Sidewalks are slippery, with the newly arrived and thus unusual European winter. Traffic is as bad as every year and people are frantic to make last minute purchases.

Then comes another old tradition, with a new name. It used to be some mumbo jumbo about not exploiting something, now the young hooligans blocking traffic and shopping malls call it a Climate Action.

Could, in the midst of winter, these kids at least try to show some decency towards their fellow men and women, who are just out to – with or without wheelchair or crutches – risking their health in order to spend a nice holiday.

Grumpy? You bet. But, Yes, this is not a season for grumpiness. Please take my advice, go sit on Santa’s lap instead of harassing people. Who knows, we might even get peace, prosperity and a clear sky to contemplate on that star up above.

The fact that you didn’t make it in Durban does not give you the right to deny others to enjoy the pleasures of the season. Merry Decency to you all.

Driver Still Behind the Wheel

I love a sunny story and the most recent one I stumbled upon, cherished in the environmental movement, is a recent innovation – still under development – of a new method to turn toxic textile.factory effluent into clean water.

Go for it, Maria Jonstrup!

One of the most disturbing ingredients of the environmental debate, is the tendency to find a conflict between a decent environment and scientific and industrial innovations. While some, and indeed Dr Jonstrup’s, are admittedly labelled Green, others are seen as the enemy. What’s really the historical perspective, if we agree that environment means the living conditions for humans?

To make a travesty of Howard Roark’s court speech in The Fountainhead: Once upon a time, one man found out how to tame fire. He was probably burned at the stake by the local environmental organization.

Virtually all innovations have initially been under attack by environmental, or religious sceptics, be it electricity, motor vehicles or nuclear power. The current exception normally is what’s referred to as Green Invention, most often not primarily because it’s good for the environment, but because it got the blessing by the government, in other words is financed with tax money.

Jonstrup seems to be a welcome exception to this. Another one would be the recently started experiments with “no driver vehicles”, including trucks, using advanced GPS equipment to navigate, thus optimizing the fuel consumption and emissions. Don’t be scared. The tests so far have a human driver along, just in case, a bit as in commercial aircraft on autopilot. Exciting! What I like is that it’s developed in cooperation between universities and industry. Good luck!

When London submitted its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, it sweetened its offer with a promise “to purchase emission reduction credits and to invest directly in clean energy projects in the developing world to offset … emissions.”  Organizers estimated that “international travel to London by competitors, officials and members of the Olympic Family would generate an estimated 35,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.”

The scheme called for large transfers of funds from London to the developing world.  “Our approach goes beyond merely offsetting emissions,” London 2012 Environmental Project Manager David Stubbs promised, “and aims to spread environmental and social benefits beyond London to countries where the impacts of climate change are most acutely felt.”

These promises were made in 2005, when climate propaganda stood unchallenged — before the specter of economic crisis, joblessness and government spending came to haunt Britain as they do today.   London is a city recently set ablaze by a no longer hidden underclass of voluntarily uneducated and unemployed wards of the state.

Harsh reality has sounded a wake up call for Londoners and the prospect of shipping millions of pounds overseas to finance projects with no connection to the Olympics (that will have no meaningful impact on our climate) no longer seems so sporting.

Bloomberg Business quotes Green Party member of the London Assembly Darren Johnson as saying, the decision to drop the offsets is “not fair … Obviously we want the Olympics to benefit London, but environmentally they should be a green Olympics to benefit the whole world as well.”

In place of offsets, organizers will look for local ways to “reduce their carbon footprint.”  CFACT expects that as disappointed as investors who had sought to profit from the overseas carbon offset schemes may be, there are others with schemes rooted closer to home who will be all to willing to cash in.

We can no longer afford the waste and abuse that are part and parcel of feel-good schemes like offsets and subsidies.  CFACT calls on London to blaze a path to an environment where large scale public and business enterprises can proceed with no obligation to pay baksheesh to radical green campaigners and carbon profiteers.

We’ve reached a new tipping point.  Henceforth use of the term “carbon footprint,” where tongue is not planted firmly in cheek, identifies a scheme unlikely to pass rigorous examination.  Policy makers, accountants and fraud examiners take note.

The Telegraph reports that British nobles, including Dukes and a cousin of the Queen are cashing in on tax and ratepayer subsidies to erect wind farms on their country estates.  Each turbine can net a noble £20,000 a year or more.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s father-in-law is a baronet who is pulling in “as much as £350,000 a year from eight turbines on his estate at Bagmoor in Lincolnshire.”  This may give Cameron’s un-torylike policy surrender to radical green interests some perspective.

For generations the UK could count on its aristocrats’ selfless noblesse oblige.  Country estates have traditionally been havens of bucolic green space and conservation.  Today’s gentle folk appear ready to abandon the needs of the land and bring industrial turbines to glen, wood, hillside and moor.  We’ve entered a brave new millennium of selfish noblesse spolio.

Sadly, many of these turbines end up situated in inland areas where there isn’t even much wind.  They generate not electricity, but subsidies.

The Telegraph quoted “Sir Simon Jenkins, chairman of the National Trust but speaking in a personal capacity [who] said: “The level of subsidy available to landowners to put up these turbines is out of all proportion to the public benefit derived from them and the temptation to ruin what is usually outstanding landscapes is overwhelming. It is a crime against the landscape.”

This may well be the worst example of regressive redistribution of wealth in Britain since the Sheriff of Nottingham shook down the peasants for Prince John.

It’s old news, but hey, that’s history for you.

A new booktakes a look at both the history of the cold war and the environmental movement. And especially environmental impact from both. You may not agree with everything, but sometimes it’s important to remember how absurd the world really was in those days.

The major part of Europe put in ruins, by all sides, during WWII. The rebuilding of Germany, well, West Germany, and the continous lunacy in Stalinist Russia.

The Soviet rapid industrialization put aside any environmental concern. Not to mention safety.

The worst lunacy, probably, potentially dangerous for all of the world, the reverse of the floods, was halted. If that project really had been carried out, you could possibly talk of real man made climate change.

Wars and famine are the worst environmental problems. Though the so called West were not always the nicest chaps. that’s nothing compared to the – partly deliberate (Ukraine), partly unavoidable – starvation in – Yes – The Evil Empire.

At the same time, the Green movement went around cursing, guess who?

Bureaucracies and weed have the thing in common that when not controlled, they grow beyond control. The same goes for governmental organisations, supra national or others, with the addition that it’s most often difficult even to find out who’s in charge, what the mandate is, not to mention the plan. Delegates and functionaries, as well as paid scientists seem to be on a constant world tour, with one only goal in common, to grow and find enough solid ground and symbolic conflicts to justify next year’s tour. The only thing certain is that someone else will have to foot the bill.

So, what to do, when all the old topics have been carefully transferred to – also growing – sub organizations? Where’s the new new mission to pay for next year’s lunches?

One suggestion from French President Sarkozy is already on the table for the 2012 environmental conference Rio+20. Here’s a good update with links to various documents.

“The Rio Earth Summit in May 2012 will try to set a global vision on greening the economy, with France leading European calls to establish a brand new World Environmental Organisation (WEO).”

The amount of documentation – and what will follow during the year – is more than enough to keep everyone busy, but some of the wordings are already rather intriguing.

Goals first: “A major goal of the initiative is to address market failures in tackling the environmental fall-out of economic activity (applying the ‘polluter pays’ principle or the so-called ‘internalisation of externalities’). It also addresses social goals, such as jobs, the overall macroeconomic framework and development policy.”

A sub goal in this is said to be the, from an economic perspective more than intriguing, ambition to “Getting prices right”. 

And the wording: “The current talks are mainly focused on the establishment of a specialised UN agency for the environment or upgrading the existing UNEP, which lacks the authority to push ambitious policies.”

The authority. Think about the implications for a bit. Where are we really heading?

Is the fear for the secret establishment of a world government really justified?

“To ensure consistency at global level, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has championed the idea of a World Environment Organisation (WEO) that would be responsible for ensuring coherent and effective action across multiple levels of decision-making.”

I rest my case. ET, come pick me up. We are out of here.

Britain’s Channel 4′s What the Green Movement Got Wrong features former green campaigners explaining how radical ideology warped environmentalism, preventing it from conserving nature and causing unintended harm.  Channel 4′s decision to air this documentary is the latest evidence that the media is finally moving away from mindlessly repeating radical green claims and at last permitting critical evaluation.

Former hippy Greens, directors of Greenpeace, the chairmen of the Copenhagen Climate Council and the like, queued up to admit error. Their reasons for doing so were interesting. None of them repudiated all their previous ideas. All continue to believe that there are serious environmental threats to the welfare of life on earth and most seem to be devoting their lives to addressing them. But, as one put it, environmentalists over the past 40 years have “failed to achieve Job One, which was to protect the planet”. READ MORE AT DAILY TELEGRAPH

The activists now say that by opposing nuclear power they encouraged the use of polluting coal-fired power stations, while by protesting against GM crops they prevented developing countries from benefiting from a technology that could have helped feed the hungry.

READ MORE FROM DAILY TELEGRAPH

I feel old sometimes. I’m not, according to my doctor, but I’m at least not “Youth”, as defined by the United Nations to be between the age of 15 and 24 (for the first three years in there, you also have the privilege of being “child” at the same time).

Couldn’t care less.

The UNFCCC however, cares a lot, and that’s where I start to care.

The report on youth participation in the climate battle, distributed here at the climate conference in Bonn, is impressive, with government funded youth summits and UN financed education camps. To join in, Alofa Tuvalis together with ADEME, has produced a partly entertaining comic book, where non-environmental decisions in daily life is punished by itching powder thrown by the mysterious bug Sib.

If the island of Tuvalis is really sinking, and if, in that case, it has anything to do with what I have for breafast, is not really explained, but as a pedagogic endeavour, it’s interesting from mainly two aspects.

Good manners is an important virtue, and one that all “youth” should pick up, else they might run into problems later in life. These include most of the things taught in the booklet, don’t throw garbage in nature, try not to work up your parents’ electricity bill too much.

But what ever became of good old youth rebellion against authorities and oppression? Do dress in a UN sponsored T-shirt and harass people, telling them that politicians should “do something”, in other words taxing and regulating people, does not come across as very courageous, or youthful for that matter.

But maybe I’m just too old for this.