The American Spectator

The New York Times reports that cap-and-trade as energy policy is dead, and does not mention Climategate (and subsequent Warming Scandalgates) anywhere as a cause. Instead they requisition political post-mortems from the likes of Sens. John Kerry and Lindsay Graham, as well the bazillion-dollar Environmental Defense Fund’s head, Fred Krupp:

Why did cap and trade die? The short answer is that it was done in by the weak economy, the Wall Street meltdown, determined industry opposition and its own complexity….

“Economywide cap and trade died of what amounts to natural causes in Washington,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, who has been promoting the idea for more than two decades. “The term itself became too polarizing and too paralyzing in the effort to win over conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans to try to do something about climate change and our oil dependency.”

As I reported last year, Krupp was the hypocrite who demanded the Securities and Exchange Commission require companies to report climate-related disclosures in their filings:

“As the nation responds to the challenges of global warming, investors have a right to know which businesses are forging innovative solutions for the 21st century and which are lagging behind,” [Krupp] said in a release.

I’m still waiting for Krupp to disclose how his massive organization is “forging innovative solutions” with their own greenhouse gas-reducing practices and behaviors. After all:

According to EDF’s tax return for Fiscal Year ending in Sept. 2007 (the most recent available on Guidestar), the organization spent $3.5 million for travel. Undoubtedly that paid for a lot of plane trips, vehicle rentals, etc. Got a breakdown of that for us, Fred? What kind of carbon offsets are you buying to cover that? (We demand transparency!) 

And according to the 2007 annual report, EDF has 10 offices throughout the U.S. and one in Beijing. Can you provide a carbon impact assessment for us? You’ve got three offices in California, and three in the Northeast Corridor of the U.S. (four if you add Raleigh). No opportunities for consolidation there to minimize greenhouse gas impact? And are you mostly served by coal-burning utilities or something else?

And finally, what mode of transportation are your 318 employees and 43 voting board members using to get to work every day? Any SUVs? Pick-up trucks? Other gas guzzlers? Or are they buying into the EDF vision and riding mass transit or driving hybrids? With more than $85 million in revenues in 2007 alone at your disposal, I’m sure you can take care of these little things for your people as you practice what you preach.

A death from “natural causes?” As recently as five months ago Krupp was pushing cap-and-trade as viable, lying about scientific trends and defending the shameless Al Gore (watch video below). But now, all of a sudden, it’s died due to simple polarization and paralyzation, and Climategate had nothing to do with it?

The fraud behind global warming extends in every direction, and has not let up. And cap-and-trade is not dead.