest. Carbon offsets create “false hope” if they’re not real. The Vatican’s emissions, he noted, are not neutralized.

Few of the players want to talk about that problem. Mr. Gazdag agreed to an interview in Budapest, then canceled. A Vatican spokesman says “the case is being studied to take legal action in order to defend the Vatican’s reputation.” The Hungarian government, once an enthusiastic supporter of the project, now wants no part of it. Erika Hasznos, Hungary’s chief climate policy officer, walked out of an interview when asked if KlimaFa had submitted applications for the project.

George created another website in 2008, announcing a new business, Planktos-Science. He did not agree to an interview. He replied by e-mail that this story seemed a “potentially hostile piece” and insisted his new company is “no longer affiliated with the now defunct” old company he ran.

In the impoverished village of Tiszakeszi, where KlimaFa trees were to be planted, Mayor Kiss Lajos looks forlornly over the empty space along the Tisza River where George had promised to plant “the Vatican Forest” and create hundreds of jobs.

Villagers in Hungary

“We felt honored because the Vatican chose our village,” he said. “Now we feel sorry.”"
.
Images: Top: "Cardinal Paul Poupard accepts a KlimaFa carbon offset certificate from Russ George in July 2007. The promise to plant a "Vatican forest" as a carbon offset for the Vatican's CO2 emissions, and thereby reduce global warming, was not fulfilled by KlimaFa." Business Wire.

Second: Russ George in Congress 7/18/2007 from RussGeorge.net

Third: "In Tiszakeszi, Hungary, villagers push their bicycles loaded with firewood beside land where the "Vatican Forest" was supposed to be planted by KlimaFa. The company marketed carbon offsets as a way to neutralize CO2 emissions and lessen global warming." BelA Szandelszky

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===============================

Sept. 17, 2007, NY Times hailed Vatican's carbon offsets plan: "The Vatican announced, it would become the world’s first carbon-neutral state." Government scientists from Hungary participated in the project:

9/17/2007, "Vatican Penance: Forgive Us Our Carbon Output," NY Times, Elisabeth Rosenthal

"TISZAKESZI, Hungary — This summer the cardinals at the Vatican accepted an unusual donation from a Hungarian start-up called Klimafa: The company said it would plant trees to restore an ancient forest on a denuded stretch of land by the Tisza River to offset the Vatican’s carbon emissions.

The trees, on a 37-acre tract of land that will be renamed the Vatican climate forest, will in theory absorb as much carbon dioxide as the Vatican will produce in 2007: driving cars, heating offices, lighting St. Peter’s Basilica at night.

In so doing, the Vatican announced, it would become the world’s first carbon-neutral state.

“As the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, recently stated, the international community needs to respect and encourage a ‘green culture,’ ” said Cardinal Paul Poupard, leader of the Pontifical Council for Culture, who took part in a ceremony marking the event at the Vatican. “The Book of Genesis tells us of a beginning in which God placed man as guardian over the earth to make it fruitful.”

In many respects, the program seems like a win-win-win proposition. The Vatican, which has recently made an effort to go green on its own by installing solar panels, sought to set an example by offsetting its carbon emissions.

Hungary, whose government scientists are consulting on the project, will take over large swaths of environmentally degraded, abandoned land restored as a native forest. That will have a beneficial effect on the climate here, and provide jobs in an economically depressed area.

Klimafa, an 18-month-old company, gets the Vatican’s seal of approval and free publicity for its first project. In addition to the Vatican, several European governments, as well as Dell, the computer maker, have bought carbon offsets that will be backed by planting trees on the land. 

“It seems so obvious, but no one was doing it,” said David Gazdag of Klimafa, who brokered the project with backing from his San Francisco parent company, Planktos International, which specializes in ecosystem restoration. But creating and selling carbon “offsets” or “credits” is still a novel idea for business and science, and much debate remains. The calculation for planting trees is especially complicated.

Planting forests is only “a partial solution, and a temporary one,” said Laszlo Galhidy, a forestry officer for the environmental group WWF Hungary, although he praised the project as useful. Young forests — dominated by growing trees — soak up a lot of carbon dioxide, but once the forests mature, they absorb far less, he said. Also, he said, there is no scientific system for predicting the exact carbon-absorbing capacity of a project like the Vatican forest, whose trajectory depends on rainfall, temperature and how fast the trees grow.

The Kyoto Protocol and the European Union’s cap and trade program set emissions targets for countries or large companies. Those that exceed their allowances by emitting too much carbon need to purchase carbon credits from countries or companies that do not need their allotment, or from companies like Klimafa that create credits through green projects like planting trees.

On the European Union market, carbon credits are trading at about $28, with one credit countering one ton of emitted carbon dioxide. Klimafa says its donation to the Vatican is worth about $130,000. The European Union program allows for a much-needed transfer of money from the more developed countries of Western Europe to the new economies of the East.

Countries and companies in the West tend to exceed their allowances, whereas Eastern countries tend to have excess credits to sell because so many polluting Communist-era factories have been shut. 

Also, many of the former Eastern bloc countries had to decommission farmland to join the European Union in accordance with its agricultural policy. In Hungary, as in other new member states, huge tracts of marginal fields have been bought by the government from farmers and are available for reforesting.

The land that will hold Klimafa’s first eco-restoration project, originally called Forest Island, was cleared in the Middle Ages, though it is on a flood plain and has always been risky to farm. The area is a mix of weeds, wetlands, a lake and a few fields of corn that farmers are planting illegally even though they no longer own the land. Much of the land is a jumble of goldenrod and amorpha fruticosa, a weed that grows like wildfire.

Gergely Torda, a plant biologist from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences who is consulting on the project, scans the land as a blank canvas, describing plans for what will be planted where. Later this year, Klimafa will begin clearing the weeds, using local labor, and then start environmentally sensitive planting of native saplings like willows, beeches, ash, certain poplars and oaks. The growing forest will absorb 10 times the carbon that the land currently absorbs, and will be self-sustaining, Mr. Torda said.

Klimafa has been given the right to restore the land by the Bukk National Park, which owns it; costs will be covered by carbon credit purchases. Mr. Torda said it would take 50 to 150 years to produce a mature forest.

After the Vatican agreement was announced, Msgr. Melchor Sánchez de Toca Alameda, an official at the Council for Culture at the Vatican, told the Catholic News Service that buying credits was like doing penance. “One can emit less CO2 by not using heating and not driving a car, or one can do penance by intervening to offset emissions, in this case by planting trees,” he said."

"Planktos abruptly closed in December 2007."

===================================== 

More on Vatican scammer's 7/18/2007 appearance before US Congress 13 days after his Vatican photo-op:

7/18/07, Russ George before US Congress

7/18/2007 Vatican CO2 scammer Russ George appeared before US Congress with others including Joe Romm (photo above), text from You Tube video page. Video provided by US House of Representatives:

"Voluntary Carbon Offsets--Getting What You Pay For (Part 2 of 2) - Part 1 is presently missing. - Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming - 2007-07-18 - Eager to be part of the solution to global warming, many consumers, businesses and government agencies have turned to carbon pollution offsets to help reduce or eliminate their "carbon footprint." While these offsets represent a promising way to engage consumers in global warming solutions, there are many unanswered questions as to the efficacy and accounting of these unregulated commodities. On Wednesday, the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will hold a hearing examining carbon offsets. Chairman Edward Markey (D-MA) will combine his extensive experience in consumer protection to explore the issues of transparency, effectiveness and other necessary questions to ensure carbon offsets can be a responsible way to address global warming on a consumer-based level. Witnesses: Derik Broekhoff, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute; Joseph Romm, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress; Thomas Boucher, President and Chief Executive Officer, NativeEnergy LLC; Russ George, President and Chief Executive Officer, Planktos, Inc.; Eric Blatchford, CEO, TerraPass. Video provided by the U.S. House of Representatives."

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"Uploaded April 11, 2011"  
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================================
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The Vatican scammer wasn't done:
.

In 2013 Russ George scammed a Canadian indigenous group out of its $2.5 million trust fund after promising they'd make millions from his carbon offset idea. Said "gold star scientists" oversaw the project: 

4/8/13, "U.S. Businessman Takes First Nation People for $2.5 Million," Steve Krivit, New Energy Times 
.............

Russ George

"The Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s “Fifth Estate” program about former LENR researcher Russ George aired on March 29. (See New Energy Times article: “CBC-TV Investigates Former LENR Researcher Russ George.”) Here are some of the highlights of the show.

Last year, George used his knowledge of science and his salesmanship to convince an indigenous community off the coast of Canada to part with its $2.5 million trust fund to fund George’s untested — at the time — and still unproven ocean-seeding concept.

Several years ago, George had tried to perform a similar large-scale ocean-seeding experiment to test whether plankton blooms, artificially enriched by iron dust, would capture and permanently sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

However, Paul Watson, founder and president of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and founding director of Greenpeace, chased George around the world and notified local environmental groups and governments wherever George went.

Those governments issued orders to George forbidding performance of his experiments. Environmental organizations issued new conventions to prevent such experiments.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warned George that he would be violating U.S. laws if he went through with his iron dumping plan. Eventually, George ran out of options and money and abandoned his plan and ship, the Weatherbird II.

Soon after, he found a First Nations community, the Old Massett Haida Gwaii village, and learned that its members were desperate for new economic development and a solution to return salmon levels to normal. George also learned that they had a $2.5 million trust fund.

George and John Disney, a local collaborator in the Old Massett village, formed a company called the Haida Salmon Restoration Corp. Together, they convinced the community that George’s untested plan would certainly a) capture carbon from the atmosphere, b) sequester carbon permanently, and c) provide marketable carbon credits to sell for several million dollars more than their initial investment.

George and Disney also told the community that the simple act of his iron dump in the ocean would bring salmon levels back. George had no direct scientific evidence to support his pitches. He took existing scientific data from other events and research and applied that to his sales pitch. He did the deed, and in fact a plankton bloom was observed during the period, but there is no direct evidence that the plankton bloom was caused by George’s dump.

More important, there is no evidence of any permanent carbon sequestration, and nobody is buying any carbon credits from George, his company or the village.

The chief of the community and owner of a coffee shop, Ken Rea, and Disney believed everything George told them. Rea said he learned new things about science, like the word “hypothesis.”

Gillian Findlay, the host for the program, sums up the program.

“In Old Masset,” Findlay said, “their $2.5 million is gone, there will be no carbon credit return, and as for the fish, even if there is another bumper harvest some year, who will ever be able to say it was because of the iron?”

Old Massett resident Gloria Tauber says that history may have repeated.

“When I saw that,” Tauber said, “I fully understood how our ancestors gave away our land for beads and blankets, because it was so easy to convince some of them.…I hope this goes somewhere, that something is done out of it to set a precedent that this is not acceptable and that people shouldn’t be blinded by greed.”

On March 29, when the show aired, CBC reported that the Canadian government issued search warrants for Russ George’s company. Dumping anything in the ocean is a violation of Canadian law. The loophole is that the law allows for scientific experiments.

George and his colleagues have declined to disclose their scientific methods, identify their panel of “gold-star scientists” who oversaw the project or release their data.

No aspect of George’s or his associates’ behavior is consistent with scientific protocol. George will also have difficulty proving this was a scientific experiment, considering that he pitched it as an investment opportunity to the local residents.

Journalist Steven B. Krivit provided background information and video footage of George to CBC and spoke on the show. George claims to be a scientist, however, Krivit learned that George did not obtain a degree in science and did not graduate from college although he attended the University of Utah for two years.

Krivit warned viewers that, if presented with scientific-sounding claims from George, they should demand to see the evidence."

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Image above of Russ George from New Energy Times

................

John Kerry told Paris climate conference that even if US CO2 went to zero, it wouldn't be enough to offset emissions from rest of the world, 65% of global CO2 is from developing nations-Dec. 9, 2015, You Tube video from Paris COP-21

.
12/9/15, John Kerry at Paris climate conference said: 

"If we (the US) somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, guess what – that still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world. If all the industrial nations went down to zero emissions –- remember what I just said, all the industrial emissions went down to zero emissions -– it wouldn’t be enough, not when more than 65% of the world’s carbon pollution comes from the developing world."... 

You Tube video titled, "John Kerry admits at COP-21 that US emissions cuts accomplish nothing for climate."

Text from You Tube page: "From Dec. 9, 2015 address to Paris COP-21 conference. Kerry also emphasizes that even if all industrial country emissions were zeroed out, it would mean nothing for the climate."




...............
 
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Climate policy isn't about climate, UN IPCC official says. It's about 'distributing world wealth.' Climate conventions are actually economic conventions-Nov. 2010 interview, NZZam Sontag

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UN IPCC climate official, 2008-2015, Ottmar Edenhofer states the "climate" issue isn't about climate, "We are de facto distributing world wealth through climate policy."  2010 interview:  

11/14/2010, "Climate policy redistributes world wealth," NZZamSontag, interview with Ottmar Edenhofer by Bernhard Potter

Edenhofer

"It is a great mistake to discuss climate politics separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancún at the end of the month (Nov. 2010) is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conventions since the Second World War....

One has to say clearly: We are de facto distributing world wealth through climate policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy, with problems like forest extinction or ozone hole....

Then we have to see that successful climate policy needs a different global trade and financial policy."...above image of Edenhofer from his website

..........................

From 2008 to 2015 Ottmar Edenhofer was UN IPCC Co-Chair of Working Group III. Among other duties, he'll lay groundwork for worldwide emissions trading: 

"Ottmar Edenhofer takes on chairmanship within IPCC," Potsdam Institute for Climate Research (undated) 

"Ottmar Edenhofer was appointed as joint chair of Working Group 3 at the Twenty-Ninth Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Geneva, Switzerland. The deputy director and chief economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and Professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Berlin Institute of Technology will be co-chairing the Working Group “Mitigation of Climate Change” with Ramón Pichs Madruga from Cuba and Youba Sokona from Mali. In the next seven years the co-chairs will map out strategies for solutions in climate and energy issues and lay out the groundwork for worldwide emissions trading." 

From Edenhofer's website: "Ottmar Edenhofer’s research influences political decision making. He is advising ministers such as former German Foreign Minister and now President-elect Frank-Walther Steinmeier and advises the World Bank on questions of green growth. Furthermore, he is a member of the “High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices” chaired by Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics, and Lord Nicholas Stern at the invitation of Ségolène Royal and Feike Sijbesma, Co-Chairs of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC) High Level Assembly. The commission is preparing a scientific assessment for the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund spring meetings in 2017. In connection with the German G20 presidency this year, Edenhofer heads the T20 Task Force “Climate Policy and Finance” preparing scientific policy advice for the G20 and is a member of the OECD Advisory Council “Growth, Investment and the Low-Carbon Transition”."...

....................

Added: US CO2 has been plunging. Why isn't anyone talking about it (in 2012)? Answer: Because the news is awkward for Obama:

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Reasons for reduced CO2 include natural gas fracking, poor economy, and harsh EPA regulations. 2012 article:

7/17/2012, "U.S. leads the world in cutting CO2 emissions — so why aren’t we talking about it?" Grist, David Roberts

"Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. is making progress on climate change.

We have cut our carbon emissions more than any other country in the world in recent years — 7.7 percent since 2006. U.S. emissions fell 1.9 percent last year and are projected to fall 1.9 percent again this year...

Why isn’t this extraordinary story a bigger deal in U.S. politics? You’d think Obama would be boasting about it! Turns out, though, it’s a little awkward for him, since several of the drivers responsible are things for which

he can’t (or might not want to) take credit....
.

Awkward: that whole recession thing

First off there’s the Great Recession, which flattened electricity demand in 2008. It has never recovered — in fact, in part due to 2011′s mild winter, it has even declined slightly....

For obvious reasons, boasting about the environmental benefits of the recession is not something Obama’s eager to do.

Awkward: frack-o-mania

The second big driver is the glut of cheap natural gas, which is currently trading at the 10-year low of about $3 per million British thermal units. This is absolutely crushing coal, the biggest source of CO2 in the electric sector....

A less significant driver of the switch from coal to natural gas is the EPA’s long overdue rollout of new or tightened clean-air rules on mercury, SO2 and NOx, and CO2. Those rules may do more work later on down the line when/if natural gas prices rise again, but for now the best analysis [PDF] shows that natural gas is doing most of the work killing coal....

Thus: silence in the political world."...
 
=====================================

US CO2 emissions are expected to decline even further: "
U.S. emissions started going down in 2005 and are expected to decline further over the next decade."

 4/21/2012, "Why [CO2] Emissions Are Declining in the U.S. But Not in Europe," by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, newgeography.com

"As we note below in a new article for Yale360, a funny thing happened:

U.S. emissions started going down in 2005 and are expected to decline further over the next decade."  

======================

Sahara desert dust travels across Atlantic Ocean and entire state of Florida every year causing 'red tides,' toxic algae that in one bloom can kill millions of fish along Florida coast, poison shellfish, cause illness in humans, has done so for centuries-NASA study, 2001, map

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African dust travels across entire state of Florida each year, kills millions of Florida fish, manatees, poisons shellfish, can cause human respiratory problems:










Image caption: Satellites can track African dust clouds as they migrate across the Atlantic Ocean. This NASA TOMS aerosol movie, which spans the interval June 13 through 21, 2001, shows such a cloud raining bits of the Sahara Desert over the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. [more information] NASA tested 8,100 sq. mile region between Tampa Bay and Fort Myers, Florida-Aug. 2001 study

Aug. 2001 NASA article:
 
8/30/2001, "Desert Dust Kills Florida Fish," "New research links huge African dust clouds with the "red tides" that kill millions of fish along the Florida coast each year," science.nasa.gov

"Without warning, the sea turns a shade of reddish brown, killing scores of fish and other marine life -- and making the water an unwelcome place for humans.

Such "red tides" have, from time to time, plagued coastal communities for centuries. Now a new study, partially funded by NASA, has revealed a surprising connection between red tides in the Gulf of Mexico and giant dust clouds that blow across the Atlantic Ocean from the distant Sahara Desert. NOAA and NASA satellites can spot such dust clouds en route from Africa to the Americas, raising hopes that space-based data could help scientists predict when red tides will strike the Gulf coast....

"The West Florida shelf is a hot spot for fishing, aquaculture and tourism, all of which can be drastically affected by a surprise visit from a red tide," said Jason Lenes, a graduate student at University of South Florida's College of Marine Science, and the lead author in the study.

Red tides, which are actually blooms of toxic algae, have in the past killed huge numbers of fish, shellfish, marine mammals, and birds. They can also trigger skin and respiratory problems in humans. 

 Storm activity in the Sahara Desert region kicks up fine particles from the arid topsoil there, generating vast clouds of dust. Easterly trade winds carry the dust across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Gulf of Mexico.

The new study shows that these clouds fertilize the water off the West Florida coast with iron. Plant-like bacteria use that iron to set the stage for red tides. When iron levels go up, these bacteria, called Trichodesmium, fix nitrogen in the water, converting it to a form usable by other marine life.

The addition of biologically usable nitrogen in the water makes the Gulf of Mexico a friendlier environment for toxic algae. "This is one of the first studies that quantitatively measured iron from the dust and [linked] it to red tides through Trichodesmium," said Lenes.

The research was partially funded by a NASA grant as part of ECOHAB: Florida (Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms), a multi-disciplinary research project designed to study harmful algae. 

The study used satellite and ground based measurements to track large dust clouds leaving Africa on June 17, 1999. Lenes and his colleagues followed the clouds using data from the Advanced Very-High-Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), an imager aboard the NOAA's Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES). 

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The Saharan dust reached the West Florida shelf around July 1st, increasing iron concentrations in the surface waters by 300 percent. As a result, Trichodesmium counts shot up to 10 times what they had been prior to this event. Through a complex process involving a special enzyme called nitrogenase, the Trichodesmium used the iron to convert nitrogen in the water to a form more usable for other marine life.

In October, after a 300 percent increase of this biologically-accessible nitrogen, a huge bloom of toxic red algae (Karenia brevis) had formed within the study area, an 8,100 square mile region between Tampa Bay and Fort Myers, Florida....

Scientists have labored for several years to develop a reliable method to predict red tides, particularly because the results of these blooms can be both physically and economically devastating to a region. 
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Humans who swim in the Gulf during a red tide can experience respiratory problems by breathing toxins from K. brevis that get in the air. Also, eating shellfish poisoned by red tides can lead to paralysis and memory problems. Around the Gulf of Mexico, scientists and others have recorded fish kills totaling in the millions and manatee deaths in the hundreds resulting from a single red tide bloom.

By using satellites to monitor dust arrivals and Trichodesmium blooms, Lenes said this research could lead to forecasting of red tides. "If you could predict when a red tide is coming, you could close beaches and fisheries ahead of time," Lenes said.

Note: The research reported here appears in the September [2001] issue issue of the scientific journal Limnology and Oceanography. The paper was funded through a number of grants connected with the ECOHAB program. Other funding for this study included grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Office of Naval Research and the Environmental Protection Agency. The ECOHAB: Florida Mission is to better understand the factors involved in the occurrence and dispersal of Florida's predominant red tide algae, K. brevis, and to predict and manage harmful algal bloom events."
 
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