The Climate warming event of sudden rain floods in the Arabian dessert, that flooded the  Saudi  port city  Jeddah, killing eleven thousand people – is denied by the Saudi King.

This is a potent reminder of what awaits the climate deniers… and their unfortunate populations.

The Saudi king, princes and  regular Saudi scientists and  ministers are assaulting the Copenhagen process even when they have to live up to the shame of their own complicity in the Saudi Katrina-style disaster in the city of Jeddah that might have swept up to eleven thousand people out to the sea and certain drowning.

Many Saudis are asking how such a catastrophe could occur in one of the world’s richest countries and in its largest and most cosmopolitan city. In fact Jeddah was the capital of Saudi Arabia, until just a few years ago…

This was the most severe nature-related calamity that the world’s largest oil exporter has seen in the past half century.

And the real reason for the death and destruction that occurred last Wednesday is the systemic and endemic corruption in the Saudi government. The theft of the oil wealth of the last century, leads to cities without basic sewage systems and without sanitation infrastructure; that can drown their citizens in a fast rainfall that is rather regular to any other city of the world with a rainwater seepage and proper sewage system…

But then again maybe the Climate is changing… regardless of what the  octogenarian princes claim

Of course this is the Arabian dessert and rainfall isn’t happening.

But… it was rain that drowned Jeddah.

Of course not providing sewage infrastructure and inadvertently drowning your own people can be considered genocide in a civilized country… 

Genocide – Yes genocide, by dereliction of head of state duty to provide basic infrastructure for human habitation.

Jeddah is a great example of corruption. This city of more than 4 million people still lacks a sewage system and treatment facility. The rain that fell last week had nowhere to go but to flood the streets and neighbourhoods, creating havoc and death in its path.

Hundreds of bodies were swept in the current and up to 11,000 people may be missing in the sea, according to a report two days ago by the Saudi newspaper al-Yaum. This figure may be inflated but the number of the missing and dead surely ranks in the thousands. For comparison, hurricane Katrina in the US killed directly about 1,800 people, and many more afterwards.

The Saudi government reaction to the disaster in Jeddah followed the usual formula of denial followed by blame of the victims for failing to follow government orders about building codes.

Now the Saudi King Abdulah claims that the Copenhagen process must be stopped because of the East Anglia University email snoop….

He said there is no real evidence of Climate warming and all the talk of warming is manufactured pseudo-science must know something special, we don’t know about.

Then again he employs some of those fossil fuel and oil energy lobbyist occupying the suite hotels in Copenhagen around the Bella centre. 

Talk about the thief crying foul.

I suggest the King should hang his head in Shame and deal with his people’s infrastructure; before He goes on advising others about not curbing their emissions.

He sounds like the neighborhood drug dealer telling kids the dope is good for their health…

Almost a century of the greatest oil revenues on earth and they haven’t  even got sewers in their cities.

SHAME  ON YOU.

Disposal of excess human beings is a simple equation of food and energy.

That’s how governments think…

When confronted with an emergency they perform triage.

We are in a race between political tipping points and natural ones.

Can we cut carbon emissions fast enough to keep the melting of the Greenland ice sheet in check?

Could we shut down enough coal-fired power plants in time to save at least the larger glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan plateau?

Can we preserve the intensity of the agricultural revolution for the increasing populations?

Could we hope to stave off the ever more intense crop-withering heat waves before they create chaos in the world grain markets? 

Can we stem off the boom and bust capital investment mentality and short termism exhibited by so many for so long in the Financial sectors?

Could we hope to mitigate the effects of the far more frequent and unpredictable Monsoon seasons in their cycle of drought and flood causing less and less harvests?

Can we reorient our societies to accept the additional 1.5 billion people scheduled to arrive like refugees from the future within the next decade or two?

These are not all climate-change issues, but they have something  in common.

Food security.

Our meetings in  Copenhagen will be about climate, of course, but in a fundamental sense, they are about disposable humanity.

The Copenhagen negotiations must  be clearly focused  on whether we will leave  enough on the table for those less important human beings; to eat something, in the decades to come. 

The less important ones who are coming after us and without passports. They are the unbankables. Without mobiles or an address and without the benefits of a strong community.

Those without even a strong country and through the accident of DNA lottery they are born in a future made up of failed states.

 Will they find a seat at our table?

That’s for whom Copenhagen is  important. 

The difference between Genocide and survival often is just a shipment of grains…

We need not go beyond ice melting to see that the world is in trouble on the food front.

As the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets continue to shrink, sea levels will rise, threatening rice harvests around the globe. Recent projections show that the sea could rise up to six feet this century.

Separate from that, if the Greenland ice sheet were to melt entirely, it would rise by 23 feet.

According to the World Bank, it would take only a three-foot rise in sea level to cover half the rice fields in Bangladesh, a country of nearly 160 million people. Such an increase would also cover much of the Mekong Delta, which produces half the rice crop in Vietnam, the world’s No. 2 rice exporter. That should take care of those pesky Charlies…

But it would also submerge the greatest parts of the 20 or so other rice-growing river deltas throughout  Asia. 

Melting mountain glaciers are even more worrisome. The World Glacier Monitoring Service in Switzerland recently reported the 18th consecutive year of shrinking mountain glaciers around the world, from the Andes to the Rockies, from the Alps to the mountain ranges of Asia. Of these, the disappearance of glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan plateau threatens to shrink food supplies most sharply. Their annual ice melt sustains the major rivers of India and China – the Indus, Ganges, Yangtze and Yellow rivers – during the dry season. And this water in turn supplies irrigation systems. 

Yao Tandong, one of China’s leading glaciologists, warned last year in the journal Nature that two-thirds of the country’s glaciers could be gone by 2050, and has said that “the full-scale glacier shrinkage in the plateau regions will eventually lead to an ecological catastrophe.” 

What Yao forgot to mention (outside of his remit) is that the catastrophe on the main will be the destruction of the food producing capacity of the Asian countries that are home to more than a quarter of the world’s population. That’s the Genocide.

The Climate forcing events will also be humanitarian catastrophe of mass proportions. A real genocide, the likes of which we haven’t seen. Inactivity is todays culpability – just like the simple German SS and Nazi folks, participated in genocide just the same as their hysterical and lock step marching, unimaginative leaders. Hitler – Bashir – Ramesh – Bush – All the same…

Whoever heard of the idiocy of the idea that the Indian Environment Minister is spouting: The right to emit.

The Right to Emit?  Whoever heard of another stupidity like this?

Germany practiced genocide till 1945 – that doesn’t give the right to India to practice it again today. 

Nor does it give the right to Bashir of Sudan to practice Genocide today either. But at least he is used to doing just that. There is an arrest warrant with his name on it from the International Court in Hague for practicing genocide  against his own people, in Darfur and Southern Sudan…Is this a proper partner for India and the ruling party founded by Mohandas Gandhi?

Where in this BASIC shit is the Gandhian tradition ?  

Shame Ramesh. What a shame.

Carrying China’s baby is also foolish in diplomatic terms…

China is the world’s leading producer of wheat. India is the second one with the US coming third and Canada and Russia vying for fourth and fifth level place projected this year. Yet the weather also holds surprises and long weather forecasts for agriculture tell us that in 2010 the extra Dry spring weather & early wet summers, will severely reduce the wheat harvests in Asia, Australia, Canada, America and Europe .

However, only the world-leading producer China will increase its wheat production because the weather system of temperate rainfall is moving northwards making vast new areas available for wheat fields. That along with all the new lakes created in China’s centre will provide adequate irrigation  thus increasing wheat harvests on the short term.

In clear contrast to that – India’s harvests of wheat will be decimated.

Below are the leading wheat producers for the 2009-2010 season. The top 10 producers account for over two-thirds of the global wheat harvests.

1. China … 96.2 million tonnes (15.4% of global wheat production)
2. India … 72 million (11.5%)
3. United States … 57.1 million (9.1%)
4. Russia … 45.5 million (7.3%)
5. France … 36.9 million (5.9%)
6. Canada … 25.5 million (4.1%)
7. Australia … 24.1 million (3.8%)
8. Germany … 23.6 million (3.8%)
9. Pakistan … 21.6 million (3.4%)
10. Turkey … 21 million (3.4%)

The two leading countries also dominate the world’s rice harvest. But unlike in the United States which is the third-largest wheat producer, and where wheat is watered largely by rainfall, most crops in China and India are irrigated with the Himalay glaciers rivers’ runoff.

The vanishing of mountain glaciers in Asia therefore represents the biggest threat to the world food supply that we have ever seen. Add to that the fact that a quarter of humanity is dependent on their drinking water for survival.

Some tough choices in Copenhagen, Eh?.

Who can Live and who shall die.

Maybe now you can understand why the world Bank and others have such nifty acronyms for the disposable ones. BOP, IDPs,  DPs, UTs etc. 

Dehumanize those you are willing to lose.

The disposable minority.

Make no mistake for this is where we are heading.

Because the next Climate genocide is  gonna happen sooner than you think. And it will be squarely on our shoulders.

It is our own fault.

Who will be tried next in the Environmental Court for Genocide ? 

Which leader will stand next to genocidaire Bashir in the court in Hague?

Who is the leader to lead us out of this ethical morass?

Yours,

Pano

PS:  Maybe that was the last ditch effort by the two most affected countries to ask for additional aid because really their deep worry is the mouths they need to feed.

And really that’s what Copenhagen is all about.

And You who are going there to negotiate:  

Go forth and negotiate with an open heart.

But don’t forget the disposable ones  -  They very well might be your kids

The countries bellow are most affected by climate change and they happen to be the major rice for food producers.

Feeling Lucky eh?

This winter is not as cold in Copenhagen…

But if it’s not hot enough;

Let’s wait a bit longer…

The politicians will warm us all up.

Make us hot and cozy…

Of course rarely politicians deliver on their promises.

The UK and Britain in particular has had environmental foundation legislation and strict legal emission reduction commitments since the early  noughties for Emissions controls and delivery of climate results. However the Blair Brown government of New Labour failed to adhere nor deliver on any of these during the last dozen years.

No uproar was raised – No truth committee was convened – No public demonstrations….

Maybe public policy is meaningless – Even the civil servants failed to notice.  Nobody even suggested to take the ex Prime Minister Tony Poodle Blair, to court for failing to adhere to the environmental legislation…

But what about the law of the land? A Prime Minister who violates thus the foundation of the law isn’t above it. Right?

Maybe You say: they don’t even try him yet for his illegal war mongering and lying to the country – so who cares for the smallish fry that the environment represents.

Yet I disagree. I think his failure to adhere to the environmental legislation is a far more serious crime against  humanity than his serious misleading a country down the war path.

And now in Copenhagen we await the commitments of  a new slew of leaders who proclaim serious well debated and negotiated commitments to reduce their countries’ emissions and reform their addictive fossil behaviour.

Some will adhere thoughtfully and proactively.

Others will create comprehensive society wide change and incentives. Their  policy technology  will succeed.

Some will change fast – Others will not.

Some will lead – Others will fail.

Some others will pout and waste time and capital while they pay lip service to the world.

And as difficult as it is to change, they will not.

Maybe they will lie and pass it on to the next generation. Maybe they are simple failures to adhere.

Maybe they don’t care to disrupt the business model of bubble growth: Going from bust to boom and back to bust.

Maybe they stick their successors with the mounting problems.

But who will monitor this ?

Now with the US and Chinese presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao agreeing to move forward with firm commitments; they both put numbers to their pledges to cut their nations’ carbon footprints.

And then the backpedaling starts.

Chinese Environment and Industry leaders already backpedaling behind their president’s initiatives. Even after Clinton’s constructive bilateral policy initiative, negotiations and visit followed by Obama’s seeming unshakeable deal – they dynamited the COP15 process with India’s help in the BASIC counter proposal.  

And even when they are not undermined by their own domestic foes; such as John McCain’s turn around and kowtowing to the fossil fuel energy polluters – Presidents rarely manage to reach their targets during their term.

The President’s pronouncements for both countries are genuine and want to achieve the agreed results…

Unfortunately, the latest modelling exercises suggest these cuts will not be enough to head off dangerous climate change. Europe may have to take up the slack.

Just two weeks ago, there were widespread fears that the Copenhagen climate conference, which kicks off next week, would fail. The Danish prime minister, who is hosting the talks, pleaded that the negotiators should at the very least offer quantitative promises to cut their countries’ emissions.

The leaders of the US and China have now done so. On 26 November, Obama said the US would cut emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020 and by 83 per cent by 2050. The following day China – which has long insisted it would not budge until the US did - pledged to cut the amount of carbon it releases per unit of GDP to 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

With pledges from most major emitters now on the table, the question is: will they be enough to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2 °C? Many scientists predict that warming beyond this level will result in severe, and sometimes irreversible, environmental changes.

The indications are not promising. The pledges made so far translate into around 3 °C warming by 2100, an international team of climate modellers.

Domestic politics in both China and the US make it difficult for either country’s government to commit to bigger cuts. Republicans in the US Congress have said that they will fight hard to defeat emissions cuts. This makes it uncertain whether Obama will be able to deliver even on the pledge he will take to Copenhagen.

Chinese leaders are reluctant to commit to bigger emission savings for fear that this would slow the country’s recent rapid increase in living standards.

These obstacles have led some climate campaigners to turn their attention to Europe, which has committed to a 20 per cent cut from 1990 levels by 2020.

Fortunately the impact of the recession now means that the EU can and will beat it’s commitment to reduce emissions far faster than anyone predicted.

That makes European Union’s 2020 emission reduction goal so unambitious that Europe would need to deliberately slow its reductions and energy intensity deliberately in order to fail to meet it.

A leadership initiative from the New European President with increased reduction commitments is now needed.

Maybe that would reconcile EU with the world’s aspirations while leading others to a fresh round of commitments – just we need some diplomacy for that, and am not sure Lady Ashton has got it in her to play the game. Then again maybe she can prove us wrong.

Or maybe our new President has super powers too… Yeah that would be the day.

Just let him put on his cape and announce new cuts and solid goals.

EU will bring us closer to what the scientists say is necessary but we need some muscle.

And for the politicos who lie and fail to deliver on their promises and agreements – We need an Environment Court to examine these issues and give them the much needed oversight and the neccesary backbone to deliver on whatever is agreed upon.

Yours,

Pano

PS:

We started this initiative at the Environmental parliament and hope to be a fruitful endeavour as we count on our friends to support the creation of a simple Environment Court for national and intra- national disputes, for atmospheric commons pollution, for carbon trading, for climate carbon pricing, corporate arbitration, amicable conflict resolution, policy compliance and CO2 emission agreements compliance.

That would warm up Politicians’ personal climate a bit.

It’s  2059 and the world’s seas have risen by at least 1.5 meters compared to base level of 1990.

London is mostly under water like Amsterdam…

At the very least…. sea levels will rise by about five feet (1.5 meters) without anything more drastic than  the expected business as usual (and with the COP15 in effect) global warming of an additional 2 degree Celcius.

That is assuming no other major climate forcing events or catastrophes in the next forty years.

But if we are unlucky and we get a 3C warming – the sea rise will be double that again.  Much like compound interest for the bankers who understand the power of it – global warming and sea level rises are compounded.   

A review of climate change in Antarctica forecasts that by 2049  we will likely experience this sea level rise.

If we escape that, then by 2100 we will certainly experience the sea level rise of 1.4 meters at least. This is a certainty.

Absolute water level rise to levels previously considered by IPCC modelers as too extreme to be realistic and too frightful to be communicated widely. 

And all that water level rise without counting the tipping melt of the Arctic and/or the Greenland ice sheets. Not even counting the effect of all the land based glaciers which are melting and disappearing the fastest, either. 

All this because, just a small portion of the Antarctic – the one studied extensively – the West Antarctic ice shelf is breaking away and melting in the sea. This will cause your kids to go swimming in their bedrooms.

Just the West Antarctic – Never mind the vast East Antarctic ice melt that’s just as perilous if not more so in it’s sea level rise effect than the West Antarctic….

The East Antarctic is breaking apart too and some of it’s broken off bits are huge icebergs floating off. Some even made it all the way to New Zealand this week and not without melting… But the East antarctic will be the focus of the next data set review. For now we focus on the West Antarctic alone in our modeling that’ s giving us the present headache.

The specific data set review, compiled in a report called: ”Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment”, was compiled and peer reviewed by 100 scientists associated with the international Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. Using 20 of the most up-to-date models that take into account the complex behaviour of the ozone hole over Antarctica, as well as the most recent observations of ice loss, the review predicts that the area of sea ice around Antarctica would certainly shrink by 33 per cent – 2.6 million square kilometres – by 2100, leading to a sea-level rise of 1.4 metres. But more assuredly this sea level will be reached by 2050.

”This is the first comprehensive review of Antarctic climate change that covers how the climate of the icy continent has changed from deep time,” says John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey, lead editor of the report. The report also makes predictions about how the Antarctic climate will change over the next century.

For the past 30 years, the hole in the atmosphere’s ozone layer above Antarctica has protected the bulk of the continent from the effects of climate change by generating fierce winds. In that time, sea ice around the continent has increased by 10 per cent.

The new report warns that when the ozone hole heals – and it will, possibly by the end of the century – Antarctica will feel the full force of global warming, with temperatures rising by as much as 3 °C by 2100.

The report backs the predictions of Stefan Rahmstorf at Potsdam University, Germany, whose own work suggests that given the speed at which West Antarctica’s ice sheets are shrinking, sea levels are likely to rise by 1.4 metres by 2100. In contrast, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment, published in 2007, predicted 59 centimetres.

“I am not the one to judge my own paper, but there is indeed indication that these higher numbers – not only from my study, by the way – are now the new mainstream,” says Rahmstorf.

The IPCC’s sea-level rise projections are considered to be conservative, as they don’t take into account the fact that Antarctica’s loss of ice will accelerate as temperatures rise over the continent.

By 2100, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet alone could lose enough ice mass to raise sea levels globally by “tens of centimetres,” Turner says.

Despite the transformations climate change will create on Antarctica, the study concludes on an upbeat note: only a few of the continent’s species are likely to become extinct by 2100.

Many marine creatures can survive a change in temperature of 5 to 10 °C before dying, but “a rise of this magnitude in the Southern Ocean is extremely unlikely to be survived by many in 2100″, the study says

Of course we won’t be alive then – so who cares. 

Our remnants though; will float off the cemeteries mixing it up with those unlucky enough to be alive Post Katrina style.  As it was in New Orleans when the corpses in their boxes, floated off the flooded cemeteries mixing it up and swimming with the living.

What can I say?  

A second chance to swim free – can’t be all that bad.

There is a lot of talk these days in Copenhagen from corporate lobbyists fighting for the 

right of their employers to emit carbon freely.

The most vocal lobby is employed by the Aviation tycoons and the Shipping magnates. 

They represent the personal and corporate alignment of special interests  in their respective industries.

They protest vehemently of their right to emit.

And they talk about their contribution to society….

But hold on there a moment. Let’s think this through.

Whoever thought that to emit toxic gases in our atmosphere is a right?

A right to destroy everything that we hold sacred?

Yet this is what people are talking about…

A long list of fools mostly from the business world.

People who make money from polluting our Common atmosphere.

People who deny the need to curb their emissions.

They represent the frozen middle of our societies. Some sectors of the economy are notoriously reprehensible.

The old oil industries. Mining oil and processing along with the coal beauties, are at the bottom of Dante’s inferno.

Then we have the energy sector and the cement industry, who at least start recognizing their  culpability. 

But some others are complete refusniks of reality. Especially the ones in Aviation and shipping who ask for perpetual exemption from the COP15 agreements believing they have the right to emit.

Good folks like my friends Stelio and Richard  who have gotten so assured of having their way that they believe they should be exempt from reality. Maybe that’s what happens if you become a Sir by some fairyland Queen. 

They all know that the  right to emit is a great folly.

Yet that’s precisely what they ask for.

Asking for a giant folly forgiveness, for a dispensation or an absolution is foolish.

Asking for the right to emit against all others is a crime.

Simple as that.

 Much like genocide was a bad idea – yet practiced by idiots for thousand years, the right to emit is a really bad idea. 

Yours,

PS:

How do you expect the developing world to accept the curtailing of emissions critical for their development, when the super wealthy aren’t willing to limit their profits by 0.01% or less for the common good.

Aviation atmospheric theory clearly states that high level atmospheric emissions are far more harmful than anything else, yet the airlines ask their passengers to offset – instead of assuming their share of responsibility.

And the owners of these airlines support inoffensive charities for Greenwash instead of  tackling their responsibilities.

Shipping uses the dirtiest bunkering fuel known to man. Emiting more toxins and foul gases than any other transport sector. Without any scrubbers and conscience they want to be allowed to continue so. 

Since they were exempt from Kyoto they want this inequity to continue…

They all ask for exemptions, permits and special dispensation – Why?

Being rich doesn’t prevent you from being a fool right?

Of course one could take the high road and really support their industry to change by being the first mover. A real pioneer to move their intransigent industries forward to being a good corporate citizen of the world.

In my book that’s a what real leader is.

And if you are one then you just know: real friends tell the truth…

A global climate treaty with every minor detail in place isn’t in the cards for Copenhagen this time around. Our Hope is, the 15th Conference of the parties, will close with Clarity.

What clarity for me is… It’s  to get five simple things done. Maybe if we get agreements on the five major economic and political essentials, thereby creating a clarity the world sorely needs, we’ll be able to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Even if it’s five separate side agreements, or smaller  agreements to set the stage as the MOUs of the future expectation of Copenhagen Road map – then the business world will welcome the outcome, same as the people of this earth. That will comprise the essence of the General Agreements on  Climate Change. GASS for those of you favouring acronyms… and it will guide business to change our economies for a low carbon future…

Presently inside the cloud of CO2 anti-science, NIMBYism, nationalistic short-termism, selfish money begging and even fogging the atmosphere like Victorian smog – we are swimming blind in a thick wet fog…
Without clarity our Democracy doesn’t function – nor does the global will to create the Climate Commons. That’s Why we expect agreements in clarity first before we get the mandate to act. 

Give us Clarity on these five little things.

1. GROWTH: Prosperity, Economic development, Mobility, Energy, Transportation, Manufacture, Increased population pressures, agriculture and food production along with inefficient and wasteful biofuels, and the global biomass’ resultant Carbon emissions flows in the atmosphere are well known and measured.  Now, are the industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by a certain percentage – verifiably?  Is the developing world willing to do the same? What is that percentage relevant to 1990 levels of CO2 emissions?

 2. DOLLARS & SENSE:  How much are the major developing countries such as China, India and the BRICs willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions? And what public policies will achieve that?
 
3. HELP YOUR BROTHERS:  By whom, when, how much, and how is  it going to be applied ?   That is the help from North to South and towards the BOP and the developing world. How can the developing countries’ engagement in reducing their emissions, mitigating the changes and adapting to the impacts of climate change, is going to be financed? Provided they commit to doing the turn around with integrity and honesty – sans corruption?
 
4. FALLACY OF DEMOCRACY: When the whole world comes to Copenhagen eager in making the needed political agreement and then failing to deliver…. I think if that ’s a failure then it’s not just about climate change, but it’s about the whole global democratic system. Our Common environment is at stake. Something that the people recognize as vital for civilization to continue; and then their governments not being able to deliver results, in the one defining challenge of our lives and that of the species. Failure simply,  is not an option.

5. MARKET METHOD: How is the necessary money going to be raised, allocated, distributed and subsequently managed?  If  Carbon markets work well for offsetting the efforts of the rich one reasons they can work well to offset the changes for the poor. Albeit they need to be gamed enough and primed with goodwill and CDMs to be useful.

Of course Copenhagen can deliver on those five points. And in some sense it already has. Copenhagen has already delivered results. If we hadn’t had that deadline, all these governments would not have come forward with their targets. They are doing so because they know the deadline is coming closer, and they must start to deliver instead of grumble…

The need to get something signed and agreed in Copenhagen, is greater now and we all fight for it. Legions of activists are the street troops and scores of boffins are the generals. But it is the bureaucrats that need to finesse diplomacy to work here.

But one thinks it will be a gigantic undertaking – very difficult to get every final, small detail of a whole new treaty done. The new climate treaty will be replacing the Kyoto Protocol which was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005 but expiring in 2012. 

The Kyoto Protocol which sets binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions has been signed and ratified by 184 parties of the UN Climate Convention. One notable exception is the United States, and  we are really happy to see the US back in the international climate change process and the fact that the US President Obama announced the beginnings of firm CO2 emission reduction targets and He is coming to Copenhagen. Further, the Congress and Senate are also engaged domestically in the process to deliver firm commitments and the Administration changes it’s focus on Clean energy generation, electrification of transportation and smart grid for the delivery of these renewable energies.
But we need a New Treaty and a Protocol from Copenhagen NOW.

How can we reconcile this need with the disclaimers and the popular management of expectations? 

If we don’t deliver in Copenhagen, then I cannot see when again you can build up a similar pressure on all the governments of this world to deliver an agreement.

But let us learn form the past failures and successes in order to stand up again and succeed fully this time around.
The big lesson from the Kyoto era is that it’s really important that the United States is in a rapid move frame and similar to how Kyoto was agreed upon at the very end – Copenhagen can and  will do too.

I think that a major shortcoming of Kyoto for the US and vice versa, was that the official US delegation left Kyoto, to go back to America with a treaty they knew was never going to make it through the Senate. But this time things are different.  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, through John Kerry, is really expressing strongly what they feel needs to be done in Copenhagen… and above all else they are in with the President fully.

The US Senate rejected the Kyoto Protocol for  two reasons. First, because it did not involve any action on the part of major developing countries. Second, because the Bush administration didn’t want to be humbled as one of many and an international player in a global system and that Kyoto Protocol adherence, would be harmful to the US economy. Neocon thinking at the core, wasted ten years…

A sea change has occurred since then…

Now, Copenhagen will be a whole different scenario, with a confident President Obama, early onboard and present; who can successfully engage China and India and convince them to sign this treaty – as He demonstrated by bringing them both here.

Secretary of State Clinton’s policy initiatives and her visit to Beijing was a really important and encouraging step to get us moving on that road.  When Obama circled around to China and met the leadership – make no mistake it’s the Environment they discussed. More than money. China isn’t anymore the banker of the US than it is the recipient of large aid packets – It’s a valued partner on the road to economic prosperity within the constraints of a low carbon common future.
Yes, the global recession, will certainly have an impact on the negotiations in Copenhagen. But we are pulling out of it with a focus on Clean tech and sustainability. Even if the banker-wankers don’t seem to like it. The focus has shifted.
 You see already that investments in renewable energy projects are going up, mainly because of policy nad public incentives. And also partly because of the oil prices going up and perhaps people recognizing we are past peak oil and partly because of the economic activity going up. We will not run out of energy.  We will have loads of surplus and legacy oil and coal and gas as we are shifting away from them in favour of renewables. Don’t worry about diminishing oil…

The stone age didn’t finish because we run out of stones.

Same applies to the oil fueled, industrial age.

We are already shifting from oil dependency and the fossil fuels will be plentiful when the last shipment of oil leaves the ground and the last oil pump derrick falls silent.

Today the oil rig sucker rods are still wet and pumping; as we start trading Carbon from the air….

We are already experiencing the factoring of the markets in CO2. Even though we haven’t got an adequate price for Carbon, it slows down the PPM process in the atmosphere.

Many factors contribute to this epiphany but mostly efficiencies converted from high energy prices, increased intensity of energy and our good fortune in the guise of the silver lining of the economic recession.

But even though greenhouse gas emissions’ growth is slowing down and in some case even reduced as a result of shrinking industrial activities, and the high price of oil – the net result will not lessen the pressure on countries to act and sign a new treaty.

At the Environmental Parliament; we get the impression by conferencing, convening and gathering meetings’ intelligence and by creating Open Source E.P. public policy, that there isn’t enough of a clear vision around the main climate issues. Nor is the way forward remotely clear…

The Environmental Parliament officers, through talking to the business and industrial world gather the incentive to change as being more about a clear target and a common goal rather than their unwillingness to adapt to our changing circumstances. We talk with the Industrial and Business giants as well as the small and new players in the Energy generation, Automotive, Transport, Aerospace, Shipping, Construction, Manufacturing, Banking and Finance business – and all the  people say that they still want more clarity and direction from Copenhagen – Above all else.

Business abhors abstractions… For they are cynical like the military in achieving targets. If you’re making investments now, for example in the energy sector, in power plants that are going to be around for the next 30 to 50 years, you can’t really afford to keep waiting and waiting and waiting for governments to say where they’re going to go on this issue.

We met with the CEO of Duke energy in Washington in the US,  and they have an ambitious plan to convert the largest part of their Electricity energy generation fleet of plants from coal to nuclear… In the midst of deeply conservative, Southern and cheap coal producing, Virginia, Carolinas and Tennessee country. Yet this is the man whom the January 5, 2009, edition of Newsweek named James Rogers, CEO of Duke energy, to The Global Elite list, “The 50 Most Powerful People in the World,” saying ”The CEO of Duke Energy could make the dreams of renewable power a reality.” He said that the most important aspect of his job was to see the future trends for society. And in some ways to divine the future course of business from this vantage point. Not an easy task if you have conflicting agendas within governments… You must plan with the present set of data and that’s why we need a set of truths to emerge in Copenhagen for the world to ACT.

ACT NOW  for Copenhagen.

Forget about your Life.

It’s your business that might depend on it.

Yours,

Pano

PS: CARBON PRICE. The Environmental parliament is convening a ministerial level discussion for a proper price of Carbon and a Market mechanism approach. To participate express your interest here. First round table breakfast meeting in Copenhagen in the Economics department of the University of Copenhagen on the 10th of December. Second roundtable breakfast meeting at LSE in London on the 18th of December.

 The Conference of the Birds

Advise and simple metaphors - Tales for Copenhagen

[Attar is the poet....]

[Simurgh is the... ?] 

[Nature ]

‘Attar began with an invocation in which he suggested that one must live a hundred lives to know oneself;

But you must know Nature, not by yourself, for Nature opens the way, not human wisdom.

‘Attar believed that Nature is beyond all human knowledge.

The soul will manifest itself when the body is laid aside. One cannot gain spiritual knowledge without dying to all things. When the birds assemble, they wonder why they have no king.

Then Hope presents herself as a messenger from the invisible world with knowledge of Nature and the secrets of creation. She recommends Simurgh as their true king, saying that one of his feathers fell on China.

The Nightingale says that the love of the Rose satisfies her, and the journey is beyond her strength; but the Hope warns against being a slave of passing love that interferes with seeking self-perfection. The Parrot longs for immortality, and then Hope encourages the Peacock to choose the whole. The Duck is too content with water to seek the Simurgh. The Hope advises the Partridge that gems are just colored stones and that love of them hardens the heart; she should seek the real jewel of quality.

The Human is distracted by ambition, and the Owl loves only the treasure he has found.

Then Hope reprimands the Sparrow for taking pride in humility and recommends struggling bravely with oneself. She states that the different birds are just shadows of the Simurgh. If they succeed, they will not be God; but they will be immersed in Nature. If they look in their hearts, they will see the divine image. All appearances are just the shadow of the Simurgh. Those loving truly do not think about their own lives and sacrifice their desires. Those grounded in love renounce faith and religion as well as unbelief. One must hear with the ear of the mind and the heart.

A total of 22 birds speak to  Hope or ask questions about the journey. Short anecdotes are told to illustrate Hope’s points. Then Hope says that it is better to lose your life than to languish miserably.

The Hope says,

So long as we do not die to ourselves,
and so long as we identify with someone or something,
we shall never be free.
The spiritual way is not for those wrapped up in exterior life.

You will enjoy happiness if you succeed in withdrawing from attachment to the world. Whoever is merciful even to the merciless is favored by the compassionate.

It is better to agree to differ than to quarrel.

Then Hope warns the sixth bird against the dog of desire that runs ahead. Each vain desire becomes a demon, and yielding to each one begets a hundred others. The world is a prison under the devil, and one should have no truck with its master. The Hope also says that if you let no one benefit from your gold, you will not profit either; but by the smallest gift to the poor, you both benefit.

She says,

Good fortune will come to you only as you give.
If you cannot renounce life completely,
you can at least free yourself
from the love of riches and honors.6

A pupil becomes afraid in facing a choice between two roads, but a Shaikh advises getting rid of fear so that either road will be good. Then Hope tells the eighth bird that only if death ceases to have power over creatures would it be wise to remain content in a golden palace. The ninth bird is told that sensual love is a game inspired by passing beauty that is fleeting. Then Hope asks what is uglier than a body made of flesh and bones. It is better to seek the hidden beauty of the invisible world. An anecdote about Jesus yields the following lesson:

Strive to discover the mystery before life is taken from you.
If while living you fail to find yourself, to know yourself,
how will you be able to understand
the secret of your existence when you die?

The Hope advises the eleventh bird that giving yourself over to pride or self-pity will disturb you. Since the world passes -pass it by, for whoever becomes identified with transient things has no part in the lasting things. The suffering endured is made glorious and is a treasure for the seer, for blessings will come if you make efforts on the path.

The fifteenth bird is told that justice is salvation, and the just are saved from errors.

Being just is better than a life of worship. Justice exercised in secret is even better than liberty; but justice professed openly may lead to hypocrisy. A story of two drunks teaches that we see faults because we do not love. When we understand real love, the faults of those near us appear as good qualities. When you see the ugliness of your own faults, you will not bother so much with the faults of others.

The journey of the birds takes them through the seven valleys of the quest, love, understanding, independence and detachment, unity, astonishment, and finally poverty and nothingness. In the valley of the quest one undergoes a hundred difficulties and trials. After one has been tested and become free, one learns in the valley of love that love has nothing to do with reason. The valley of understanding teaches that knowledge is temporary, but understanding endures. Overcoming faults and weaknesses brings the seeker closer to the goal. In the valley of independence and detachment one has no desire to possess nor any wish to discover. To cross this difficult valley one must be roused from apathy to renounce inner and outer attachments so that one can become self-sufficient.

In the valley of unity, the Hope announces that although you may see many beings, in reality there is only one, which is complete in its unity. As long as you are separate, good and evil will arise; but when you lose yourself in the divine essence, they will be transcended by love. When unity is achieved, one forgets all and forgets oneself in the valley of astonishment and bewilderment.

Then Hope declares, that the last valley of deprivation and death is almost impossible to describe. In the immensity of the divine ocean the pattern of the present world and the future world dissolves. As you realize that the individual self does not really exist, the drop becomes part of the great ocean forever in peace. The analogy of moths seeking the flame is used. Out of thousands of birds only thirty reach the end of the journey.

When the light of lights is manifested and they are in peace, they become aware that the Simurgh is them. They begin a new life in the Simurgh and contemplate the inner world. Simurgh, it turns out, means thirty birds; but if forty or fifty had arrived, it would be the same. By annihilating themselves gloriously in the Simurgh they find themselves in joy, learn the secrets, and receive immortality.

So long as you do not realize your nothingness and do not renounce your self-pride, vanity, and self-love, you will not reach the heights of immortality.

‘Attar concluded the epilogue with the admonition that if you wish to find the ocean of your soul, then die to all your old life and then keep silent.

Yours,

Pano Kroko

Good Luck and  here is some inspiration for your journey and the fight forward.

Coming from the 4,500 stanzas of a poem called ”the Conference of Birds” written  in Persian by the poet Attar,  Farid ud-Din,  written around  the year  1177.

Thats almost 900 years earlier, but eerily significant for the goals of the fighters in the Copenhagen conference today.

The Copenhagen Climate Revolution  is on.

CCR for those of you in the know…

Is a global rebellion to fight for change. 

Change in the environment, change in the atmosphere, change in our economies and change in how we deal with climate and energy today.

We ought to change the minds too of the  global leaders attitudes and  resolutions towards sorting out the environmental mess we’ve inherited and  fostered right from the industrial revolution onwards.

So from now on, these days in Copenhagen onwards, are to be called the Climate Revolution.

And perhaps history will call them thus as we move away from the Industrial age…

Like all revolutions, so with this one; we can see where it started. 

Obama said the US was prepared to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases by 17 per cent by 2020 and by 83 per cent by 2050 “in the context of an overall deal in Copenhagen that includes robust mitigation contributions from China and the other emerging economies”.

At first, that sounds similar to promises made by the other wealthy nations. The EU, is aiming to cut emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. But the US president is measuring his cuts against 2005 emissions while most other nations use 1990 as a baseline.

The difference is subtle but significant: US emissions grew by almost 15 per cent between those dates. Using 1990 as a baseline, Obama’s pledge translates into a cut of around 4 per cent.

That is well short of the 25 to 40 per cent cuts that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says are required from developed nations to avoid the most dangerous consequences of climate change.

But it’s a Beginning. Just a beginning. All revolutions have a firm beginning.

And with these humble beginnings, the US will achieve even bigger cuts than the ones Obama’s statement makes. His pledge relates to limiting emissions from specific industries, such as the energy sector and encourages others to go forward. In a way it seeds the economy and allows for all other sectors to come onboard to a climate revolution by limiting their emissions.

President Obama has given us a major boost to the UN climate change agreement in Copenhagen by offering those admittedly low but firm targets for cuts in the US greenhouse gas emissions, centred on the Energy sector and the electrification of  automobiles and transport.
Coupled with other EPA and clean air domestic policies, and improvements in present transportation and vehicle fuel efficiency, will bring further reductions in line with Europe and further ahead in technological breakthroughs.

Although the White House does not say how the cuts will be achieved – we know most of it.

The US House of Representatives has also passed a bill containing similar and further reductions, and the US Senate is considering it’s own version of the Cap and Trade legislation with a more ambitious target of reductions. The presence of those bills will at least allow Obama to point to domestic action when negotiating in earnest in Copenhagen. He also has the option of bypassing Congress and imposing cuts through the existing legislation, such as the Clean Air Act, now that the courts have determined CO2 as a toxic gas. 

Obama’s pledge also contains interim targets for the US: a 30 per cent cut below 2005 levels by 2025 and a 42 per cent cut by 2030. This addresses one major complaint from developing nations, which have been calling for a more detailed reductions timetable for the next few decades.  

At least that’s a beginning and it obviously offered enough incentives to bring China and India onboard. And make them come to Copenhagen early on with their own premieres.

These two major growing polluters that had so far resisted to regulate their emissions and to come onboard the global deal in Copenhagen – Now both have changed their stance radically… and suddenly.

Both China and India are Now coming to Copenhagen, and are fully engaged with their own firm cuts and their Premieres participating in the global work on climate change over the next two weeks.

Obama has for all his tenure and at least the last 10 months managed within the Major Economies Forum, the G20, bilateral discussions and multilateral consultations and most importantly, based on progress made in his recent, talks with the Chinese and Indian leaders, and has pushed the envelop of climate agreement further and now forward.

Now Obama makes it possible to reach a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen. His decision to go, is a sign of his commitment and his early on leadership to find an equitable and just solution for the developing world. He is aligned with all the young people all over the world, and the proponents of our healthful commons in atmosphere and in our clean energy future.

Of course with the UN climate negotiations less than a fortnight away, we may have to fight a bit longer and intensely so; just to get the agreement ratified in a legal framework in Copenhagen.  

Fight the Left-Right wing party of Denmark that wants the talks to fail…

Fight the low level bureaucrats and statists, that see their job remit threatened as is overtaken by eager national leaders to shine… when they arrive in Copenhagen.

We need to fight … Fight the BASIC countries  last-minute land mine (made in China) of a proposal by the erstwhile allies. Allies of the porcupine sensibility… Brazil, South Africa, India and China environment low level ministers; who decided like Johnnies come lately, to throw the grenade at the Copenhagen for their own inactivist and bureaucratic reasons. Of course they cloak their actions in the cover of  poor people’s interest.  But they are financed by China’s oil companies and the International oil company cartel along with OPEC and their erstwhile members.  

OPEC members aren’t obviously the participants but they finance the criminal Bashir (of Sudan) to be the head of G string nations otherwise called G77. They claim to be against the rich nations by coming up with their own counter draft of the road map text that will be presented at the conference. They agreed to let China, which initiated the exercise, to present the draft of the developing nations at Copenhagen. And then they will run… together.

Or so they say – except Lula will not be running anywhere with anyone of these yahoos.  Lula is here for a deal – as long as it takes.   Singh too, even if his erstwhile semi-faschist environment Minister Ramesh doesn’t know that.  As for Zuma – He is not going anywhere. That leaves the Chinese…  well the Hu Jintao isn’t coming so Wen Jiabao wants the glory of a deal – No?

Wen, wants his fried rice and celebration dumplings in Copenhagen too.

So the basic countries environment ministers for now grumble and play along even though; they see the benefit for their own societies out of a deal, even if they publicly repudiate it.  Corruption rules in their countries and they export it here. Hostage taking in India is big… They signify this trend now on the international stage. If they aren’t guns for hire of the Climate Deniers industrial strength lobby – they are doing the work of the China oil company.

These NIMBYS are nationalists that they fail to see the value of  strong national and rational firm reductions in CO2. And they represent the forces of recidivism here. But you also have the other side of the coin such as Sweden that after losing all of it’s foreign aid in the pockets of the strongmen of Zambia; they decided to link any further foreign aid with changes in the climate policy of Zambia. The same climate policy link will be applied with all Swedish foreign aid for any receiving country. These impoverished countries might find it difficult to behave belligerently and they might be required to participate in a positive spirit in the Copenhagen accords.

Sweden isn’t alone. it’s the same as all developed countries are prepared to do in a short order; if the ”basic” countries  climate deniers spin out of control. That should change Ramesh’s coiffure quickly…

We must fight the basic poor thinkers too – same as we must fight the Environment ideologues on the other end of the spectrum who have wet dreams about geo engineering and the Hitler youth of the science solutions – magic bullet camp.

At  least they are all out there – fully represented here too.

And with both China’s Premiere Wen Jiabao and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh… coming to Copenhagen at the time of Obama…   their diplomats and environment ministers likely feel sidelined and irrelevant.  So they want to remind us that they are BASIC to the negotiations.  Maybe not so basic… but replaceable.  

YES to a deal is basically just a beginning.

And that’s only possible because Obama said He is going and he offered firm American commitments. That’s all. Let’s accept it and  built upon that.

Denmark will unveil its draft agreement to a group of select countries that includes the United States, several European nations, India and China on December 1. It will be later presented at the COP15 conference. Around the same time, the BASIC nations plan to circulate their own counter-draft in order to influence the course of negotiations in favour of the Chinese counter proposal. 

Seems the Indians have fallen again for the Maoist tendency to revisit history and given the pendulum of passions swaying the Indian psyche widely; now they are going through their own belated cultural revolution.

Advise to Mr Singh… The Chinese are OK for themselves but the local Indians they missed the point clearly – as it is not a time to go into cultural convulsions. A bit late for that – really and if you wanted to be frank, it’s  properly called Climate Revolution and further, its best to be homegrown instead of another cheap Chinese import…

It’s cheap plastic and it will break soon.

And of course the exceptionally gifted mentalist, Indian environment minister Ramesh had this gem of wisdom to say:  ”There is no evidence climate change has caused “abnormal” shrinking of the Himalayan glaciers”.  And this was after this other common sense pronouncement: “I think there is an abundance of evidence to show that climate change is not related in any way to population growth.”  Yeah for sure this smart man couldn’t be used by the Chinese. His mind is like a steel trap…

Ramesh goes on to say this about the Chinese proposed text: “This BASIC draft fully meets India’s goals and aspirations. We hope it is made the basis of discussions at the Copenhagen conference.”

Obviously the Indian environment minister Ramesh, having no policy of his own besides calling out No, no, no I will not go into rehab – like another Amy Winehouse;  crawls to the bar on all four for some oriental libations.  Come to think of it he can improve with his hairdo too…

The BASIC draft, which was originally prepared by China, was finalized after some changes during a 7-hour long meeting of BASIC countries’ representatives (junior diplomats) from Brazil, South Africa, India and China besides the invited Genocide Sudan which is the chair of G-77.  A good group of idiots that elected genocide indicted President Bashir as their head.

BTW, Bashir is the only one who can’t go to Copenhagen, no matter how much he might want to disrupt. Because He knows, that if he shows up in Copenhagen – He is going to be arrested and taken to Hague to be tried as a common criminal that he is; based on the international warrant issued for his arrest as a practitioner of genocide against his own people. What a group… of upstanding G77 and other moral leaders who huddle around this… beast.

You know, it’s the company You keep  - that defines who you are.

But that shall pass too.

Bear it on my friends…

We’ll fight them head on. And so will their own people. In Delhi and Mumbai, in Canton and Beijing, in Darfur and Southern Sudan, in Rio and  Sao Paolo, in Tibet and in Kashmir, in Dharmsala and Soweto, in Cape Town and Durban, in Natal and in Johannesburg, as well as all over Copenhagen and in the rest of the world.

We’ll stand together – We’ll all be there:

Sinners and Saints – Politicians and  organizers – street folk and activists – Angels and Devils…  take the train and come on, on.

We’ll fight on the streets and in the boardrooms – on the internet and in cafes – in Christiania and in Slotsholmen – on Amaliasburg and on Kongeshave – in the Latin quarter and in Istengade – on the light district and on Central Station – along the harbour and in the quay – and in Osterbro and in Vesterbro – but most of all, in and around the Congress hall. 

See you in Cope.

PS: Bring your kids too, this all ’s for them.

Get on a bus and see you there… 

PS: Don’t forget your Environmental Parliament  vote: 

http://www.environmentalparliament.org/ep_global_leader_award_2009

Leadership is very different from being a boss…  or a people’s manager.

Scarse resources, accounts, product lines and inventories need to be managed but people must be led.

Even Jack Welch got this right when he said that natural leaders are born and then develop by learning.

The real leader’s energy is what we are born with. And energy is exactly what gives a person the charisma and charm that are key traits of a natural leader that people follow without even realizing it. But intelligence and the willingness to abandon all for the field of honour is the missing ingredient for all leader-lite wannabes.

The leader takes risks and leads first by example. He often bleeds as the cost of leadership is real. That attracts the attention and the followers. Then in turn he becomes larger than Life… You must have heard the expression “He fills up the room.”  That’s what happens when a natural leader walks in. Everybody wants to talk to him.

Then they say that leaders can get away with anything = because people like them so much. So much so that after a long experience, they don’t even need to lead; they merely suggest something and people follow.

Charming people actually make others feel satisfied with themselves. Most women fell in love with JFK and the majority of men did anything they could to make him happy. And that’s exactly what happens with natural leaders. But charm isn’t a necessary ingredient… Sometimes it can be a hindrance.

But if you aren’t born a natural leader than is a useful tool.

Leadership also comes from education and training but the charisma that, for instance, JFK had, cannot be learnt.

Maybe it can be earned in the field of Life, but not learned from books and courses and seminars or weekend initiations in the racetrack or in the nature preserve adventures. These corporate seminars only delude people in building false trust to inferior leaders. Mandela, JFK, MLK and Chenghis Khan, didn’t do Retreats.

They prayed, they thought, they led but they didn’t do Retreats. Never.

They were willing to pay the ultimate price for their beliefs. And so many did and still do.

Leadership is earned like honour. It’s earned in the eyes of your comrades in the battle of Life. 

After all:  He who leads – Bleeds.

Another word for it, is leadership quality, but you are either born with that kind of energy or you are not. And without it leadership is much more difficult. 

A good example is the difference between Obama and George Bush – Well that one is so damn obvious…

Or between Nelson Mandela and his successor Thabo Mbeki. The former is a real natural leader and the latter is one of the most intelligent and learned people of South Africa. But Nelson Mandela, like JFK, fills up the room. It doesn’t matter that Mbeki was the brains behind Mandela; nor that he is highly educated and trained – his energy still doesn’t fill up a room. Mbeki hence failed to make the connection with the South African people, and the people from around the world, like Mandela did.

Think about Gandhi and Nehru…  Who was the real leader here?

Yet all effective leaders, make others feel good about themselves as well as the work they are doing. A leader has a vision of what he wants to achieve and can communicate it to others in ways that makes them want to be part of it. Especially as He leads by example.

Teachers are natural leaders and passionate about what they are doing – at least the good ones. Even without being told what to do, we loved what we were doing, learnt a lot from them and got high grades. Don’t need to mention all the terrible teachers we had that made us lose interest in their subject. And yet they were all educated and trained to teach.

Natural leaders are natural teachers. Born to teach. That’s how you lead – lead by imparting knowledge…

Companies of the day and governments and all bureaucracies, promote people who are not born leaders, but micromanagers. These ninnies are in charge and it is definitely having a negative impact on their results. Occasionally managers who are also leaders use their influence to coach and mentor others to make the most of their potential – but this is rare. They are more likely to be strategic and integrated planners, thus spending less time putting fires out and more time streamlining things and planning ahead. In general, employees are more attracted to managers with excellent leadership skills as they are more emotionally intelligent.

Why educated natural leaders are not better utilized in business since they would really have a tremendously positive impact on results. In some companies as in most of society, the top management brass feels threatened by natural leaders who are hence not allowed to lead.

Wonder what shareholders would have to say about that if they knew? Another reason is that the first step in evaluating candidates usually is looking at their CV/resume. And there is no way of judging if a person is a natural leader or not just by looking at their CV. So by the time top management meets the candidates for a C-level position there often isn’t a natural leader amongst them.

Imagine the massive positive impact more natural leaders in key top positions would have on companies world-wide. Results would increase significantly while at the same time making employees happier to work.

And dissent leading us back to the stone age and revisionism would disappear as natural leaders are also born activists.

They are like radicals in the church. Useful for regeneration but feared for their  arrogance and impiety…

Likely to end up on a cross above the nave many years after they are safely buried… and ascended  and rehabilitated into the comforts the given religious or secular enterprise needs.

Their usefulness extends even beyond their Life time.  

Well Done You great teacher leaders. Thanks.

Blankfein and Goldman’s brass , decided to embark on a social enterprise experimental program by offering about $100 million, per year over five years to the capital starved American small and mid-size enterprises.  The 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative will distribute about $100 million per year over the next five years to SMEs through Community Development Financial Institutions. And then they did the same for 10,000 women….

So in business arithmetic it amounts to about a $10,000 dollars loan each enterprise before we add the women which then brings it down to a $5,000 per woman or man owned enterprise. Now if any of you has done some business knows how far a $5k check goes in American business….. Maybe the cost of the legal fees for a month’s work  to just handle the Goldman usurious arrangement. That’s it. Gone the fiver…

But if the 10,000 small business fund is the best social innovation Goldman Sachs had to offer; they are to follow this with the 10,000 women fund as has been announced.

We fully expect that the 10,000 children fund will follow, then the 10,000 invalids fund, the 10,000 gays fund fast behind and finally the 10,000 vanities…

But let’s not rush ahead of history making Asperger syndrome sufferers’ own intelligent designs for society’s ills.

These Marie Antoinettes – these lords of  the universe and these crack team leaders of the corporate investment bankers of this world; have heard the cries from the despondent masses and decided to act.

They thought hard and decided that the best policy would be to share some cake. 

Or more practically they decided to throw some coins to the beggars. They opened up their petty coin purse to give some alms to the peasants lining the steps of the cathedral begging bowl in hand.

Or was it natural preservation and in their infinite wisdom Blankfein and Co woke up and understood that the real economy needs the peasants and the poor alive and licking the hand that feeds them.

They realized that to avoid social unrest they must give something… albeit as little as possible but still something.

They want to give a bit of cash to prime the pump. A little capital here and there to resuscitate and incubate the critical SME segment as an absolute prerequisite to a vibrant economic recovery.    The buzz about this news as philanthropy is wrong. It is in the marketplace where the reaction, played out – ranging from cynical suspicion at one extreme to puzzled bemusement and  ecstatic aplomb at the other with the anarchist crying out for the bankers heads and stripes.

What motivated Goldman to announce this initiative is an interesting question.  Was it guilt, greed or a sense of corporate social responsibility?  Some suggest it is a master PR move to counter a growing public perception that Goldman Sachs,  the poster child of greed, avarice and sloth and probably all the other dreadful sins, along with the biggest one of them all; that of raiding the public purse.

The exceptional government favoritism and bailout largess,  from none other than their very own ex-chairman Paulson; reminds one of the Oil men leveraging the White House in the Bush-Chenney years to line their pockets. Now with Paulson in the Treasury, giving to his colleagues came naturally as came the turn of the Bankers to use the public lever to save themselves while stealing the public wealth.  Geithner tried to stem this tide, because make no mistake this is Raiders of the Universe stealing the public purse in the largest transfer of wealth – history has ever seen. 

All the while You were chanting:  YES WE CAN

Yes we can…

Yes they DID.  

The DID raid the public purse and took the coin of the realm for their own.  

Revolutions started with a lot less and the Guillotine was primed well – with the fools heads who didn’t heed History’s lessons.

Clearly and brazenly Goldman has leveraged its unfair and government (our Commons) advantage to achieve historic levels of profitability, and enable the management to pay obscene bonuses to themselves and a handful of the company’s top echelon employees. The golden busy bees. Those crack teams of finance, the rainmakers and the nectar drinkers. The crackers…

The Goldman leaders don’t need to worry for money ever again. Never for the next seven generations of their family need they care for working. They are set for 7 lives. Like the cats.

What kind of incentive is that?

Why would they care to work hard after that ever again?  Fat cats don’t chase mice…

Maybe that’s fashionable environmental thinking for you. Seven generations ahead provision for wealth preservation. Fools…

In my book incentive means: Stay lean – stay hungry – catch the …. gift mice.

But then again, capital has no psyche,  and half a billion dollars is a small bill to underwrite absolution of such gigantic scale for their form of persistent guilt.  True to its nature, capital always  seeks a place where it will find its greatest return. 

What Goldman and Buffett are doing is simply casting some oil and bread in the waters of a distressed economy. 

Its wise to ascribe the best intentions and virtuous motivations to actions that we may not fully understand.  But is wiser to seek to understand these action fully, especially if they are to affect society at large.

This 10,000 something funny, guilt-fund program should be viewed as an event in the history of PR, marketing, branding, corporate social responsibility, corporate hubris, and social entrepreneurship.  Its important to understand that institutions that practice corporate social responsibility do not engage in it, solely as a philanthropic  endeavor.  Indeed, the benefits of good corporate citizenship pays multidimensional dividends.  All ultimately accrue to the benefit of company shareholders and the larger community of corporate stakeholders.

Goldmans move to prime the pump of capital formation initiative for SMEs seeks to mitigate macroeconomic risk factors that are prolonging the recession and pressuring Goldman’s business.   Goldman needs a vibrant US economy if it is to sustain its profitability,  long term growth and global competitiveness.  Goldman needs a strong regional and local banking sector to support its securitization, investment banking and corporate finance business units.   Healthy SMEs are a critical component to a healthy commercial banking sector. 

Goldman recent charter as an FDIC bank holding company may also be a factor to consider. They were insured by the government to survive during the floods; they were insured by the government to make their acquisitions during the bust and now they are insured to continue this job… of being the T-Rex of the jungle. 

Well there is a place for T-Rex but please, watch out for these pesky asteroids – please.  Fossilized bones abound in the natural history museums…

Sadly, there are no fossils left of the dinosaur enablers, so we don’t know exactly what they looked like – except that they belonged in the bureaucratic trilobites family, with small wire rimmed glasses.

But even this half billion pittance of an SME lending initiative – will provide interesting insights into the dynamics of a local bank market space and potential lines of business that are relatively new to Goldman Sachs.  This fake philanthropy initiative might  just be an entry for  a slate of community banks asset acquisition program.  The community banking sector is plagued with over capacity, underperformance and  is in dire need of consolidation. 

Goldman’s  crack team of corporate finance and M&A professionals expertise would be put to good use here. Provided they don’t smoke their crack overly too much. Or at least the community doesn’t find out. The peasants might revolt as they know both the smell of crack and the smell of BS. The people on the bazaar and on the market street are far more savvy than the Raiders of the government purse would ever give them credit for.

Goldman’s action to micro-finance SMEs will also serve to incubate a new class of High Net Worth (HNWs) investors. You gotta  love these acronyms. HNWs much like SUVs will be  flush with cash from successful entrepreneurial endeavors, – or so the Goldman’s reasoning goes – the nouveau-riche will be eager to deploy their excess cash and dormant capital into equities and bonds, hedge funds and private equity partnerships. 

In some communities like Detroit’s east and NY and LA and the rest of middle America the only ones with the cash will be the other masters of the Universe – the drug dealers. The only ones with cash in America today – except the Goldman bankers that is. So a healthy equity markets and a growing Alternative Investment Management  market is key to a healthy Goldman local street banking business. This alternative investment management franchise and the enfranchisment of the ones who need to launder capital fast will prove to be a new boon for the investors. A new line of business for Goldman Sachs that completes the circle of the purveyors of the American dream to the actual producers of the pipe dream.

Crack teams all around abound – but none more so than the bursting balloon of  greed that Goldman represents.

The real heroes – community banks, principal lenders to SMEs are  still reeling from the credit crisis and are deeply concerned about the troubled assets on their balance sheets.  They are the Bankers who know their neighborhood and their people and the real risk profiles. They now can’t afford more write downs on non-performing loans and remain highly risk adverse to credit default exposures but they want to support their community’s dreams.  

Unfortunately due to lack of support, these local banks have responded to the ongoing crisis, by drastically reducing credit to SMEs and by curtailing new lending activity.  The strain of a two-year recession and limited credit access has been in turn, taking its toll on the very SMEs that fuel the American dream of a perpetual growth economy.  The recession has hurt sales growth across all market segments causing SMEs to layoff employees or shut down driving unemployment rates ever higher. 

Yet Goldman claims that they want to access this sector for profits. And these sector would boost Goldman’s securitization and restructuring advisory businesses positioning it to deepen its participation in the PPIP and TALF programs. Whom are they kidding?  

Maybe the Treasury department?

The financial condition of commercial and regional banks is expected to remain stressed for the foreseeable future.  Community banks have large credit exposures to SME and local commercial real estate.  Consumer credit woes and high unemployment rates will generate continued losses from credit cards and auto loans.  Losses from commercial real estate loans due to high vacancy rates are expected to create significant losses for the sector.

Reduced revenue, protracted softness in the business cycle and closed credit channels are creating perfect storm conditions for SME’s. Bank’s reluctance to lend and the high cost of capital from other alternative credit channels coupled with weak cash flows from declining sales are creating liquidity problems for many SMEs.   Its a growing contagion of financial distress. 

In all likelihood, the reality of this contagion would infect Goldman and in turn would have a profound impact on the company’s financial health. So they don’t really want it right?

 The 10,000 Businesses something or other guilt-fund initiative is just that.

No two ways about it. Maybe it will strengthen the free flow of investment capital to finance national economic development and empower SMEs and then maybe it will be another black hole.  If it strengthens free market capitalism with the potential to pool, unleash and focus investment capital into a strategic market segment that has no access to public equity and curtailed lines of traditional bank credit,(as the Goldman’s PR machine says) is questionable. At least its main supposition, is completely unsupported by the evidence at hand.

The 10,000 guilt-fund for Businesses initiative  will ideally encourage wider participation by the banking and private equity funds but don’t really count on it. Nobody wants to go to bed with GS in a deal as a minority. In the aggregate, this will help to achieve GS strategic objectives, build wealth and realize broader goals to assure sustainable growth and global competitiveness. Or not.

One thing is for certain:

All of this is to the benefit Goldman Sachs’ shareholders and its global investment banking franchise squib.  

Guilt Free

Conscious Free.

Drug Free.

Triple X. Trifecta for GS again. Or maybe not so…

Certainly the last one isn’t true.

Let’s replace that with Ethics free.

Yours,

Pano D Kroko

PS: I suggest Blankfein goes back to his thinking space and sharpens his pencils and comes up with something really giving back to the Republic what they really owe to give. 

Otherwise not only He isn’t a proper leader – but he is not intelligent enough to read the writing on the wall.

PS: Right around the end of the 18th century the French devised a good method for capping bankers and others’  pay…

PS2: To understand the causes of the Guilt-in or more popularly known as guillotine, see bellow the causes of the French Revolution:

”Adherents of most historical models identify many of the same features of the Ancien Régime as being among the causes of the Revolution. Economic factors included widespread famine and malnutrition, due to rising bread prices from a normal 8 sous for a 4-pound loaf to 12 sous by the end of 1789, which increased the likelihood of disease and death, and intentional starvation in the most destitute segments of the population in the months immediately before the Revolution. The famine extended even to other parts of Europe, and was not helped by a poor transportation infrastructure for bulk foods. The Environment was a key factor in it then as it is now. Recent research has attributed the widespread famine to an influence of the El Niño effect following the 1783 Laki eruption in Iceland, or colder climate of the Little Ice Age combined with France’s failure to adopt the potato as a staple crop, and the financial elite raiding the Treasury for the benefit of the courtiers, the Queen, the King and themselves.

Another cause was the fact that Louis XV fought many wars, bringing France to the verge of bankruptcy, and Louis XVI supported the colonists during the American Revolution, exacerbating the precarious financial condition of the government. The national debt amounted to almost two billion livres. The product of war is always penury of the Chancellor. The additional social burdens caused by the war included the huge war debt, made worse by the monarchy’s military failures and ineptitude, and the lack of social services for war veterans or for any of the poor classes. The corrupt, inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something which was both caused and exacerbated by the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation and rewards. Another cause was the continued conspicuous consumption of the noble class, especially the court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette at Versailles, despite the financial burden on the populace. High unemployment and high bread prices caused more money to be spent on food and less in other areas of the economy. The Roman Catholic Church, the largest landowner in the country, levied a tax on crops known as the dime or tithe. While the dîme lessened the severity of the monarchy’s tax increases, it worsened the plight of the poorest who faced a daily struggle with malnutrition. There was too little internal trade and too many customs barriers.

There were also social and political factors, many of which involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by the ambitious professional and mercantile classes towards noble privileges and dominance in public life, as many of these classes were familiar with the lives of their peers in commercial cities in the Netherlands and Great Britain; resentment by peasants, wage-earners, and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigneurial privileges possessed by nobles; resentment of clerical advantage (anti-clericalism) and aspirations for freedom of religion, resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy, continued hatred for Catholic control, and influence on institutions of all kinds by the large Protestant minorities; aspirations for liberty and especially as the Revolution progressed republicanism; and anger towards the King.

Any similarities with real or existing persons, corporate leaders or kings of finance, fictional  banker-wanker remonstrations of innocence, national states or corporations and banks present or past; any similarities with persons and events and even attributes; are purely accidental, coincidental and unintended. After all this is a work of humour and fiction much like the 10,000 something headless or brainless or other benefit for the community… out of the wankers largesse.