“‘My lords,’ he said, ‘in churches where I preach
I cultivate a haughty kind of speech
And ring it out as roundly as a bell;
I’ve got it all by heart, the tale I tell.
I have a text, it always is the same
And always has been since I learnt the game,
Old as the hills and fresher than the grass,
Radix malorum est cupiditas.’”[1]
From the Pardoner’s Prologue in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, (Coghill translation)[2]
Prologue
The game revealed by Chaucer’s Pardoner in the Canterbury Tales was selling indulgences to the unwary. Until 1567, when Pope Pius V cancelled the sale of indulgences, the Catholic Church sold indulgences to sinners to pardon them from earthly punishment. Drawing on the infinite credit of the good works of Christ and the saints “stored” in the Church’s treasury, Church officials, or Pardoners, played on the fears of individual believers and sold them indulgences.[3] By purchasing indulgences as penance to pay for their sins, sinners avoided earthly punishment and the Church replaced the good works “stored” in its treasury with money.[4]
Since no man is without sin, and only the Catholic Church could claim rights to the “good works” of the saints, it was a booming business.
A Game “Old as the Hills and Fresher than the Grass”
Today’s modern day pardoners
advocate trading indulgences between greenhouse gas sinners and the saints who keep their greenhouse gas emissions low. Since 2005, carbon offsets have been traded electronically on the European Climate Exchange (
ECX). The market in indulgences in the Middle Ages operated similarly to the market in carbon credits now
mandated in Europe and
under consideration by the US Congress except:
-
Instead of trading in the good works of the Catholic saints, indulgences sold today are based on the good works of the greenhouse gas saints.
-
Instead of the Catholic Church deciding who is saintly, today government bureaucrats are the sole arbiters on allowed carbon emissions, and issue credits to those they deem saintly with respect to their greenhouse gas emissions.
On the surface, the details are new and “fresher than the grass”; emitting greenhouse gases is a 21st century sin. But the story is as “old as the hills” as the powerful sell a fiction to the rubes. Since we’re all carbon-based life forms—no man alive is without CO2 or CH4 (methane)—selling carbon indulgences also promises to be a
booming business.[5][6]
Today the preaching is done in the people’s halls: at
IPCC conferences,
G8 Summits, or at the
UN Climate Talks at the Copenhagen summit—today’s churches—government buildings where power is worshipped and the powerful are the gods. The proposed laws on carbon emissions aren't about morality, they're about numbers of metric ton equivalent CO2 emissions (
MtCO2e)—bureaucrats playing god in a centrally-planned, Soviet Union-style economy.
Advocates pretend
cap and trade mandates by governments are a “free market solution,” harping on the benefits of “free market trading of emissions allowances.” Would-be regulators stress the difference between it and a “command-and-control” pollution reduction system.[7] It’s classic
Doublespeak—call it what it isn’t—they never acknowledge that the government-mandated cap, the “command-and-control” part of the system, is crucial to their “free market” scheme.
If governments didn’t make carbon emission a sin, why would anyone need to buy carbon indulgences?[8]
“I bring you good news”
The good news in the time of Chaucer’s Pardoner was still the kerygma: the apostolic message that the kingdom of God is at hand. The Catholic church could sell indulgences because it was the one and only intermediary between God and the human race. Throughout the West, it held the monopoly on talking to God. Competitors were branded heretics. The Catholic Church was universal and the gateway to the power of the universe: God.
In 1997, 187 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The protocol went into force on 2005. The US signed, but the US Senate voted 95 to 0 not to ratify the Kyoto treaty. For Pardoners, this was not good news.
It took 12 years before our 21st century would-be-Pardoner-in-chief, Al Gore, declared the “good news” of salvation on July 7, 2009 at the Smith School World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment:
“I bring you good news from the United States. Within one month of taking office, President Obama secured $80 billion US for renewable energy and green infrastructure. And just two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey bill, which for all of its flaws, does put a price on carbon and is very much a step in the right direction.”[9]
A step in the right direction for Al Gore means a step towards government mandates for the masses declaring the sinful nature of their carbon emissions.
One World Government aka “Global Governance”: The Catholic (Universal) State is the New Religion
Today, the power of the state is the new god. And pols everywhere want a universal church—global governance—to control access to that power. The church of global warming needs universal participation—global mandates of emissions caps keep the price of carbon emissions high so worshippers will pay a good price to purchase their indulgences anywhere in the world.
Gore’s good news of 2009 was the drawing near of one world government in the form of HR2454, the 1428-page Waxman-Markey “cap and trade” bill (pdf). Gore claimed it “will dramatically increase the prospects for success” combating what Gore preaches as the “crisis of man-made global warming.” But more importantly, it will move us closer to one world government, something greenhouse gas conspirators now call “Global Governance.”[10]
The would-be-Pardoner-in-chief and fellow conspirators of today see the value of applying the same model as Chaucer’s Pardoner to their own scheme:
“But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements.” (Listen to the Pardoner’s comments on “global governance” at 1min. 10 sec. into this video.)[11]
The day after would-be-Pardoner-in-chief Gore’s talk, Pope Obama (D) pushed for the passage of the bill in the Senate as he attended the G8 summit where he agreed to attempt to keep the Earth's temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C.[13]
Climategate Heresy
In December 2009, before the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen, would-be-Pardoner-in-chief Gore repeated his push for a global system. After the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU) Climategate revelations, Gore also rejected any intimations that like Chaucer’s Pardoner, he relied on false relics. The Times reported that Gore:
“…also brushed aside questions over the reliability of climate science that have followed the publication last month of leaked e-mails between climate experts. He claimed that the scientific consensus around climate change ‘continues to grow from strength to strength’. He added: ‘The naysayers are in a sunset phase with a spectacular climax just before they subside from view. This is a race between common sense and unreality.’”[14]
As in Chaucer’s time, when questioning the church meant heresy and heretics were punished, today if the rubes voice their suspicions, those in power try to stifle any dissent.
“Cap and Trade” = “Cap and Tax”
"Cap and trade" carbon legislation translates to artificial carbon rationing and new energy taxes.[15] To hide the new energy taxes, the Senate version of “cap and trade” legislation, the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act proposed May 12, 2010, buries them in a 987-page climate bill (pdf).[16][17]
The proposed bill creates a federal greenhouse gas emissions registry and a schedule of allowed US carbon emissions in metric ton equivalent CO2 emissions. It creates a system of carbon indulgences by listing:
- The Sins of our Time: Section 711 lists regulated greenhouse gases: CO2, CH4, N2O, SF6, NF3, perfluorocarbon, and hydrofluorocarbon.
- A Definition of the Relative Sinfulness to determine the price for penances: Section 712 lists the CO2 equivalent of the greenhouse gases.
- The Confessionals (where a sinner admits his sin and accepts his penance): Sections 713 and 714 establish registries to track emissions.
- The Plan to Establish God’s Kingdom on Earth (in this case, god = the federal government): Section 721 sets a schedule of decreasing emissions from 2013 to 2050 and Section 722 prohibits excess emissions. Every April Fool’s Day the allowed amount of emissions decreases.
- Establishment of the Price for Indulgences: Section 723 of the proposed bill mandates an “excess emissions penalty” equal to twice what the excess emissions would have cost if purchased in a climate exchange.
- Papal Oversight of the Sale of Indulgences: Section 724 sets up government oversight of the climate exchange.
- The Bank of “Good Works” to draw upon to sell indulgences: Section 725 sets up a banking system in carbon credits.
- Declaration of the Infinite Credit for the Good Works of the Saints: Section 726 sets up a ‘Cost Containment Reserve’ of four billion emission allowances for “market stability” of emission allowances. The federal government gets to sell these. (These “paper indulgences” are comparable to the “paper money” created by the Federal Reserve.)
Radix malorum est cupiditas
Chaucer’s Pardoner admits the abuses that occurred when Pardoners doled out indulgences for money:
"That trick’s been worth a hundred marks a year
Since I became a Pardoner, never fear.
Then priest-like in my pulpit, with a frown,
I stand, and when the yokels have sat down,
I preach, as you have heard me say before,
And tell a hundred lying mockeries more.
I take great pains, and stretching out my neck
To east and west I crane about and peck
Just like a pigeon sitting on a barn.
My hands and tongue together spin the yarn
And all my antics are a joy to see.
The curse of avarice and cupidity
Is all my sermon, for it frees the pelf.
Out come the pence, and specially for myself,
For my exclusive purpose is to win
And not at all to castigate their sin.”
From the Pardoner’s Prologue in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, (Coghill translation)[18]
If only our modern day Pardoners were as honest as
Chaucer’s Pardoner. It would be easier for people to see the
grift:
- The Pardoner of the British church of Global Warming, former prime minister Tony Blair, “will be paid at least £700,000 a year to act as a ‘strategic adviser’” to an American venture capitalist who seeks to profit from businesses reducing carbon emissions.[19]
- Would-be-Pardoner-in-chief Gore’s venture capital firm, KPCB, loaned $75m to a small California firm, Silver Spring Networks, to develop energy-saving technology in October 2008. By May 2010, more than $560 million in DOE smart grid grants went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.[20]
- Would-be-Pardoner-in-chief Gore’s asset management firm Generation Investment Management (GIM), owns 3% of Richard Sandor’s Climate Exchange PLC, the holding company for the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), North America’s only voluntary, greenhouse gas reduction and trading system. With the slow progress on a Senate “cap and tax” bill, Sandor agreed to sell the business to Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), in April 2010, for$604 million. GIM’s share: approximately $18 million.
- Would-be Pardoner-in-chief Gore preaches about rising sea levels and flooding as some of the consequences for carbon sinners.[21] A foldout from his November 2009 book, Our Choice A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, depicts the world after sea levels rise.[22] His book shows Pico Turquino in Cuba at 6,476 ft elevation covered by water. Gore recently increased his own carbon footprint in April 2010, by spending $8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres in Montecito with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, six fireplaces, five bedrooms, and nine bathrooms.[23] Montecito’s elevation is 180 feet.
Old as the Hills: 'Redistribution of wealth'
The Catholic church stopped selling indulgences almost 500 years ago. Today pols want to sell carbon indulgences. To administer it, they’re building a “Global Governance”—a system where the power of the state is god and one world government is the only gateway to it.
Did Chaucer’s Pardoner want to save souls when he sold indulgences in the Middle Ages? Do today’s Pardoners want to save the planet?
“What! Do you think, as long as I can preach
And get their silver for the things I teach,
That I will live in poverty, from choice?
That’s not the counsel of my inner voice!”
From the Pardoner’s Prologue in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, (Coghill translation) [24]
_____________________________
[1] Latin for “The root of all evil is greed.”
[2] The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, late 14th century, Coghill translation 1951, p.241. (Online version at http://books.google.com/books?id=Ek_-lNfzGUcC&lpg=PP1&dq=penguin%20classics%20chaucer%20canterbury%20tales&pg=PA241#v=onepage&q&f=true).
[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article 4, Section X
1476 We also call these spiritual goods of the communion of saints the Church's treasury, which is "not the sum total of the material goods which have accumulated during the course of the centuries. On the contrary the 'treasury of the Church' is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ's merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer himself, the satisfactions and merits of his Redemption exist and find their efficacy."
1477 "This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission in the unity of the Mystical Body."
[4]
Catechism of the Catholic Church,
Article 4, Section X Obtaining indulgence from God through the Church
1478 An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity.
[5] Dr. Richard Sandor, Chairman and CEO, Chicago Climate Exchange, Executive Chairman, Climate Exchange, PLC discusses the founding of his churches of carbon reduction in this Dec 5, 2007 video where he discusses the potential for wealth creation:
Climate Change Lunch Series, Financial News, London, December 5, 2007, Dr. Richard Sandor, Chairman and CEO, Chicago Climate Exchange, Executive Chairman, Climate Exchange, PLC.
Sandor gives an overview of his theory of wealth creation (all for the benefit of mankind of course):
-
1940-70 based on manufacturing
-
decade of 70s inspired by inflation
-
80s commoditization of interest rates, mortgages eliminated discriminations that were common at that time; commoditization of bank debt; democratized capital markets
-
90s commoditization of information and data; fortunes and value creation came from those involved in software and high tech
-
Now the commoditization of air and water: public goods; emissions trading potential to transform for the better the lives of people in the world.
[6] Interesting to etymologists, the word for human gas emissions that can contain the greenhouse gas methane, ‘
fart,’ first
appears in writing in Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales.
[7] “Emissions trading in the U.S. Experience, Lessons, and Considerations for Greenhouse Gases,” Prepared for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, A. Denny Ellerman and Paul L. Joskow MIT, David Harrison, Jr. NATIONAL ECONOMIC RESEARCH ASSOCIATES, INC., May 2003, (Accessed at
http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/emissions_trading.pdf on May 21, 2010).
From the executive summary:
“Emissions trading has emerged over the last two decades as a popular policy tool for controlling air pollution. Indeed, most major air quality improvement initiatives in the United States now include emissions trading as a component of emissions control programs. The primary attraction of emissions trading is that a properly designed program provides a framework to meet emissions reduction goals at the lowest possible cost.
“It does so by giving emissions sources the flexibility to find and apply the lowest-cost methods for reducing pollution. Emission sources with low-cost compliance options have an incentive to reduce emissions more than they would under command-and-control regulation…”
“In practice, well-designed emissions trading programs also have achieved environmental goals more quickly and with greater confidence than more costly command-and-control alternatives.”
[8] “
World Carbon Standards to Relax - CCX Head,”
15-Sep-08, Timothy Gardner, (Accessed at
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/50229/story.htm on May 29, 2010).
Why? Because when the government mandates a thing, it becomes much more expensive. In 2008:
“Credits on the CCX, at US$2.50 a tonne, are far cheaper than those in European Union of about US$31.70 a tonne, where a mandatory market has operated since 2005.”
The CCX carbon credit price is still low after health care “re-form,” because D political capital has waned and they are slow to push the Kerry-Lieberman Senate bill.
[10] “It's Not Just That Global Warming Is Fake. What Matters Is Why This Fakery Is Being Promoted,” July 3, 2009, (Accessed at http://www.garynorth.com/public/5156print.cfm on May 20, 2010).
Does “Global Governance” sound less oppressive than one world government? North writes:
“The global warming movement is not about global warming. It is about the creation of an international political control arrangement by which bureaucrats who favor socialism can gain control over the international economy.”
Global warming is the misdirection, global governance is the goal. Whom would you rather trust: Al Gore, who has made 1000s of trips to promote his cause and will profit mightily from cap-and-trade, or thousands of scientists who dispute his conclusions?
[11] Webster and Pagnamenta.
Gore's call for “global governance” echoes former French President Chirac on November 20, 2000 when then French President Chirac said in a speech at The Hague that the UN's Kyoto Protocol represented "the first component of an authentic global governance":
“For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance, one that should find a place within the World Environmental Organisation which France and the European Union would like to see established…From the very earliest age, we should make environmental awareness a major theme of education and a major theme of political debate, until respect for the environment comes to be as fundamental as safeguarding our rights and freedoms. By acting together, by building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance, we are working for dialogue and peace.”[11]
[12] “Speech by Mr. Jacques Chirac, French President, to the VIth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, The Hague,” November 20, 2000, (Accessed at http://sovereignty.net/center/chirac.html on May 20, 2010).
[13] “G8 summit: Barack Obama says world can close the carbon emissions gap,” Patrick Wintour and Larry Elliott, guardian.co.uk, 9 July 2009, (Accessed at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/09/barack-obama-g8-climate-change on May 20, 2010).
While Al could learn from Chaucer’s writings of 1385 AD, Obama could stand a lesson from King Canute circa 1000 AD.
[14] “Copenhagen targets not tough enough, says Al Gore,” Robin Pagnamenta, The Times, December 4, 2009, (Accessed at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6943447.ece on May 20, 2010).
[15] “Designing a mandatory greenhouse gas
reduction program for the U.S.,” (pdf) by Robert R. Nordhaus and
Kyle W. Danish for Pew Center on Global Climate Change, May 2003, (Accessed at http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/USGas.pdf on June 4, 2010).
“Because any all-sector cap-and-trade program (whether upstream or downstream) will drive up consumer costs for gasoline, natural gas, and home heating oil, it is likely to be politically difficult.”
[16] “Senate Gets a Climate and Energy Bill, Modified by a Gulf Spill That Still Grows,” By John M. Broder, NY Times, May 12, 2010, (Accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/science/earth/13climate.html on May 20, 2010).
[17] “Just Don't Call It a Climate Bill John Kerry rearranges cap and tax—and hopes no one notices,” MAY 17, 2010, (Accessed at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703339304575240353420875226.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines on June 1, 2010).
[18] The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, late 14th century, Coghill translation 1951, p.242. (Online version at http://books.google.com/books?id=Ek_-lNfzGUcC&lpg=PP1&dq=penguin%20classics%20chaucer%20canterbury%20tales&pg=PA242#v=onepage&q&f=true).
[19] “Tony Blair to earn millions as climate change adviser,” Sri Carmichael, May 26, 2010, London Evening Standard, (Accessed at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23838369-tony-blair-to-earn-millions-as-climate-change-adviser.do on May 27, 2010).
[20] “Al Gore could become world's first carbon billionaire,” 03 Nov 2009, Telegraph, (Accessed at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html on May 28, 2010).
[21] “Al Gore's 'nine Inconvenient Untruths',” By Sally Peck, 11 Oct 2007, Telegraph, (Accessed at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3310137/Al-Gores-nine-Inconvenient-Untruths.html on May 28, 2010).
From the article:
“Mr Gore claims that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of either West Antarctica or Greenland ‘in the near future.’ The judge said: ‘This is distinctly alarmist and part of Mr Gore's "wake-up call"’. He agreed that if Greenland melted it would release this amount of water - ‘but only after, and over, millennia.’ The Armageddon scenario he predicts, insofar as it suggests that sea level rises of seven metres might occur in the immediate future, is not in line with the scientific consensus."
[22] “
Mistakes with Cover to Our Choice by Al Gore,” by Tony Pann, (Accessed at
http://www.examiner.com/x-11224-Baltimore-Weather-Examiner~y2009m11d23-Mistakes-in-Al-Gores-new-book-begin-with-the-cover on June 6, 2010).
Slideshow Accessed at http://www.examiner.com/ExaminerSlideshow.html?entryid=777216&slide=5 on June 6, 2010.
[23] “Al Gore, Tipper Gore snap up Montecito-area villa,” Lauren Beale, Los Angeles Times, April 28, 2010, (Accessed at http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/28/home/la-hm-hotprop-gore-20100428 on May 17, 2010).
Perhaps Mr. Gore read this.
[24] The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, late 14th century, Coghill translation 1951, p.244. (Online version at http://books.google.com/books?id=Ek_-lNfzGUcC&lpg=PP1&dq=penguin%20classics%20chaucer%20canterbury%20tales&pg=PA244#v=onepage&q&f=true).
Posts
