Aftermath News

Idaho Statesman | Apr 24, 2008

Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore says there is no proof global warming is caused by humans, but it is likely enough that the world should turn to nuclear power - a concept tied closely to the underground nuclear testing his former environmental group formed to oppose.

The chemistry of the atmosphere is changing, and there is a high-enough risk that “true believers” like Al Gore are right that world economies need to wean themselves off fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse gases, he said.

“It’s like buying fire insurance,” Moore said. “We all own fire insurance even though there is a low risk we are going to get into an accident.”

The only viable solution is to build hundreds of nuclear power plants over the next century, Moore told the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. There isn’t enough potential for wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal or other renewable energy sources, he said.

With development of coal-fired electric generation stopped cold over greenhouse gases, the only alternative to nuclear power for producing continuous energy at the levels needed is natural gas. But climate change isn’t the only reason to move away from fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels also are a major health threat. “Coal causes the worst health impacts of anything we are doing today,” Moore said.

Plus, uranium can be found within the United States and also comes in large quantities from Canada and Australia. Nuclear Power reduces the reliance on supplies in dangerous places including the Middle East, he said.

Moore spoke at the chamber breakfast after an appearance in Idaho Falls Tuesday night that attracted 300 people. He also spoke to the Idaho Environmental Forum in Boise, all sponsored by the Partnership for Science and Technology.

He represents the Clean Air and Safe Energy Coalition, a nuclear energy-backed group promoting reactors for electric energy generation. He began his career as a leader of Greenpeace fighting nuclear testing and working to save whales.

In recent years, he has taken on causes unpopular with his former group, like old-growth logging, keeping polyvinyl chlorides and now nuclear energy.

He says his change of heart comes from his background in science and a different approach to sustainability.

He sees a need for maintaining technologies that are not harmful while fixing or replacing those that are harmful.

“We don’t believe we have been making too much electricity,” he said. “We believe we’ve been making energy with the wrong technologies.”

His critics, like Andrea Shipley, executive director of the Snake River Alliance, say he has simply sold out.

“The only reason Patrick Moore is backing something as unsafe and risky as nuclear power is he is being paid by the nuclear industry to do so,” Shipley said.

Bloomberg | Apr 21, 2008

By Jim Kennett

April 21 (Bloomberg) — Halliburton Co., the world’s second-largest oilfield contractor, said profit rose 5.8 percent after crude topped $100 a barrel, prompting producers to increase spending on Middle East and Latin American projects.

The number of drilling rigs active outside North America rose 6.5 percent as New York oil futures traded 68 percent higher than a year earlier. Revenue jumped 18 percent to $4.03 billion as sales gains outside North America made up for pricing pressures in the U.S., Halliburton said.

“The story with Halliburton is international, and the international story is supported by sharply higher oil prices,” said Gene Pisasale, who helps oversee $25 billion in assets, including about 682,000 Halliburton shares, at PNC Capital Advisors in Baltimore. “That bodes well for international exploration, much of which is oil-oriented.”

Competition from rival oilfield contractors is affecting the prices Halliburton can charge on long-term projects in such markets as the Middle East and West Africa, Chief Executive Officer David Lesar told investors on a conference call. Losing a bid can mean the company is out of business in that region for a number of years, he said.

Margin Concerns

Those comments and concern over rising diesel costs, which are narrowing profit margins on some well services, held back Halliburton’s shares today, said Mark Urness, an analyst at Calyon Securities USA Inc. in New York.

Halliburton rose 3 cents to $47.46 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. All but five companies in the 15- member Philadelphia Oil Service Sector Index had bigger gains. Schlumberger Ltd., the biggest oilfield contractor, climbed 5 percent.

Halliburton’s per-share profit matched the average of 10 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Earnings from the company’s largest division, which helps clients maximize production from established fields, rose 11 percent.

Demand strength in the Middle East and Latin America made up for a 2 percent decline in North American business and a “relatively flat” environment in Europe, Africa and the former Soviet Union, Halliburton said.

`Next Leg Up’

Lesar, 54, said more demand growth is coming. “The fundamentals of the world oil and gas market are projecting that the next leg up in the extended cycle is near,” he said in the statement.

Schlumberger, based in Houston and Paris, on April 18 reported a 13 percent gain in first-quarter net income. Baker Hughes Inc., the No. 3 oilfield-services company, is scheduled to report its results tomorrow.

Halliburton’s profit from drilling and evaluation services climbed 6.1 percent. The segment includes drill-bits, drilling fluids and directional drilling, which allows a customer to change the direction of a well to target a reservoir.

Worldwide, the number of active rigs rose 2.4 percent from a year earlier, with most of the gains occurring in South America and the Eastern Hemisphere, according to a count by Baker Hughes. North American drilling activity climbed 1.4 percent, driven by a 2.1 percent increase in the U.S.

International Expansion

Halliburton is adding research and training centers from Russia to Singapore as it diversifies away from North America, which accounted for 47 percent of revenue last year. U.S. and Canadian business is dominated by regional natural-gas markets, where weather can cause prices to surge or plummet.

Lesar splits his time between the U.S. and Halliburton’s regional corporate headquarters in Dubai. The Eastern Hemisphere accounted for 41 percent of Halliburton’s first-quarter revenue. Lesar has said he’d like the region ultimately to account for half of sales.

Halliburton derived 54 percent of its profit from North America in the first quarter, down from 58 percent a year earlier. Latin American operations had a 45 percent increase in earnings. Brazil’s recent deepwater discoveries, fields called Tupi and Carioca, will fuel increased spending by oil companies, PNC’s Pisasale said.

“With the recent developments in Brazil, you’re going to see a lot more activity down there,” he said. “The Tupi and the Carioca discoveries, which are particularly huge, multibillion-barrel fields, bode well for service companies like Halliburton and Schlumberger.”

State Oil Companies

Overseas work is being driven by government-owned oil companies that increasingly hire Halliburton and other services providers to do work previously done by international oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. Service companies work under contracts, while oil companies take a stake in the field being developed.

Halliburton’s work with state oil companies includes a three-year contract to drill wells at Saudi Arabia’s massive Khurais project and a three-year deal with Mexico awarded in January. Today, the company announced a contract for the offshore portion of Saudi Arabia’s Manifa oil project.

Halliburton is the largest oilfield contractor in North America and the largest provider of so-called pressure pumping, which injects water or sand into rock formations to make gas flow more easily.

Increased competition cut into pricing for pressure pumping, or fracturing as it is sometimes called, in the past two quarters, according to Halliburton.

Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras claimed on Monday that its recent offshore find may be the biggest in three decades. The news did not ease tensions on commodity markets, where crude Brent topped $110 for the first time.

France 24 | Apr 14, 2008

RIO DE JANEIRO - An offshore find by Brazilian state oil company Petrobras in partnership with BG Group and Repsol-YPF may be the world’s biggest discovery in 30 years, the head of the National Petroleum Agency said on Monday.

Haroldo Lima told reporters the find, known as Carioca, could contain 33 billion barrels of oil equivalent, five times the recent giant Tupi discovery. That would further boost Brazil’s prospects as an important world oil province and the source of new crude in the Americas.

Shares in Petrobras, which said studies on the find continued and would not comment on the figure, soared on the news. They were trading 5.7 percent higher at 83 reais in the late afternoon, after retreating somewhat from gains of more than 7 percent.

“It could be the world’s biggest discovery in the past 30 years, and the world’s third-biggest currently active field,” Lima, head of the government’s oil and fuel market regulator, told reporters at an industry event in Rio de Janeiro.

He would not say whether the preliminary reserve estimate was recoverable or in-place. Recoverable reserves can constitute less than a third of in-place reserves.

Last year Petrobras put Tupi’s recoverable reserves at between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent, most of it light oil.

Lima said his data came from Petrobras at an informal level.

Petrobras tested one well at Carioca last year and is still drilling another. The company made the Tupi recoverable reserve estimate based on tests from two wells.

Petrobras said in a statement the second well had not yet reached the subsalt level and “more conclusive data on the potential of the block will be known after the evaluation process is finished.”

FIND COULD BE ‘REALLY HUGE’

Analysts said the estimate was probably still very preliminary, although it did not contrast with some geologists’ forecasts made in the past.

“It’s a very relevant number, basically triples the reserves. But it still seems a little premature to have a precise number while they are drilling a second well,” said Felipe Cunha, an analyst with Brascan bank in Rio de Janeiro.

The Carioca area lies west of Tupi in the prolific Santos basin, off the coast of Sao Paulo state. BG has a 30 percent stake in the project and Repsol 25 percent.

“It’s subsalt, and we knew there were big expectations for the subsalt cluster in addition to Tupi. But, if this is confirmed, it’s really huge,” said Sophie Aldebert, associate director with Cambridge Energy Research Association in Brazil.

“With that size, you’d have plenty of gains of scale that could easily offset the subsalt geological challenges,” she added. The challenges include shifting salt clusters that require reinforced piping and producing in deep waters from huge depths under the ocean floor.

Geologists had long voiced the theory that Tupi could have an even bigger neighbor containing light oil or natural gas. If the reserves are confirmed, Brazil could jump into the top 10 oil countries by reserves, surpassing nations like Nigeria.

Petrobras also has said previously it sees good prospects for major oil finds in the subsalt areas in the Campos and Espirito Santo basins north of Santos, but it is focusing mainly on Santos at the moment.

Most of Petrobras crude comes from heavy-oil Campos basin fields, but recent subsalt discoveries could make Brazil a major producer of higher quality oil.

The company expects to start an extended production test at Tupi early next year and then crank up a 100,000 barrels per day pilot project there in late 2010 or early 2011. Analysts say, however, the costly subsalt development can take more time than Petrobras expects.

UPI | Apr 11, 2008

WASHINGTON, April 11 (UPI) — A shale formation under western North Dakota holds the biggest continuous oil deposit in the lower 48 states, the U.S. Geographical Survey has determined.

The Bakken shale formation, 10,000 feet beneath the Williston Basin, holds 4.3 billion barrels of oil, the Thursday report said.

The estimate includes what the USGS believes is recoverable using current technology.

The amount is also close to what a state survey, due April 28, will say is available, North Dakota geologist Ed Murphy told the Bismarck Tribune.

“We’re in the same ballpark,” Murphy said.

“This is very big news,” Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said during a teleconference with reporters Thursday, the Grand Forks Herald reported.

“I think there’s going to be a lot more attention nationally and internationally to this region,” Dorgan said.

This is London | Jan 19, 2008

Energy suppliers were attacked yesterday for scooping a £9billion cash windfall at the same time as driving fuel bills to record highs.

MPs, consumer groups and poverty action campaigners described the bonanza as obscene.

The windfall comes from a complicated EU initiative called the Emissions Trading Scheme, designed to reduce pollution.

The electricity generators have been given ‘permits’ to emit climate-warming gases between 2008 and 2012, the second phase of the scheme.

Despite not paying for the permits, they have raised the price of wholesale electricity to reflect their supposed cost.

Ofgem, the energy regulator, estimates the firms will make about £9billion from this.

Their extraordinary payday comes as a typical family’s typical fuel bill has almost doubled over the last five years to £1,000.

Some four million Britons are living in “fuel poverty”, defined as those who spend more than 10 per cent of their income on fuel.

Over the last fortnight, two more energy companies have stung customers with inflationbustingprices rises of up to 27 per cent and Ofgem has urged ministers to use the windfall to help those struggling to pay their fuel bills.

But Chancellor Alistair Darling, who met Ofgem officials on Tuesday, is rejecting calls for a super-tax. It would be similar to the windfall tax imposed on privatised utilities after Labour’s election in 1997.

Energy companies including the German- owned Npower, which raised its prices a few days after Christmas, fiercely oppose the move.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said: “It is totally wrong that the companies should be given a licence to print money on this scale.

“Electricity companies, which are already pushing up prices, should not be gifted with £9billion.

“With 25,000 people predicted to die from the cold this winter alone, the Government must act on the recommendations of its regulator.’

Alistair Buchanan, chief executive of Ofgem, said: “We said, ‘Look, there’s a £9billion windfall there and you could somehow take part of that to pay for your programmes for the fuel poor’.”

A spokesman for independent conbeensumer group Energywatch said: “How can Ofgem tell the Chancellor that the market is sound and then in the next breath say there is £9billion of unearned income sitting there that could be super-taxed without their heads spinning?”

Labour MP Elliot Morley described the profits as “obscene” in the Commons last week.

Proposed mandate would grant utility companies unlimited remote access to regulate temperatures

WorldNetDaily.com | Jan 11, 2008

By Chelsea Schilling

Add thermostats to the list of private property the government would like to regulate as the state of California looks to require that residents install remotely monitored temperature controls in their homes next year.

The government is seeking to limit rolling blackouts and free up electric and natural gas resources by mandating that every new heating and cooling system include a “non-removable” FM receiver. The thermostat is also capable of controlling other appliances in the house, such as electric water heaters, refrigerators, pool pumps, computers and lights in response to signals from utility companies. If contractors and residents refuse to comply with the mandate, their building permits will be denied.

The proposal, set to be considered by the commission Jan. 30, requires each thermostat to be equipped with a radio communication device to send “price signals” and automatically adjust temperature up or down 4 degrees for cooling and heating, as California’s public and private utility organizations deem necessary.

Claudia Chandler, assistant executive director for the California Energy Commission, told WND the new systems would be highly beneficial to residents.

“From the Energy Commission’s perspective, all we’re doing is ensuring that this new technology is included in new homes instead of the older programmable technology,” she said.

The Programmable Communication Thermostat, or PCT, will allow power authorities to control home temperatures while denying consumers ability to override settings during “emergency events.” Nowhere in the proposal does it clarify what type of situation would qualify as an “emergency,” but Chandler offered her own explanation: “An emergency is when the utilities need to implement rolling blackouts and drop load in order to be able to meet their supplies because the integrity of the grid is being jeopardized.”

She claims residents will be able to manually override controls in all cases, but the 2008 Building Efficiency Standards (Page 64), known as Title 24, specifically states: “The PCT shall not allow customer changes to thermostat settings during emergency events.”

Michael Shames, executive director of California’s Utility Consumers’ Action Network, told WND he believes the idea of a chip consumers are unable to override is not feasible. While he considers the technology to be a positive development, he said denying consumers control over their own appliances is a highly problematic concept.

“The implications of this language are far-reaching and Orwellian,” he said. “For the government and utility company to say, ‘We’re going to control the devices in your house, and you have no choice in that matter,’ that’s where the line is drawn. That sentence must be removed.”

Additionally, no provisional exceptions for people with health conditions worsened by excessive temperatures are mentioned in the current proposal; however, the Energy Commission spokeswoman said existing supply problems are more worrisome to Californians with health issues than the projected solution.

“I actually was more concerned in the 2001 electricity crisis that folks on critical medical devices like respirators, kidney dialysis machines and things like that were going through rolling blackouts,” Chandler said. “That’s a very challenging thing to face. Moving somebody’s temperature up by a few degrees really seems mild by comparison.”

Jim Gunshinan, managing editor of Home Energy, based in Berkley, Calif., told WND the changes would also provide consumers with an option to control thermostats via the Internet.

“That means someone can turn on the air conditioning before they leave work for home and have the house comfortable when they walk in the door. Or if they forgot before leaving home for a ski trip, they can remotely lower the thermostat at home and save money.”

Gunshinan claims the new system is needed because it will be more beneficial to the environment than building new energy facilities for the state.

“Since utilities have old, inefficient and dirty power plants on reserve to use during peak demand hours, dropping demand will mean less use of these dirty power plants and less pollution.”

Some critics say California authorities will be incapable of enforcing compliance if homeowners and renters bootleg heating and cooling systems from other states, block radio reception with inexpensive FM transmitters or simply install window air conditioning units and space heaters, a bypass method that could use more energy than traditional units.

Concerned California residents expressed outrage with the proposal in several online postings:

“I hate this state. Why don’t we just fly a communist flag while we are at it? We are planning a move out of state. I’m done.”

“This is insane. Please, everyone reading this, take action. Write your representatives, call the RINO governor, call your local radio programs and, lastly, write letters to the editors of your local papers. Dear God, just when I thought California couldn’t get much worse!”

Other opponents of the state proposal expressed concern that its mandatory nature is a sign of increasing “Big Brother” government control.

RawStory | Jan 4, 2008

BBC News is reporting that a French company has developed a pollution-free car which runs on compressed air. India’s Tata Motors has the car under production and it may be on sale in Europe and India by the end of the year.

The air car, also known as the Mini-CAT or City Cat, can be refueled in minutes from an air compressor at specially equipped gas stations and can go 200 km on a 1.5 euro fill-up — roughly 125 miles for $3. The top speed will be almost 70 mph and the cost of the vehicle as low as $7000.

The car features a fibreglass body and a revolutionary electrical system and is completely computer-controlled. It is powered by the expansion of compressed air, using no combustion at all, and the exhaust is entirely clean and cool enough for use in the internal air conditioning system.

Tata Motors is known for its interest in innovation and has been selling compressed gas buses since 2000. It is currently working on producing the world’s cheapest car, which will be almost 100% plastic and will sell in India for about $2500.

Tata is also expanding into the world market. It acquired Korea’s Daweoo in 2004 and is now the top bidder to purchase the originally British Jaguar and Land Rover lines from the United States’ troubled Ford Motor Company.

Not so friendly: Energy-saving light bulbs create an environment damaging for many people with light sensitivities

Daily Mail | Jan 4, 2008

By JENNY HOPE

Energy-saving light bulbs can be bad for your skin, doctors are warning.

Eco-bulbs are due to become compulsory in British homes within four years. But campaigners want the Government to allow an opt-out so people with health problems can still use old-style incandescent bulbs.

There have been growing concerns that low-energy light can trigger migraines, as well as dizziness, loss of focus and discomfort among those with epilepsy.

There have also been complaints from sufferers of lupus - an auto-immune disease causing many symptoms including pain.

The latest warning was issued by Spectrum - an alliance of charities working with people with lightsensitive conditions - and the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD).

Critics complain low-energy lights are either “cold” or “green,” take up to a minute to warm up properly and because they are fluorescent, flicker.

Dr Colin Holden, president of the BAD, said: “It is important that patients with photosensitive skin eruptions are allowed to use lights that don’t exacerbate their condition. Photosensitive eruptions range from disabling eczema-like reactions, to light sensitivities that can lead to skin cancer.

“It is essential that such patients are able to protect themselves from specific wavelengths of light emitted by fluorescent bulbs, especially as they are often trapped indoors because they can’t venture out in natural sunlight.”

Andrew Langford, of the Skin Care Campaign, said: “Incandescent light bulbs are the only source of electric light for many thousands of people with light-sensitive conditions.

“Add to this the thousands whose conditions or treatments may secondarily cause them to be light-sensitive, and you have a large number potentially being isolated in the dark.

“The Government simply must allow incandescent light bulbs to be available to these people, their families, friends and employers, and at a fair price.”

Spectrum, which is running a campaign to raise awareness of the impact on health of switching to lowenergybulbs, says as many as 340,000 people could be affected.

Last week, the Migraine Action Association was inundated with calls from sufferers who linked attacks to exposure to the newstyle lighting.

Spectrum is urging the government to allow incandescent light bulbs to be supplied to people with health problems, which would enable protection of the environment without penalising those unable to live with fluorescent lighting.

One option could be to allow the purchase of environmentally friendly energy efficient incandescent bulbs which GE Consumerand Industrial is currently developing and hopes to market in 2010.

The Lighting Association says modern low-energy bulbs give a constant flicker-free light, although a small number of health problems have been reported by people using cheap poor-quality varieties.

The Energy Saving Trust, the Government’s body to promote energy efficiency, says we should buy only bulbs with the Energy Saving Recommended - ESR - logo.

. . .

Related

Ban the Bulb? — “If all 4 billion incandescent sockets were filled with CFLs we’d have nearly 50,000 pounds of mercury spread around every single US household”

Army of ‘energy inspectors’ recruited to snoop around your home

Homeowners face punishment for carbon crimes

Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’? — A $30,000 Utility Bill

AFP | Nov 8, 2007

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) - Brazil has discovered huge new petroleum reserves in its south that could turn the country into one of the biggest oil producers in the world, the government and its state-controlled oil company announced Thursday.

If one of the deposits turns out to be as vast as it appears, Brazil will be in the same league “as the Arab countries, Venezuela and others,” the senior minister in charge of the cabinet, Dilma Rousseff, said.

Petrobras, Brazil’s national oil company, said in a statement that exploration of its Tupi field, offshore Sao Paulo state, revealed it could produce up to eight billion barrels of light oil and natural gas.

It said that find, along with another potential field still being explored farther south, could propel Brazil “among the countries with the biggest oil and gas reserves in the world.”

The head of Petrobras, Jose Sergio Gabrielli, told a media conference in Rio de Janeiro that Brazil’s total reserves could now place it “between Nigeria and Venezuela.”

Shares in the company soared on the news, closing 14.57 percent higher at 93.40 reais on the Sao Paulo stockmarket.

Petrobras’s previous stated reserves, given at the end of 2006, were the equivalent of 11.46 billion barrels of oil.

The Tupi find alone could boost that by 50 percent.

Petrobras operates the Tupi area, of which it holds 65 percent. British energy group BG holds a 25 percent share in the field and Portugal’s Petrogal-Galp Energia holds 10 percent.

Petrobras also holds the lion’s share of interest in the other field being tested.

The Brazilian government said no more parts of the new field would be licensed out until a full evaluation was in. It said this was in “the public interest.”

The discoveries are a significant fillip for Brazil, coming at a time that the price of oil is sitting at a record high and heading towards 100 dollars per barrel.

An analyst at the Brazilian Center for Infrastructure, Adriano Pires, agreed that “this is good news.”

But he noted that the Tupi field, 250 kilometres (155 miles) offshore, lies in very deep water, which will make extraction “very expensive.”

At best, he said, production would begin in around four or five years’ time

“It’s only viable if oil prices stay high,” he said.

The Brazilian state holds a 55.7 percent of the shares with voting rights in Petrobras, giving it effective control of the energy giant, which currently pumps out nearly two million barrels of oil a day.

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…The real enemy, then, is humanity itself….Bring the divided nation together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one INVENTED for the purpose…”

- The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of Rome

Do your part! The masses are more ready and willing to sacrifice themselves to “save the Earth” than the elites, just as planned. (Photo: inmates of the dystopia prepare to voluntarily cull themselves off at the “Carousel” extermination ceremony, from the 1976 scifi film Logan’s Run)

BBC | Nov 5, 2007

The poll suggests the public are more ready than politicians

Most people say they are ready to make personal sacrifices to address climate change, according to a BBC poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries.

Four out of five people say they are prepared to change their lifestyle, even in the US and China, the world’s two biggest emitters of carbon dioxide.

Three quarters would back energy taxes if the cash was used to find new sources of energy, or boost efficiency.

Chinese respondents were more positive than any others about energy taxes.

BBC environment reporter Matt McGrath says the poll suggests that in many countries people are more willing than their governments to contemplate serious changes to their lifestyles to combat global warming.

According to the survey, 83% of respondents throughout the world agree that individuals will definitely or probably have to make lifestyle changes to reduce the amount of climate-changing gases they produce.

The poll also suggests that a large majority of people in each individual country surveyed believe that sacrifices will be necessary.

In almost all countries in Europe, and in the US, most people believe the cost of fuels that contribute most to climate change will have to increase.

The only exceptions were Italy and Russia, where significant numbers of people believe that increases in the price of energy will not be necessary.

The pollsters suggest that high energy costs in both countries could have put people off the idea of increasing prices even further.

Attitudes to rising energy costs in Asia and Africa are more varied.

In China and Indonesia, large majorities believe that higher energy costs are necessary, but in South Korea and India majorities in favour of higher prices are much smaller.

And in Nigeria, 52% of the respondents did not believe that higher fuel costs would be necessary to combat global warming.

Green China?

Opinions are divided on proposals to increase taxes on fossil fuels.

Worldwide, only 50% are in favour and 44% are opposed.

The Chinese are the most enthusiastic when it comes to energy taxes: 85% of those polled are in favour, 24 percentage points more than in the next most-supportive countries.

In the rest of the world, only narrow majorities - and sometimes minorities - favour higher energy taxes.

However, when people opposed to energy taxes are asked whether their opinion would change if the revenue from the taxes were used to increase energy efficiency or develop cleaner fuel, large majorities are produced in every country in favour of higher taxes.

And when those opposed to higher taxes are asked whether they would change their minds if other taxes were reduced in order to keep their total tax burden the same, the survey again discovered large majorities in every country in favour of higher green taxes.

“This poll clearly shows that people are much more ready to endure their share of the burden than most politicians grant,” said Doug Miller, director of Globescan, the polling company that conducted the survey on behalf of the BBC.

Globescan interviewed 22,182 people in the UK, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, and the United States. Interviews were conducted face-to-face or by telephone between 29 May 29 and 26 July 2007.

. . .

Related

Lovelock: Warming Will Kill 6 Billion
Six billion dead. That’s the latest magic number from the eco-left that’s designed to scare the world into global warming action. Climate extremist James Lovelock, the founder of the Gaia theory, used it predicting mankind will almost be wiped out by 2100 from global warming.

Global Warming: Religion, not Science
Following on from our June 3, 2007, edition of REAL NEWSpaper, focusing Global Warming as a religion, John Brignell agrees that global warming has become the new religious dogma of the 21st century. High priest Al Gore asks to accept a “scientific truth”, in which not doubt is allowed; faith is all important. Resistance is beginning to lead to social exclusion, like the medieval heretics.

Global warming: the bogus religion of our age
Like a religion, environmentalism is suffused with hatred for the material world and again, like religion, it requires devotion rather than intellectual rigour from its adherents. It is intolerant of dissent; those who question the message of doom are regarded as heretics, or ‘climate change deniers’, to use green parlance.

Environmentalism Religion Rather Than Science, Says Czech Leader
Centralized planners seeking to “rule from above” are operating under the guise of environmentalism and other fashionable “isms” in a bid to attack freedom and liberty, Czech President Vaclav Klaus said here. Addressing an audience at the CATO Institute in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Klaus argued that although communism has been eradicated in Eastern Europe, there are renewed efforts in this new century to reintroduce statist schemes.