CCS solutions start with the Government of Alberta?

October 27, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

Not quite so fast, let’s take a step back, take a deep breath, and look at things a bit more objectively.

In October 2011, the Government of Alberta launched a massive advertising campaign on TV and in the press promoting the ostensible benefits of a number of carbon capture and storage projects that are largely funded by Alberta taxpayers and to a smaller extent out of federal tax revenues.

The October 26 issue of the Edmonton Journal included “A SPECIAL SECTION by the Calgary Herald in partnership with the Government of Alberta”, comprised of a collection of articles from various sources printed on a total of six full-sized pages.

Here is just one of those stories: “Taming CO2 crucial to our future“, by Brian Burton, for the Calgary Herald.

I agree to some extent with the assertion in the title of that article, but from a perspective that is opposite to the intended meaning.  CO2 doesn’t need to be tamed.  It is a benign, beneficial but nevertheless vitally essential atmospheric trace gas without which life as we know it would not exist on Earth. Globally, the man-made portion of atmospheric CO2 comprises about three percent of annual CO2 emissions.  The remaining 97 percent of CO2 emissions are from natural sources.  For starters, every human alive breathes out about 1 kg of CO2 each day.

The portion of Alberta CO2 emissions that is to be captured and stored is a minuscule fraction of global man-made CO2 emissions. Even if atmospheric CO2 levels were to drive and control climate trends, the fraction of CO2 captured and stored in Aberta would be so small that it would not ever be possible to measure how that would influence global climate trends.  If anyone ever calculated what the impact of our CCS schemes would be, the results of such calculations must be extremely disappointing, as they have not been published or mentioned in the main-stream media.  Aside from that, the “evidence” of the benefits of reductions in man-made CO2 emissions only exists in computer models.  There is no measurable evidence in the real world that proves that there is any substance to the claims made in the theory that reductions in Alberta CO2 emissions will have any measurable impact on global climate trends.

Those are just some of the circumstances of the context in which Alberta’s efforts at attempting to use CO2 capture and storage as a thermostat for global climate control take place.  Still, far from objectively addressing any of those circumstances, the Government of Alberta ignores and does not even mention them.  That is so because of the main premise of the theory of sucessful propaganda expressed by one of its masters:

“The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses’ attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision. …

“All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. Consequently, the greater the mass it is intended to reach, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be. But if, as in propaganda for sticking out a war, the aim is to influence a whole people, we must avoid excessive intellectual demands on our public, and too much caution cannot be extended in this direction. …

“The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan….

“The function of propaganda is, for example, not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.” —Hitler, Mein Kampf, Chapter VI

One may well wonder why the Government of Alberta is waking up to the reality that if the propaganda that supports CCS schemes is not being promoted, all CCS schemes may well and most likely flop.  The CCS schemes are expensive white elephants that cannot come to life, exist and operate without massive government subsidies.

Page 2 of the Edmonton Journal’s special October 2011 section on Carbon Capture and Storage boasts that “Alberta Leads the Way: Pioneering province first to put money behind CCS projects and a levy on carbon emissions”, but I see nothing laudable about a scheme to waste $2 billion through blowing CO2 down Mother Earth’s derriere.  Alberta may lead the way now, but it was one of the last to jump on the wagon and may well be one of the last to jump off.

I have no intention of presenting here even only a partially complete list of CCS and green energy boondoggles, but let’s at least look at a couple of recent news items in that regard:

1.) In Scotland: “Longannet carbon capture and storage project is no more”, October 22, 2011
http://lce.folc.ca/2011/10/22/longanet-carbon-capture-and-storage-project-is-no-more/

2.) In West-Virginia: “High costs bury AEP’s carbon burial plan”, July 16, 2011
The king wears no clothing, but it is even worse that he can’t afford to pay for being made to look like a naked fool.
http://lce.folc.ca/2011/07/16/high-costs-bury-aeps-carbon-burial-plan/

It seems to me that just as the Nazi propaganda machine went into high gear and intensified its efforts the more elusive Hitler’s dream of his 1000-year Reich became, so the CCS and alternative energy  schemes will be promoted ever more intensively the more their objectives prove themselves to be unattainable.

Posted in Shell CCS Project, Deficits and Debts, Propaganda debunked, Corruption & Fraud, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »

Costs jeopardize CO2 Capture and Storage Project

October 7, 2011 by Walter Schneider.

The Guardian, 2011 10 06

Flagship UK carbon capture project ‘close to collapse’

Scottish Power, and its partners Shell and the National Grid, have just completed a detailed study of the CCS scheme and have deep concerns about its commercial viability without heavier public backing….(Full Story)

Note: Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) a.k.a. Carbon Capture and Sequestration, is a misnomer.  It is CO2 (carbon dioxide) that is being captured and stored or sequestrated.  I guess that CO2 is being called carbon by the proponents of CCS schemes because in that fashion it is a little easier to invoke unfounded fears of “carbon pollution” that is falsely alleged to drive up global temperatures and burn all life on Earth to a crisp.

CO2 is a vital natural fertilizer without which life as we know it could not exist on Earth. All life on Earth is carbon based and exists within a biological life-cycle that evolved to have plants extract carbon from CO2 in the atmosphere, while almost all other life forms depend on plants doing well enough to be a direct or indirect source of food without which no other life can exist. CO2 is a trace gas that comprises a little less than 0.04 percent of our atmosphere. The majority (97%) of atmospheric CO2 stems from natural sources, while a tiny fraction (3%) of atmospheric CO2 is man-made.

The unproductive, useless and expensive luxury of burying a minuscule portion of man-made CO2 is a futile attempt to regulate global temperature trends. There is no scientific proof that rising levels of atmospheric CO2 drive up temperature trends.  Even though all measurable evidence that has been found indicates that rising temperature trends have a direct, positive influence on global atmospheric CO2 levels over time and life on Earth, economic policies throughout the developed nations are now geared to regulate and restrict the minuscule, man-made portion of atmospheric CO2. Moreover, the developed nations impose policies that restrict the economic development of the under-developed nations, also in attempts to constrain man-made CO2 emissions.  Those policies keep the underdeveloped nations in squalor and poverty.

Carbon capture and storage schemes such as the UK carbon capture project at Longannet in Scotland are not economically viable and can be brought into existence and operation only and entirely through massive subsidies derived either through taxes or through surcharges on utility prices or both. CCS schemes that serve no other purpose than to bury CO2 may reduce global temperatures somewhat. However, their impact will be so small that the temperature reduction hoped to be achieved a hundred years from now can only be calculated to be at best a few ten-thousands of a degree Celsius, which is far beyond the capacity of any instrumentation in existence to measure. The calculated delay of global warming will by the year 2100 amount at most to only a few hours.

The most efficient method for the disposal of man-made CO2 is to let it escape, unhindered, into the air, whereby it can then contribute to the greening of the Earth.

Yes, our globe has for a long time suffered from a dearth of CO2. Scientific evidence shows that the rising CO2 levels experienced lately are caused by global warming resulting from a more active Sun. Atmospheric CO2 levels are presently at 392 parts per million by volume or at 0.0392% of the atmosphere. Plants will stop growing when CO2 levels drop to 0.02% and die when CO2 levels fall to 0.015%. Earth experienced periods during the recent geological past when CO2 levels were many times, 10 and even 20 times, higher than they are now. Many recent scientific studies established that the rising levels of CO2 have contributed to the greening of the Earth and caused substantial increases in agricultural productivity during the past 30 years or so.

The CCS project at Longannet in Scotland is only one of such projects in the planning, engineering or construction stages around the world. It is also not the only one that is in peril. See “High costs bury AEP’s carbon plan”. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2011/07/15/high-costs-bury-aeps-carbon-plan.html

“…American Electric Power [AEP] said it would halt a project to bury carbon dioxide deep beneath a coal-fired power plant in West Virginia, experts say the decision reflects a seismic change in the economics of generating electricity.”

The CCS project at Longannet in Scotland is also not the only one involving Shell. Shell is promoting CCS projects in Alberta, Canada. The Alberta Government reserved $2 billion for those. While one of Shell’s CCS projects will collect CO2 for injection in central Alberta, to enhance oil-field production, another one is a CCS project called Quest that will not serve any purpose other than to inject CO2 underground for storage.

Shell’s Quest CCS project will cost about $1.25 billion dollars and is planned to go into operation in about 2015. About $150 million of the costs will be provided by Shell. The remainder of the construction costs will be born by Canadian (mostly by Albertan) taxpayers. Shell’s commitment for the construction of their Quest CCS project is a result of a condition by Canadian governments for granting the operating licence for Shell’s Scotford Oil-Sands bitumen upgrader at Scotford, Alberta.

Shell’s Quest CCS project is purely political folly funded by taxpayers and users of fossil fuel.  It is not something that Shell should be required to put into operation.
____________
More concerns about Shell’s Quest project are expressed in the following article, “No price too high for appeasing climate alarmists”, http://lce.folc.ca/2010/11/06/no-price-too-high-for-appeasing-climate-alarmists/

Here is Shell’s website that promotes Shell’s Quest CCS project: http://www.shell.ca/home/content/can-en/aboutshell/our_business/business_in_canada/upstream/oil_sands/quest/

Posted in Shell CCS Project, Deficits and Debts, Electric Energy Prices, Energy Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | 1 Comment »

A summary of the history of global-warming alarmism

December 11, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

The Washington Times

6:30 p.m., Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Global warming ideology still on top
The science has crumbled, but too much money backs the scare

By Tom Harris and Bryan Leyland

….Republican climate skeptics have taken control of the U.S. House of Representatives, thereby killing any chance of federal “cap-and-trade” legislation for now. Republican congressional leaders also have vowed to use every trick in the book to block Environmental Protection Agency carbon-dioxide (CO2) regulations scheduled to start on Jan. 2. And, not surprisingly, the United Nations’ 2010 Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, is failing, with Mother Nature helping to dampen warming fears as an early winter sets in across the Northern Hemisphere.

Some commentators tell us that this is the beginning of the end of the climate scare. More likely, it is just the end of the beginning….

Aside from President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, not a single prominent world leader contests the hypothesis that humanity’s CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming. The fact that the basic science behind the scare is crumbling appears to have no impact on these groups….(Full Story)

Posted in Deficits and Debts, The New World Order, Taxes, Corruption & Fraud, Climate Change, Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »

No price too high for appeasing climate alarmists

November 6, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Friends, neighbours, offspring,

Yesterday I had a bit of a problem with this blog and the associated website.  In retrospect, it is laughable and embarrassing that it occurred, but I won’t bore you with the details, other than that, while I was busy writing about what follows in this posting,  I copied and pasted the piece a number of times in trying to fix the problem I had been trying to cope with.  Every time I did that, I also thought of a better title for the piece.  The last two candidates I rejected in favor of the one I chose were these.

Constructing the global thermostat, a billion dollars a project

Blowing CO2 up Mother Earth’s derriere

If you can think of a better one, let me know, but it’s too late for this posting.  Large newspapers have headline writers who do that sort of thing for a living.

A few concerns emerged through correspondence from Shell, through a phone call from Integrity Land Inc. and through the discussions I had with Shell personnel I met at Shell’s open house in Bruderheim, Nov. 3, 2010, in connection with their proposed CO2 project and pipe line.

Although in my case I have grave concerns about lost-opportunity-costs due to land-use restrictions (which restrictions will also affect all other land owners near the proposed CO2 pipe line), my concerns are not just my own but apply to all land owners whose properties are located on or near the CO2 pipe line.  Furthermore, I have concerns about the lack of wisdom driving the project.  It is a make-work project with non-existent, at best questionable benefits that will not ever justify the expense of the project.

Shell’s CO2 project will not even come remotely close to paying back what the taxpayers must pay into it: at the very least close to a billion dollars, about $270 for every man, woman and child in Alberta — and that is just for the first billion dollars in expenditures for such useless catering to people who well know that their intentions are futile., and I don’t mean the poor people at Shell who for all intents and purposes are being forced to construct “their” CO2 capture and storage project  (they did not tell me that, but that is the way it is).  The project is a waste of good money, the taxpayers’ money.

Regulating atmospheric CO2 content is not possible.  Attempts at controlling man-made CO2 emissions will not affect total atmospheric CO2 contents by one Iota.  It is not possible to construct such a project and to see it put to use as a thermostat that will regulate the global climate.  After all, man-made CO2 contributions comprise no more than 4 percent of total atmospheric CO2, a trace gas.  The other 96 percent of atmospheric CO2 result from natural processes over whom mankind has not the slightest control.  Besides, CO2 is a vital life-giving gas without which no life as we know it would exist on Earth.

We must find ways to stop insanities like this that amount to nothing more than expensive sacrifices by taxpayers to political expediency through catering to alarmist hype and hysteria.

Together, and with the help of others who cannot or don’t want to shell out useless environmental head-taxes of $270 a shot, we will be able to do it.

The following will explain some of the details of what it is all about.

——– Original Message ——–

Subject:	CO2 pipe line: concerns
Date:	Fri, 05 Nov 2010 16:58:02 -0600
From:	Walter H. Schneider
To:	Ian Silk [at Shell]
CC:	Margit Phillips[at Shell]

Hello Ian,

It was a pleasure meeting you at Shell’s Nov. 3, 2010 Bruderheim open house, where I had promised to send you a copy of a letter, dated October 18, 2010, that had been send by Shell to me.  (Copy appended; two files, one each for page 1 & 2 of the letter).

Obviously I did not remember key issues correctly when I told you about the letter at the open house, such as the changes in pipe diameter and operating pressure.  It is good that I was wrong.  That will simplify things, but I still have grave concerns.

As I had mentioned, someone from Integrity Land called the other day (I believe it was Ken, on Nov. 1st or 2nd) to tell us on Shell’s behalf that the letter we had received had been sent in error and should not have been sent.

Looking now at the letter again, I wonder whether it truly had been sent in error and whether it is Integrity Land or Shell that is a bit mistaken.  Of course, if the contents of the letter that was allegedly sent in error that I hold now in my hands contains erroneous information, I may not need to worry about much, but I wonder.

I will explain what I conclude on the face of the evidence.

Shell envisions that my land at NW2-57-20-W4 will be encroached by an Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) that extends to a distance of 450m from your proposed CO2 pipe line.  That is an encroachment which does not presently exist but will occur if your proposed CO2 pipe line goes into operation.

It is not clear from either that letter or from the information I observed at the open house with respect to the proposed CO2 pipe line right-of-way, how wide the EPZ will be, that is, whether the proposed CO2 pipe line will run along the centre-line of a 450m EPZ or whether the EPZ will extend 450m in either direction from the proposed CO2 pipe line.  I would appreciate having you provide a map that will clear that up and show whether and which portions of my land at NW2-57-20-W4 will be affected by the EPZ.  That should remove or confirm all of our doubts relating to that.

When Integrity Land called, they told me that I should not have received the letter, and the caller apologized on Shell’s behalf for the fact that I did.  Shell’s October 18, 2010 letter informs me that Shell understands (sic, implying that Shell does not know with certainty) that I am “located further” (sic, I assume what was meant was “farther”) than 450m from the proposed CO2 pipe line and that I am “no longer located in the EPZ.”  I truly wonder which of those truly confusing contradictions would stand up in court, but there is more.

Logically, I never was and never will be located in the EPZ, given that I reside in Bruderheim and would find myself in the EPZ only if I were to visit or work within it.  However, some of my land would be, and any of its occupants could be, located within the EPZ, contrary to Shell’s assertions that imply that no portion of my land is within 450m of the proposed CO2 pipe line.  After all, If I were to walk 450m in a westerly direction from the location of the proposed CO2 pipeline east from our quarter-section of land, I would find myself on our land and not quite a quarter mile away from the residence located there.

Is that why Integrity Land called me to say that the letter is wrong?  Are portions of my land located within the EPZ?  If so, which portions are they?  A map that shows the EPZ superimposed on my land would make that perfectly clear.  Therefore I request that you provide such a map to me.

Still, it seems to me that I am not the only one who errs now and then.  Shell’s letter dated October 18, 2010 indicates that, “These changes [that is, the reduced outside diameter of 12″], combined with a reduced operating pressure, still being calculated [as you also confirmed at the open house], will also result in a reduced Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) of approximately 450m.”  Perhaps the letter should have stated as well that the precise extent of the EPZ cannot be determined until those calculations have been completed.  I expect to be informed by Shell of what the precise extent of the EPZ will be.

I cannot escape the conclusion that portions of my land at NW2-57-20-W4 will be impacted by land-usage restrictions on account of being located within the EPZ.  For example, it may be that nothing is permitted to be constructed on land being put at risk.

Regardless of what the risk would be to any individual who finds himself within the EPZ during a however-unlikely catastrophic failure of the pipe line, land-use restrictions will apply because of the perception of that risk, for which reason the concept of an EPZ exists.  Therefore the term EPZ is a euphemism for the more precise term “activity exclusion zone”.

It is such perceptions that determine the market value of real estate.  The “precautionary principle” (which you so beautifully mentioned in rationalizing the need for Shell’s CO2 project) kicks into action when land transactions take place.  The precautionary principle in this case, regardless of what I personally or any of my descendants may wish for, will materialize in the form of lost-opportunity-costs, through a considerable reduction in the potential sales price for the land of concern.  At land prices that Shell is only too well aware it had to pay in the recent past, the lost-opportunity-costs in the case of our land could easily be in the order of $2 million or more within the foreseeable future.

I had explained that particular concern to you at your November 3rd Bruderheim open house.  You offered to send documentation (in digital form) that will explain in more detail what the specific land-use restrictions in an EPZ are according to applicable legislation.  I look forward to receiving that from you as well.

As things stand, Shell informed me in writing that neither I nor my land will be endangered by Shell’s CO2 pipe line, while I received verbal instructions by one of Shell’s contractors that I should disregard that written statement.  Yet, the facts pertaining to the location of the CO2 pipe line indicate that I must be prepared for  substantial lost-opportunity-costs, while other risk to life, health and property on our land remains undetermined.  I think that Shell needs to do better.  I am not a lawyer, but I know that a lawyer could make a lot out of what Shell informed me off as of now.  It seems like misrepresentation to me.  Shell needs to clarify how things stand.  Am I correct about me being not the only land owner who should be concerned about that compendium of confusion?

Further in our discussions about your proposed CO2 capture and storage project (mislabelled by Shell as “Carbon Capture and Storage Project”, as it is not carbon but CO2 that is involved), I expressed my well-founded concern that Shell’s CCS project, requiring a one-billion-dollar expenditure of taxpayers money, is a wasteful scheme that is not based on settled science.  It is a make-work project that you are being forced to launch to comply with a government-bureaucracy-perceived solution to imaginary problems the perception of which is driven by irrational climate fears, hype and hysteria.

This letter to you is already lengthy enough.  I will therefore continue with addressing that aspect of our discussion through posting at http://lce.folc.ca information that presents rational views and objective facts relating to those irrational fears.

Still, I must add more right now, so as to complete the summary of the impressions I gained at the open house.  My wife and I observed with dismay that some of Shell’s representatives at the Bruderheim open house did not have sufficient scientific education and accreditation to enable them to offer more than unsubstantiated opinions as to the merits of Shell’s CCS project.  They presented what are in essence articles of faith as allegedly indisputable scientific facts.  Most of them had not even any idea that at the most-often visited science blog in the world the latest study reports by prominent climate scientists relating to the role of CO2 in our climate are being presented and discussed.

To the credit of those presenters and upon my insistence, they referred me to someone better qualified to discuss the scientific facts of the impact of CO2 on climate trends.  However, there is no doubt in my mind that many of the visitors to your open houses will fail to perceive such problems and will leave quite satisfied, happy in the knowledge that little tokens like flashlights, plastic shopping bags, memory sticks (containing the slick presentation CCS101.ca — permeated with weasel words), pens and so on (all products from China) are generous gifts, while being totally unaware that they, and only they, will pay the price of an estimated billion dollars (amounting to a cost of at least $270 for every man, woman and child in Alberta for every $ billion so spent) for an enterprise that will do nothing to alleviate an imaginary problem whose science is not settled.  They may as well employ you in the pursuit of a project to lengthen the daylight hours during the winter by having you hire chain-gangs of taxpayers to shovel light into barrels in the summer for release in January.  That at least would be totally safe for the environment and no environmental impact assessment would be required for that, although our government-bureaucrats would probably still insist that one be done for that, too.

It is too bad that our governments cater more to the political expediencies of alarmist climate fears than to the necessities of our lives.  A billion dollars, with more billions to follow, for funding such hare-brained schemes surely would be more appropriately spent in solving a large portion of what is wrong with things that we truly should be spending money on to fix, except that the truly important things that we should do are being neglected on account of government-revenue-shortfalls caused by reckless government-spending.  That needs to be stopped.

Sincerely,

Walter H. Schneider
Bruderheim

P.S. I have a bit of a problem with my regular e-mail account.  Please be so good and respond to walt@folc.ca

Cc: Lamont Leader, some of our descendants, Bruderheim and area residents, http://lce.folc.ca

2 Attachments

— End of quoted letter to Shell —

Friends, if you have come this far with reading about this billion-dollar Alberta CO2 scam, then you may also have some ideas on what to do about it.  I will gladly help with searching for facts, mailing, operating the blog on the Lamont County Environment and such things, but I can no longer be as involved as I was with the opposition to the Hazco Sulphur Project (a project for which we now pay through the nose but on which the bubble is burst, perhaps until someone, about 30 years down the line, begins to blow another bubble).

The interesting aspect of the CO2 capture and storage project is that, although it will do nothing to affect the global climate, once it is in operation, it is estimated that it will add a whopping four percent of nitrogen oxides to the atmospheric nitrogen oxides background levels that already exist in the Fort Saskatchewan area air-shed.

This issue requires someone younger, and I am going the other way.  Please, let me have a bit of rest, just not too much peace and quiet.

Write to me, preferably at http://lce.folc.ca [about this or any other related issue], where others can read what you have to say.  By the way, if I happen to be your father or grandfather, you don’t have to mention it.  Let’s just do what the politicians seems to be incapable of doing, use common sense.

Walter

Posted in Taxes, Deficits and Debts, Shell CCS Project, Propaganda debunked, Alarmist Insanity, Nitrogen-Oxides, Corruption & Fraud, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | 1 Comment »

Deficits, Debts and Propaganda

June 30, 2010 by Walter Schneider.

Three new categories have been added to this blog:

deficit: ….1 a (1) : deficiency in amount or quality <a deficit in rainfall> (2) : a lack or impairment in a functional capacity <cognitive deficits> <a hearing deficit> b : disadvantage <scored two runs to overcome a 2–1 deficit>
2 a : an excess of expenditure over revenue b : a loss in business operations

debt: ….1 : sin, trespass
2 : something owed : obligation <unable to pay off his debts>
3 : a state of owing <deeply in debt>
4 : the common-law action for the recovery of money held to be due

propaganda: ….1 capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions
2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

(The preceding definitions are quoted from Merriam Webster ONLINE.)

Over the years I made a good number of comments on this blog but I never once wrote anything about the term deficit.  A search for “debt” produced just two entries, one on the surprising tendency of  large number of instances of expensive “absolutely essential” new stadiums to turn into “old stadiums” that need to be disposed off and even demolished after relatively short intervals of service.  The other comment that had mentioned “debt” pertained to the Dec. 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit, in which developing nations clamored that the developed nations had to atone for their climate debts through transfer of wealth from the latter to the former; as Carl Marx and his followers put it, “From those who have to those in need.”

Having followed the progress of the Toronto G-20 Summit, it became obvious that apparently nothing was said (at least not publically) by any of the G-20 leaders debating the health crisis of the world’s economy about the major cause of the financial crisis, namely the massive and escalating debt-financing that most of the world’s nations have become accustomed and addicted to.  The domestic and international mainstream media failed to pay any attention to that or, if otherwise, remained silent.

The riotous orgy of vandalism that we all saw much of and read much about had the (perhaps) desired effect.  Whether the effect was intentional or not, it diverted attention from what mattered, the absence of any discussion on what must be done to effectively cure the critically-sick world economy.

Things still did not quite crystallize in my mind in relation to that, but then something jogged me.  That was the recurring and all-pervasive assertion in the media that Stephen Harper hosted the Toronto G-20 Summit! That assertion, at least for me, is the key to understanding what is going on.

Was Stephen Harper not just the master of ceremonies, wasn’t it Canada (more correctly, its taxpayers) that was the host?  Wasn’t it Stephen Harper who was the organizer responsible for the fiasco that causes the Canadian taxpayers to shell out more than a billion dollars for the security measures that failed to prevent the calamitous consequences of the conjunction of rioters and plate glass windows in Canada’s largest metropolis?

A fraction of the cost of the inadequate security measures would have been more than sufficient to house the G-20 leaders and their media retinue in luxurious comfort in the far less expensive and far more effective security of one of many of Canada’s more appropriate and smaller localities.  Not only would it have required only a tiny fraction of the cost of the security fiasco in Toronto, but the facilities that would have been constructed in a much smaller location could have excluded some of the kitschy frills that were used to spice the mix, such as the construction of the fake lake.

Moreover, the facilities in a more suitable location could have been a permanent asset that could have been used time and again for any number of G-20 Summits slated to be held in Canada.

Rather than focusing on the failure of the Toronto G-20 Summit and the true cause of the economic crisis, the riots served as well as any well-planned propaganda action would.  The media gorged on the riots and largely ignored the failure of the Summit. The real problems with the economy remain largely unnoticed.  No plan at all to address them emerged.

How could that happen?  It was clear in my mind that the focus on “deficits” misses the point, that excessive debt-financing is the more important and primary issue that must be addressed, but why was and is that being overlooked? The assertions that Harper was the host of the Summit clinched it for me.  Propaganda is the unnoticed but essential component in the mix that caused the obvious lack of attention.

It has been quite a few years since I last tried determine the extent of Canada’s government debt.  The federal deficit was then at about $600 billion, but the total debt (by all three levels of government) was about $3.5 trillion dollars. It would surprise me if that debt load had decreased to less than $3 trillion dollars by now.  It would not surprise me if the figure would be the same or even a bit higher than $3.5 trillion.  After all, the demand on the Canada Pension plan, for example, has increased substantially from the time a few years ago.

The media’s take on all of that is that Canada needs to be commended for having a deficit of only $59 billion.  That is like ignoring the elephant in the china store.

Things are no better in the U.S.  A few years ago, the total U.S. national debt, including inter-state transfer payments, had reached $46 trillion.  Correct me if I am wrong, but I recall that just in his first few months in office Barack Obama added about $11 trillion to that pile of debt.  So what is the use of drawing attention to the fact that the U.S. annual federal deficit now regularly exceeds $1 trillion and to suggest that it would be a good idea to cut that in half by about three years from now?  That doesn’t even feed more than just a few peanuts to the much bigger elephant that is being ignored.

However, that is an example of what effective propaganda can achieve.  It diverts attention from important, vital and essential issues.

My wife relishes an anecdote that shows how even very young children know how to apply propaganda tactics.  More than 30 years ago she babysat a little girl who had committed a fairly serious transgression over which the girl’s father was trying to take her to task.  The girl’s reaction was to divert her father’s attention by pointing at the kitchen window and to exclaim, “Daddy! Daddy, look at the bird!”

Our “leaders” and their media retinue who glorify our leaders’ soft, weak and considerably meaningless promises do something similar by saying, “Oh, look at the deficit!”

A budget is a plan for how much we will pay on our financial obligations.  The objective of a budget is that the amount of money paid out over the budget period will be equal to what was budgeted for.  If we fail to budget properly, or if we pay little attention to what the budget requires, we will have a deficit or a surplus at the end of the budget period.  However, all that means is that we either planned correctly and paid according to plan, or, if there is a deficit at the end of the budget period, that we did not live up to what we promised to ourselves and to others about our financial performance.  If money is left over at the end of the budget period, we either paid little attention to what the budget required, or we did a lousy job of budgeting. In any case, it says nothing about whether our debtors will be forced to call in their loans and foreclose on us.

It remains to be seen whether the next G-20 Summit in November will produce something more concrete than non-binding promises to cut deficits.  No-one should get their hopes up that it will, but a few things are certain.  The media will glory in a propagandist orgy and assure everyone that the outcome will be good.  The taxpayers, as always, will foot the bill for the November Summit and its consequences, while we all accelerate our slide down to Hell in a hand-basket.

–Walter Schneider

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