Inventer connects the dots back to his involuntary Verichip implant

Bob Boyce first noticed what turned out to be the VeriChip implant that caused his malignant tumor when he was working with former associate, Bob Potchen. Having fallen asleep at a desk, when he awoke, his right shoulder felt like it had been numbed; and when he rubbed it, he noticed a small, hard lump there.

Boyce chip implanter suspect identified

Pure Energy Systems News | Dec 6, 2009

by Sterling D. Allan

We recently reported that Bob Boyce, the highly-revered inventor of ultra-efficient electrolysis systems and of a self-charging battery circuit (harnessing energy from the environment, possibly from zero point energy), had contracted terminal cancer and that the originating point was a VeriChip microchip that someone implanted in his right shoulder without his knowledge or permission.

We said that he didn’t know when or how the chip was implanted. However, as he has thought back through recent events, he has pieced together a number of things that paint a fairly incriminating portrait.

The first time he noticed what turned out to be the chip was on May 9 when he was working with an associate, Bob Potchen, of Precombustion Technologies Inc. (PTI), now “The Cell”. (Hereafter, “Bob” will refer to Bob Boyce, and “Potchen” will refer to Bob Potchen). Potchen was implementing Bob’s hydroxy gas booster technology into a product to take to market. Their relationship had been growing tense, and Bob was preparing to depart.

Bob had fallen asleep at a desk at PTI’s office, pulling an all-nighter. When he awoke, his right shoulder felt like it had been numbed; and when he rubbed it, he noticed a small, hard lump there. Having recently had some benign skin cancer removed, he assumed it was just another tumor, and thought no more of it, until the skin turned red and his shoulder became very sore many months later.

Related

Free energy inventor discovers mystery Verichip tracking implant in shoulder, caused cancer

Back at his own lab, he noticed that his shoulder was “transmitting” RF radiation. Then, when he had the tumor that formed there removed, he looked at the small-grain-of-rice-sized microchip before the doctor took the tissue away to be examined by pathology. He then researched various companies that manufacture implantable microchips, and he saw that the chip that had been removed from his shoulder matched the chip design by VeriChip. In particular, there is a thin, white rubber-like coating on one end that the tissue grows to so the chip won’t migrate. The pathology report did not mention the chip.

The reason for Bob’s falling out was that Potchen, who is ‘former’ Military Intelligence, had been making modifications to the hydroxy-generating device that Bob said were reducing the cell’s efficiency. Prior to those modifications, the cell was producing great results when installed in test vehicles. In one case, the mileage of a truck increased from 5.5 mpg to 11.7 mpg – more than double.

Bob described a number of modifications that Potchen made in the name of making the cell cheaper to produce, but which significantly worked against the efficiency. “It’s as if he was intentionally sabotaging the system to discredit the field.”

Bob withdrew his endorsement of Potchen’s device and published his concerns to some hydroxy forums, but later deleted those posts due to Potchen threatening legal action, not wanting to be dragged through court.

The input meter on the device was modified to read lower than reality. One truck’s alternator was burned out, because the device was pulling 195 amps, while the device meter read only “45 amps”.

In October, Bob had one of Potchen’s cells tested by a university on a dynamometer. The mileage of the truck with the cell installed went from 13 mpg before the install to 10 mpg after the install.

I talked to another former associate of Potchen’s and he made the same observation about the performance of the cell when Bob was involved verses after Potchen made all those changes that “didn’t make any sense.” He said that he knows of around 100 customers who have had complaints about the device. He also said that there are a number of people who sacrificed a lot of money to help launch the business, but who have not seen anything in return.

When people contact Potchen to complain about the performance of the cell they purchased, he tells them something to the effect, “That’s odd. You’re the only one who’s contacted me about having problems. It’s working well for everyone else.”

The former associate said that there are rumblings about some of those customers taking the matter up with their state attorney generals. He said that if Potchen threatens action against anyone at this point, that he will be further stirring up 100 customers to come forward with formal complaints. “At that point, he’ll probably jump on his plane and fly out of the country.”

When asked about the possibility that Potchen might have implanted the VeriChip in Bob Boyce’s shoulder, the former associate said, “I don’t put anything past Bob Potchen.”

Gropenhagen: Prostitutes Offer Free Climate Summit Sex

Danish sex workers are offering free sex to COP15 in order to defend their industry. REUTERS

Gropenhagen Conference

Spiegel | Dec 4, 2009

by Julian Isherwood

Copenhagen Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards to city hotels warning summit guests not to patronize Danish sex workers during the upcoming conference. Now, the prostitutes have struck back, offering free sex to anyone who produces one of the warnings.

Copenhagen’s city council in conjunction with Lord Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards out to 160 Copenhagen hotels urging COP15 guests and delegates to ‘Be sustainable – don’t buy sex’.

“Dear hotel owner, we would like to urge you not to arrange contacts between hotel guests and prostitutes,” the approach to hotels says.

Now, Copenhagen prostitutes are up in arms, saying that the council has no business meddling in their affairs. They have now offered free sex to anyone who can produce one of the offending postcards and their COP15 identity card, according to the Web site avisen.dk.

Discrimination

According to the report, the move has been organized by the Sex Workers Interest Group (SIO).

“This is sheer discrimination. Ritt Bjerregaard is abusing her position as Lord Mayor in using her power to prevent us carrying out our perfectly legal job. I don’t understand how she can be allowed to contact people in this way,” SIO Spokeswoman Susanne Møller tells avisen.dk.

Møller adds that it is reprehensible and unfair that Copenhagen politicians have chosen to use the UN Climate Summit as a platform for a hetz against sex workers.

“But they’ve done it and we have to defend ourselves,” Møller says.

Copenhagen Climate Conference to Create ‘Huge’ Carbon Footprint

Commuters at Copenhagen’s Central Railway Station walk under a banner urging Danes to be more climate-conscious.

AP | Dec 3, 2009

By Joshua Rhett Miller

Talk about your global warming . . . When an estimated 16,500 delegates, activists and reporters descend upon Copenhagen Monday for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, a lot of hot air will follow.

The U.N. estimates the 12-day conference will create 40,584 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, roughly the same amount as the carbon emissions of Morocco in 2006.

Those greenhouse gas emissions are comprised of two parts: international travel and local emissions from hotels and transportation venues. Organizers will also reportedly lay 900 kilometers of computer cable and 50,000 square miles of carpet, along with more than 200,000 meals to be served and 200,000 cups of coffee.

The conference will leave an enormous carbon footprint, says Patrick Michaels, senior fellow for environmental studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington.

“It will be huge,” Michaels said of the environmental toll. “Where is video conferencing when we need it? An equally important question is what will be accomplished here?”

Approximately 140 aircraft carrying world leaders, heads of state and VIPs will land in Copenhagen, the U.N. estimates — although 95 percent of departures from Copenhagen Airport will be “green departures,” which allow airplanes to climb continuously to their optimal operating level, enabling them to reach planned routes sooner than usual. The result, according to the U.N., is saved time, fuel and carbon emissions.

But Michaels wonders why attendees, particularly those in Europe, can’t ride the rails into Copenhagen.

“That’s the way I get to New York,” Michaels said. “There’s nothing new here. There’s always been a lot of hypocrisy amongst the climate change political community.

“Prince Charles goes around the world in a private jet, telling everyone else they need to ration their carbon dioxide. Please.”

Herb London, president of the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think tank, acknowledged the “level of hypocrisy” regarding the conference and its emissions, but he said living in modernity mandates some sort of measurable carbon footprint. The question, he said, is if the carbon footprint left behind is desirable and efficient.

“It is ironic that you’ll have all these pronouncements made and very little action,” London told FoxNews.com. “What are [China and India] going to do? So what are we talking about here?”

To minimize the conference’s carbon footprint, the U.N. says the main venue, The Bella Center, aims to reach a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. To reach that goal, delegates have been urged to use public transportation to the site, to drink water from the tap instead of plastic bottles, and to minimize paper waste. Hotel owners have been asked to offer rooms that have been certified as environment-friendly.

Despite those efforts, Michaels said he expects little if any firm proposals to come out of the conference, which aims to produce a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

“It will not produce a concrete agreement on climate change, meaning a universally-accepted international agreement with targets and timetables,” Michaels said. “It will, however, produce a statement that there’s been a breakthrough even though there will not have been.”

President Obama will travel to the Danish capital on Dec. 9 to offer his goal of cutting emissions 17 percent by 2020, in line with a bill passed by the House in June and slightly less than a 20-percent decrease proposed in the Senate.

“The president going to Copenhagen will give positive momentum to the negotiations,” Michael Froman, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for international economies, told reporters last month. “We think it will enhance prospects for success.”

Joined by up to seven cabinet members, Obama will also propose reducing emissions by 83 percent by 2050 and a 30 percent reduction in 2005 levels by 2025. China and India have said industrialized countries like the United States — the biggest greenhouse gas producer among developed nations — must be willing to slash carbon output 40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels if it expects poorer economies to agree to long-term goals.

Town council bureaucrats ban gnomes

Linda Langford, 57, with two six-inch garden gnomes and the sign council chiefs mistakenly said must be moved from the front of her council flat

‘Our policy is that as long as there is not an excessive number of gnomes, they can stay.’

Council chiefs who mistakenly banned 6-inch garden gnomes over ‘elf and safety’ say sorry

Daily Mail | Dec 1, 2009

Council chiefs have apologised for mistakenly banning families from putting gnomes outside their houses over health and safety fears.

Linda Langford, 57, was told her two six-inch garden gnomes should be moved from the front of her council flat in case people trip over them.

The garden ornaments, one hitting an anvil and the other reading a book, have stood outside Miss Langford’s home in Tipton, West Midlands, for the last nine years.

Miss Langford, who lives in a two-storey block of flats, was stunned after receiving the letter telling her to remove them from the corridor outside her home.

A welcome plaque on her wall and her doormat were also marked as serious health and safety risks, according to Sandwell council.

In a statement, it defended the move saying that the removal of welcome mats and ornaments was potentially ‘life-saving’.

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council said a letter sent to Ms Langford, which also instructed her to withdraw a pottery tortoise from a communal area outside her flat, had been based on a misunderstanding of its fire safety rules.

Sandwell’s housing chief, Councillor Mahboob Hussain, admitted that tenants in low-rise council flats should not face a blanket ban on ornaments in communal areas.

Mr Hussain, the borough’s cabinet member for neighbourhoods and housing, said: ‘A Sandwell Homes officer visited Mrs Langford to discuss items in communal areas because we were reviewing our fire regulations in flats.

‘Mrs Langford wasn’t in and the officer left a note, which incorrectly asked Mrs Langford to remove the items from outside her flat.

‘Sandwell Homes had slightly misinterpreted the policy on items in communal areas.’

The councillor said the authority’s aim was to use common sense in identifying fire hazards and to treat each case on its merits.

‘Our policy is that as long as there is not an excessive number of gnomes or similar items in communal areas, and as long as there isn’t a problem with these items being damaged through anti-social behaviour, they can stay.’

Before the apology, Mrs Langford said of the letter: ‘It is heath and safety gone mad – it’s barmy.

‘The idea that my two little gnomes are a fire hazard or that they are dangerous in any way is absolutely ridiculous.

‘All we are trying to do is make our environment a bit nicer to look at – nothing on the landing blocks the exits, it is certainly not dangerous in any way.’

Gnome expert Anne Atkin said she thought the idea of garden gnomes being a fire risk was absurd.

She said in all her years of collecting over 1,000 of the ornaments she had never seen one cause an accident.

She said: ‘I have been looking after gnomes and giving them a home for 31 years and have never once seen a gnome catch alight.

‘It is a ridiculous thought that gnomes could be a fire risk – they are made of pottery and are far too small to block an exit.’

Fiona McEvoy from the Taxpayers Alliance said the council should think more before it wasted time on similar decisions.

She said: ‘This is the epitome of local Government busy-bodying – surely our councils have more important things to concern themselves with than the harmless characters someone might chose to sit outside their home?

‘They have vital services to oversee, and we’d like to see those prioritised before they spend anymore time trying to identify potential trip hazards.’

Masonic author: “Third Secret of Fatima refers to Freemasons, Illuminati, Knights Templar and Bogomils”

Pope John Paul II making the sign of fidelity to the Craft.

An initiated Mason throws the gauntlet: Fatima Prophecy Brings John Paul II to Bulgaria

Bulgarian priests used to work in the Vatican’s most secret archives, Dimitar Nedkov reveals in his novel

Standart | Nov 27, 2009

“Pope John Paul II took the decision to visit Sofia at his sole discretion in order to dissolve completely any suspicions of the Bulgarian trace in the attempt on his life. His councilors were absolutely against the idea but he refused to listen to them. This was one of the few cases when the Pope would not take their opinion in consideration.”

This is the gauntlet high-ranking Mason, Dimitar Nedkov throws in his first novel 33 – The Menace Dan Brown.  The book will be released together with the December 1 issue of the Standart. In the book, Nedkov, who is recognized as one of the notable experts in the history of the Freemasons suggests that the mission of John Paul II to Bulgaria was coded in the third prophecy of Fatima. This has been one of the most jelously kept secrets of the Vatican. The Pope was the only person who knew its contents.

The mysterious story began on May 13, 1917. Then three young shepherds witnessed the apparition of the Virgin Mary in the vicinity of a small Portuguese town of Fatima. The vision reappeared on every 13th day of the month till October. Thus the children learnt about the First and Second World War, about the onset of Communism as an official state power.

On her last appearance, Our Lady of Fatima spoke fateful words. In her third prophecy Our Lady said things that were later related by little shepherdess Lucia and written down. Lucia’s writing was put into an envelope and handed to the Bishop of Leiria. Lucia became a nun; her request was the envelope to be opened after 1960. The bishop sent it to the Pope.

After the envelope was opened, the Vatican surprisingly refused to reveal the secret to the general public. The same was the response of Pope John-Paul II. “This is a spiritual message which doesn’t concern any concrete events. It is unnecessary to make a sensation of it,” the Pope explained his decision.

“The third prophecy of Our Lady of Fatima is one of the reasons why the Pope -Freemason John Paul II – was so persevering in his efforts to rehabilitate the Freemasons before the world,” Dimitar Nedkov continues to send challenges in his first novel.

The author hints that the Third Secret of Fatima refers to the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Knights Templar and the Bogomils. The author claims that it’s the Pope, along with the Grand Commander of the Masons and a monk from Mount Athos, who are the real guardians of the Brotherhood’s greatest secrets.

“Bulgarians have worked in the Vatican’s most secret archive chambers,” Nedkov reveals in his work.

The author alleges that representatives of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church have had access to documents about Pythagoras, Galileo Galilei and the Mysteries of Fatima.

Scientists ‘grow’ meat in laboratory

The move towards artificially engineered foods has taken a step forward after scientists grew a form of meat in a laboratory for the first time.

Telegraph | Nov 29, 2009

By Nick Britten

Researchers in the Netherlands have created what was described as soggy pork and are now investigating ways to improve the muscle tissue in the hope that people will one day want to eat it.

No one has yet tasted the product, but it is believed the artificial meat could be on sale within five years.

Vegetarian groups welcomed the news, saying there was “no ethical objection” if meat was not a piece of a dead animal.

Mark Post, professor of physiology at Eindhoven University, said: “What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue. We need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there.

“This product will be good for the environment and will reduce animal suffering. If it feels and tastes like meat, people will buy it.

“You could take the meat from one animal and create the volume of meat previously provided by a million animals.”

The scientists extracted cells from the muscle of a live pig and then put them in a broth of other animal products. The cells then multiplied and created muscle tissue. They believe that it can be turned into something like steak if they can find a way to artificially “exercise” the muscle.

The project is backed by the Dutch government and a sausage maker and comes following the creation of artificial fish fillets from goldfish muscle cells.

Meat produced in a laboratory could reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with real animals.

Meat and dairy consumption is predicted to double by 2050 and methane from livestock is said to currently produce about 18 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases.

It was supported by animal rights campaigners. A spokesman for Peta said: “As far as we’re concerned, if meat is no longer a piece of a dead animal there’s no ethical objection.”

However the Vegetarian Society said: “The big question is how could you guarantee you were eating artificial flesh rather than flesh from an animal that had been slaughtered.

“It would be very difficult to label and identify in a way that people would trust.”

The advent of meat grown for consumers could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals and help meet the United Nation’s predictions that meat and dairy consumption will double by 2050.

However, the latest breakthrough is certain to cause concern amongst the anti-GM lobby.

Last week Prince Charles, a fierce opponent of GM food, warned that people were creating problems by “treating food as an easy commodity rather than a precious gift from nature”.

His comments came as the results of a survey commissioned by the Food Standards Agency revealed concerns about long-term health and environmental impacts of genetically modified products.

It showed shoppers want to be told when meat and milk from cows is genetically modified through clear labelling.

GM supporters say they are aware of risks associated with “engineered” food but believe it benefits the Third World.

Free energy inventor discovers mystery Verichip tracking implant in shoulder, caused cancer

Bob Boyce is a famous inventor in the world of ultra-efficient electrolysis and hydroxy research.  The chip found in his shoulder at the point of tumor formation turns out to be manufactured by VeriChip.

Bob Boyce, who has invented a super-efficient electrolysis method, as well as a self-looping electrical circuit capable of charging batteries, discovered a microchip implant in his shoulder when having a tumor removed from that spot, which metastasized.  It turns out the chip was made by VeriChip.

Pure Energy Systems News | Nov 28, 2009

Inventor’s terminal cancer courtesy of Verichip?

by Sterling D. Allan

On Nov. 12, we reported that a South African experimenter has modified an electrolysis circuit developed by Bob Boyce so that now it recharges his daughter’s electric vehicle riding toy. We said that what makes this remarkable is that the energy is not drawn from the wall but from the environment somehow; and that he’s done this around 35 times now and knows of three replications of the effect by others.  We created a feature page and a discussion list to facilitate additional replications and development of the technology.

We also reported in the same story that we had become aware the day before that Bob Boyce has “terminal” cancer, and that his days are numbered if some kind of remedy isn’t found.

On Nov. 12, Bob wrote:

The cancer that I have developed was not directly due to my research, as many have suggested. Having said that, it did occur under suspicious circumstances. When I was in Florida earlier this year, I noticed a small, hard lump had appeared under the skin of my right shoulder. I wondered where it came from, of course, but did not give it much thought. Over time, the skin over and around the lump turned reddish and became sore.

A few months ago, while working with an EMF meter on the bench in my lab, I noticed that I was picking up a weak signal. Nothing else was running at the time, so I tried locating the source, and traced it to the lump in my shoulder! I made arrangements with my doctor to have it removed, and he suspected a common skin cancer.

The object itself was tiny, about the size of a dry grain of rice, surrounded by a white fibrous shell. It had numerous nerves attached to it.

Once it had been removed, it ceased sending out a signal, as verified by my portable EMF detector.

I wanted to keep it and analyze it myself, but my doctor convinced me to let him send it off to the lab. My doctor sent it and the surrounding tissue off for pathology. Not surprisingly, there was absolutely no mention of the object itself in the pathology report.

The surrounding tissue turned out to be this rare form of cancer that has been linked to excessive x-ray exposure in x-ray technicians. The surgery had disturbed the cancer and sent cancer cells throughout my blood stream. The margins were not clear, indicating that the cancer was still present at the incision site, as well as clear indications now that the cancer has spread. I can’t blame the doctor really, as at the time we did not know that it was not a simple skin cancer.

What I really want to know is, what was this object, and how in the heck did it get imbedded in the skin of my shoulder without me knowing about it?

Many of you have sent us emails and made phone calls suggesting various possible cures.  We are hopeful that with the information that has come Bob’s way that he will be able to secure a complete cure from his cancer.

Meanwhile, on Thanksgiving evening Bob called and left a voice message in which he informed me that it turns out that the chip that was implanted in his shoulder was made by VeriChip, a company that makes implantable microchips.

According to the VeriChip VeriMed page:

About the size of a grain of rice, the microchip is inserted just under the skin and contains only a unique, 16-digit identifier. The microchip itself does not contain any other data other than this unique electronic ID, nor does it contain any Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking capabilities. And unlike conventional forms of identification, the Health Link cannot be lost, stolen, misplaced, or counterfeited. It is safe, secure, reversible, and always with you.

Close-up of a VeriChip implant device, the size of a small grain of rice.

Another page on their site describes the RFID technology, which is an essential component of their chips, and the proximity required for reading different kinds of chips, such as those used in automated toll collection.

In his message to me, Bob referred me to a website, AntiChips.com, which documents the link between embedded RFID microchips and tumor formation.  It cites a paper, Microchip-Induced Tumors in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review of the Literature 1990–2006, and summarizes it as follows:

CASPIAN’s new report … is a definitive review of research showing a causal link between implanted radio-frequency (RFID) microchip transponders and cancer in laboratory rodents and dogs. It was written in part to correct industry misstatements and misinformation circulating about the studies.

The report evaluates eleven articles previously published in toxicology and pathology journals. In six of the articles, between 0.8% and 10.2% of laboratory mice and rats developed malignant tumors around or adjacent to the microchips. Two additional articles reported microchip-related cancer in dogs.

In almost all cases, the malignant tumors, typically sarcomas, arose at the site of the implants and grew to surround and fully encase the devices. These fast-growing, malignant tumors often led to the death of the afflicted animals. In many cases, the tumors metastasized or spread to other parts of the animals. The implants were unequivocally identified as the cause of the cancers.

This is one story you will want to pass on to your networks to get the word out about the kinds of nefarious deeds going on to suppress new energy technology that could truly empower people to break free of the powers that be.

I’ve got a few questions for Bob the next time I talk to him.

* How did you find out the chip was made by VeriChip?
* Is your source willing to go on record?
* Are you planning legal action?
* Is it okay for Watkykjy1 to disclose to the B-Hex group the full details of how he built his charging device?

I’ll probably append his responses here.

I also tried to contact VeriChip for a comment, but being a holiday weekend, I haven’t heard back yet.

Full Story

_________

Related

Toronto Star: ‘One generation is all they need’
One day we will all happily be implanted with microchips, and our every move will be monitored. The technology exists; the only barrier is society’s resistance to the loss of privacy.

Bob Boyce Electrolyzer Plans

North Carolina couple get suspended sentences in Satanic ritual abuse case

The victims say Craig beat them, shackled them to beds, kept them in dog cages and starved them.

Durham Couple Sentenced In Satanism Abuse Case

NBC17 | Nov 27, 2009

DURHAM, N.C. – A North Carolina couple has been sentenced on misdemeanor charges in a case involving abusing other adults during Satan worship.

Joseph Scott Craig, 25, and his 30-year-old wife Joy Johnson were each sentenced Friday to two 60-day suspended sentences and a year of probation.

Search warrants said the victims were a man and a woman who moved in with Craig and Johnson after they became friends through their satanic interests.

The victims say Craig beat them, shackled them to beds, kept them in dog cages and starved them.

Craig entered an Alford plea, which means he maintained his innocence but acknowledged prosecutors had enough evidence for a conviction. Johnson pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting her husband.

The rise of the Carbon Fat Cats

Al Gore, the fattest among carbon fat cats

The ‘carbon market’ – trading in an invisible gas which cannot be used – has involved the redistribution of resources to unproductive green pursuits and the creation of a vast bureacracy. Let’s bring it down before it gets any bigger.

Spiked | Nov 27, 2009

by Josie Appleton

Adam Smith and Karl Marx disagreed about many things, but they would surely have concurred that the very idea of a ‘carbon market’ is bonkers. Carbon dioxide is an invisible gas and a naturally occurring substance. When it is produced as a waste product from another process, like burning fossil fuel, it cannot be used for anything else. How on earth could carbon dioxide, as waste product, have a value and be subject to exchange? How could it become the gaseous analogue to money or gold, an atmospheric ‘universal equivalent’ into which other gases can be converted?

The carbon market in 2007 was worth $64billion: how could this be? A market is supposed to be the exchange of products that are the result of somebody’s work, for the satisfaction of somebody else’s needs. Smith stated that the value of the product is proportional to the amount of work expended in it: ‘The real price of everything’, he wrote in the Wealth of Nations, ‘is the toil and trouble of acquiring it’ (1). This goes for markets in bread or tables, iTunes or diamonds, no matter what nature the ‘work’ or how frivolous the ‘need’. But a market in carbon: quoi?

Related

Al Gore, world’s first ‘carbon billionaire’, raking in profits from climate change

Quietly and without fuss, all the rules of classical economics are being torn up – in a way that could be very foolish indeed. As we approach the deal-making at the UN conference on climate change at Copenhagen, it is worth thinking about exactly what we are doing here.

What is a carbon market?

At present, there are several fragmentary carbon markets. The biggest by far is the European Emissions Trading Scheme, tied to EU-wide carbon targets (worth $50 billion in 2007) (2); then the much smaller Australian New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme, and voluntary Chicago Climate Exchange. What these markets trade is not carbon dioxide itself, but carbon dioxide emissions reductions – either unused carbon credits, or certified ways in which carbon dioxide production has been reduced.

In addition to these, there are project-based carbon markets – under the headings of ‘Joint Implementation’ (JI) or ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ (CDM). These were created under the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, and essentially allow industrialised countries to invest in a carbon-reducing project elsewhere, in order to meet their carbon targets (JI is investment within Kyoto countries; CDM invests in developing countries).

This is nothing compared to the plans of green economists – the most megalomaniac of whom must be Britain’s Lord Nicholas Stern of Brentford, currently issuing thoughts for the day on everything ranging from world diet (everyone should go vegetarian) to the desired world total carbon emissions two generations’ hence (20 gigatonnes by 2050) (3). Stern envisages a global carbon market – which encompasses world economic production and consumption, as well as the ‘work’ of trees in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – and hopes that Copenhagen will take us a step in that direction.

(Valuing trees’ photosynthetic processes might sound a bit mad, but Australia has shown that this can be done with its set-up of ‘carbon rights’, which allow the owner of a plot of land to have ‘rights’ over carbon-removing and producing capacity (4). So if you plant more trees, your investment goes up – if you chop down trees or they burn down in a bush fire, the carbon rights investment goes up in flames, too.)

Stern, of course, was the guru who gave the economic justification for carbon emissions reductions, spelling out in his 700-page UK government report in October 2006 that it would be well worth it to sacrifice one per cent of world GDP to reduce carbon emissions, because the risk of non-reduction would be consumption plummeting by up to 20 per cent (5). Every subsequent alteration in Stern’s calculations has been announced with grave fanfare, as if expecting economics ministers of the world to hurriedly adjust their budgets in line with his latest thinking. In June 2008, for example, he revised his estimate to two per cent of world GDP that should be sacrificed in carbon mitigation (apparently this is still a bargain).

Now Stern has condensed and revised his thoughts in the book, Blueprint for a Safer Planet. Of all economists, Stern has done the most to theorise the idea of carbon value, and his theories are already being put into practice in the UK government’s carbon budgets, under the 2008 Climate Change Bill. The headaches for UK civil servants trying to put Stern’s kooky theories into practice should act as a warning against any further expansion of these ideas.

The fantasy of carbon value

Stern defines carbon value (or the cost of carbon) as ‘embodying in the price of a good not only the cost of the raw materials, labour, capital and so on used in its production, but also the cost of the damages from the emissions produced in the consumption or production of that good’ (6). At base, carbon value is a negative value, which expresses the damage done by industrial activity.

This is also called the ‘marginal social cost’ (MSC), or the ‘shadow price of carbon’. Stern claims that carbon value captures the ‘true costs’ of productive activity:

‘At the heart of economic policy must be the recognition that the emission of greenhouse gases is a market failure. When we emit greenhouse gases we damage the prospects for others and, unless appropriate policy is in place, we do not bear the costs of the damage. Markets then fail in the sense that their main coordinating mechanism – prices – gives the wrong signals. That is, prices… do not reflect the true cost to society of producing and using those goods.’ (7)

These costs of CO2 production, apparently, include ‘severe dislocation, with rising sea levels, a greater frequency of intense storms and hurricanes…’, which inflict damage on the earth’s climate, on people, and on future generations (8).

In an ideal economy, according to Stern, the value of carbon is equal to the marginal social cost (MSC), which is also equal to what is termed the ‘marginal abatement cost’ (MAC: the cost of reducing carbon emissions, by shifting to low-carbon energy or carbon capture/storage). That is, in a rational economy, people would pay the same for the right to produce carbon – and continue using fossil fuels – as it would cost them to switch to another technology; which is also equivalent to the damage inflicted by their carbon production. Industry will exploit all possible low-carbon technologies up until the point where their costs are balanced out by the price of carbon. Stern represents this reasoning in the following equation:

MSC=MAC=CO2 price

So the whole thing hangs on the marginal social cost (MSC), the damage done by carbon production. Yet there is a problem: it turns out that MSC is a phantasm. Stern basically admits that MSC, the supposed crux of and basis for all carbon value, cannot be calculated. He says there is a ‘very large possible range for the MSC’ (9), and that because of the ‘huge range of estimates for the SCC [the social cost of carbon]’ this ‘means that the SCC is a very weak and unreliable peg for policy.’

Indeed, in Why We Disagree About Climate Change, Mike Hulme notes the wild variation in estimates for the social cost of carbon, ranging from $0 to $2,000 per tonne. Hulme observes that the mainstream debate in UK circles focuses on whether it is $14 or $140 per tonne (which is vast – imagine if people couldn’t agree the price of gold within a factor of 10) (10).

So having admitted that MSC and MAC are so vague as to be unworkable, in the book Stern uses an ‘alternative route’, which ‘considers the appropriate targets from the perspective of risk and costs, and seeks out the cheapest method, generally using a price mechanism, of reaching the targets’ (11).

UK civil servants, after banging their heads against the wall trying to implement Stern’s damage-based carbon value, have now also taken this route. In July 2009, the UK government produced a new report saying that it would abandon valuation of carbon damage as a basis for carbon value – which, following Stern’s advice, it had been unsuccessfully trying to implement – and shift instead to the ‘cost of mitigation’ (12)

That is, the value of carbon is that which persuades industry to meet the carbon target. Carbon price is the price that would persuade people to switch to low-carbon technology by the degree necessary to meet the target.

It is the bureaucratic target – and the target alone – that is actually the rationale and logic for the whole enterprise of establishing carbon value. For the UK government, its target is to reduce carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2050, with five-year intermediary ‘carbon budgets’, and it is these bureaucratically invented targets that determine the price of carbon.

Full Story

Hugo Chavez ‘doubts’ brutality of Idi Amin

Fresh from defending Carlos the Jackal, Hugo Chavez managed to upset Ugandans on Sunday by claiming that Idi Amin was not as brutal as everyone made him out to be.

Telegraph | Nov 26, 2009

“We thought he was a cannibal,” the Venezuelan leader said, referring to Amin, whose regime was notorious for torturing and killing suspected opponents in the 1970s. “I have doubts. … I don’t know, maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot.”

Mary Karoro Okurut, spokeswoman for the ruling National Resistance Movement, said Amin was not worthy of such consideration.

“Anybody who says that Amin was good has something wrong with him,” she said on Sunday. “Amin was brutal. He killed many Ugandans and made many run into exile. There is something wrong with whoever praises Amin.”

There is no exact figure for the number of people killed during Amin’s 1971-1979 regime but estimates range up to 500,000 people.

Ugandan officials did not say whether they would take any formal diplomatic action. Venezuela has no embassy in Uganda.

On Saturday Mr Chavez described Carlos the Jackal, real name Ilich Sanchez Ramirez, who is serving a life sentence in France, as a “revolutionary fighter”.