Source: Everything PR
President Barack Obama performed a superb version of the Potomac Two Step after the Copenhagen Climate Summit debacle. In an interview with PBS Newshour the President somehow found the wisdom to acknowledge there is reason for disappointment over the mediocre efforts at the climate talks. America and the world are certainly left speechless, wondering exactly what is going on given conflicting signals from most world leaders and financiers. From terms like; “a breakthrough”, to “significant”, and now on to “understandably disappointing”, it is no small wonder politicians cannot get more done. The rest of the principles finally admitted the disappointing results only today.I spent the better part of two weeks reading and correlating information in an effort to shed some light on the idiocy (or genius) which occurred in Copenhagen. The key rhetoric which got me to thinking was a statement by Germany’s Chancellor Merkel, which basically attempted to paint a hero’s face on Obama and other top world leaders at the conference. That statement, on top of all the name calling and finger pointing, was just a little too much. Her statements and actions, combined with other facts, points in the direction of another level of play going on behind the scenes, namely biofuels, agribusiness, and green business in general. The apparent short answer to a “no deal” in Copenhagen? Big business will sell us a clean and safe planet when it is time – when they are ready.
Climate As A Commodity
Though direct links between all these leaders and vested business interests in what we should call “the climate monopoly game” are fantastically intricate, it is apparent that the environment is a target for big business, maybe the biggest target of them all. The premise here? The reason Copenhagen failed, is because big business is not quite ready to cash in on the unfathomable wealth our environmental “need” represents. They have not quite yet cornered the carbon market just yet. Of course this sounds “out there” or even conspiratorial, but what is negotiation and politics if not a conspiracy to an end? Let me illustrate what I mean by way of some connections.
I have been “on the case” of big business leaders for some time. People like George Soros, Goldman Sachs’ CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein, and even (maybe even particularly) the Walton family of Wal-Mart. To an extent I finally did manage to put some of these key figures together either directly, through investments, via meetings, or via their most formidable smoke screen – the subsidiary or holding company. As it turns out, so many key finanaciers and polititicians have a stake in the environment – it is all but impossible to list them all. One sector, agribusiness-biofuel has so many players globally, it is no wonder Obama and the others cannot move. For Soros and the Carlyle Group which Soros reportedly invested $100 million in, that connection revealed at least a sort of partnership with Goldman Sachs all of whom own cumulatively the lion’s share of Green Earth Fuels – a Texas biodiesel outfit. The big business and investing stakes in environmental markets are far richer than this though.
Warren Buffett, Lord Jason Rothschild and other members of the Rothschild empire, Archer Daniels Midland, Syngenta, and many many others are so heavily involved in what is sure to become a “green boom” it is actually beyond comprehension.The breadth and depth of interests and the gravity of the “environmental game” is at the least as big as energy itself, but actually bigger when argiculture for food is taken into account. Interestingly, Warren Buffet, Lord Rothschild, and any number of other world business giants (including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger) met at one of Rothschild’s estates in 2002 (image left). Let’s just look at some other names and significant links which are even more interesting.
* Goldman Sacks, Carlyle Group joint energy investments – Cobalt International Energy, L.P,. Others likely exist through other holding companies worldwide. Don’t forget GS coined the term BRIC, were they predicting or are they instigating?
* Goldman Sachs “renewable” energy investments portfolio – Iogen Corporation cellulosic ethanol being the most relevant to bio fuels. Among their listed patners? None other than Volkswagen, another German hero Chancellor Angela Merkel is Chairperson on the advisory board of.
* George Soros and agribusiness/fuels – Soros is the largest stockholder in a company called Adecoagro, a South American biofuel and argri-business among other things. Besides having factories which significantly contributed to deforestation of the Amazon (and will even more as you will see), this company is a leader in producing biofuels from sugar plantations.
* The EU and Germany’s dependence on biofuels -I would feel extremely lonely this Christmas journalistic season, except for the fact that others are on this trail of connections too. Biofuels are more than a commodity for Germany and the EU, they are a necessity. Heavy vehicles already gulp millions of gallons of bio-diesel and ethanol. It is estimated that a changeover to bio–fuels for the EU would use up almost 70 percent of Europe’s arable land! This is the key here, Brazil and other resources have to be utilized, essentially trading European land for Brazilian rainforests.
* Makhteshim Aganv – Just one of companies and organizations linked to Lord Rothschild and that family’s banking interests. This Israeli group is funded by Rothschild and operates within the agribusiness/biofuels sphere in conjunction with companies like Syngenta – on of the world’s biggest agri-players as well. At least one of the group’s directors, Chen Lichtenstein, having been Executive Director of Investment Banking of Goldman Sachs. Other interesting connections lead to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany through a circuitous route through subsidiaries culminating at AgrEvo GmBh of which Bayer is a subsidiary. Merkel’s connection being unclear except for association with one Dr. Klaus Sommer at PTB – Bayer’s biofuels technology development leader.
Certainly, these very few I have listed are not definitive either in establish a “rock solid” case for my suggested premise. However, just as a news cast only portrays part of a story, sound bits from world leaders convey little of the behind closed doors communications between players. In a real sense, most of the key players are not even revealed. Copenhagen was a disaster because it is not time for the fire sale of alternatives. Big business has not yet cornered the market on everything from solar cells to rainforest to plow under – but they are close.
Why Brazil in Copenhagen?
Anyone asking logical questions might pose this one; “What have the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa got to do with climate talks or one another for that matter?” Just looking at Brazil (South Africa in a later article) within the context of this article, let’s call that country “the resource” for the next big business boom. As far as Copenhagen and climate are concerned, Brazil is the Boardwalk in a world wide struggle to make money in the 21st Century. The investments I have listed are really a drop in the bucket when trying to indicate the values we are talking about. Let me just introduce you to some facts and other resources here.
Fox News’ George Russell reveals a clue as to what is going on here. The average person cannot or will not even visualize the number of zeros in the number 1 trillion, but this is what Copenhagen, business, and today’s politics have in common, the exchange or shift of multiple trillions of dollars from someone’s hands (yours) to someone else’s (theirs). Russell attacks the draconian nature of somewhat secretive negotiations underway, which will culminate to an extent in Germany’s and Merkel’s (pictured right with Bayer’s biofuel guru Dr. Klaus Sommer and billionaire Friedhem Loh) back yard in March. For Brazil, and the rest of us, the key factor here is the likely reallocation or “adjustment” of tariffs on biofuels. An earlier report I read revealed:
To paint a little better picture of why Brazil is the key here please understand that the sugar industry estimates that $17 billion will be invested through 2012 in building 86 new sugarcane processing plants on top of the already 330 operating in Brazil today. Not many have asked where these plants will go or what resources they will consume to pump out ethanol. On a larger scale, not many have addressed what kinds of trade-offs (PDF) we will have to make in order to utilize biofuels, namely food, medicine and other commodities. Soro’s operations alone are already influencing key natural resources in Bahia Brazil where agribusiness now overshadows all other concerns. Consider too, this is just Brazil.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Chancellor Merkel before CopenhagenI tracked down no less than 200 links to pertinent details from deforestation and agri-business connections to mysterious subsidiaries which apparently serve some sort of distribution or R & D for their much larger counterparts. One interesting investment by George Soros in maybe the world’s largest agri-fuel-food giant Archer Daniels Midland, offers still more evidence of moves in the direction of (dare I say it) forcing the world into choosing fuel over food and vice versa. As for the most interesting players? Well, if you thought Bill Gates was the richest man in the world you were sadly delusional. The Rothschild fortune stretches far into the trillions of dollars not billions.
Global warming, sustainable energy, agribusiness – biofuels, and other sectors of the environmental sphere, as far as big business and investment are concerned – are all considered huge commodities – think about this. Some of these, like “clean bio-fuels” are being spun by the same people who spin every other fallacy. A Time article you might want to read pretty much sums up part of this charade. Experts in the thick of things on the Amazon frontier sum up a huge part of what I have been talking about in pointing out just how much money there is in chopping up the Amazon. Not many know, but the very fuels the EU and other consumers need so badly are largely produced at the expense of greenhouse gas consuming trees there. This amounts to a sort of; “We are going to save you by killing you because there is more money in it,” sort of dogma. Just so you know I am not some sort of conspiracy theory whacko, the Time article pretty much sums things up similarly.