Confessions Of A Global Warming Day Trader

‘Ladies and gentlemen the story you are about to read is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.’ The Hollywood series ‘Dragnet’ started in the early 1950s and was seminal as it parted from ‘police glitz’ productions of the day (and subsequent offerings) and portrayed the reality of police work.

Anthropogenic global warming, aka man-made climate change, is to be understood as science seized and turned into ‘scientific glitz.’ An Inconvenient Truth is prima facie evidence of that. Science warped into a message of fear.

Climate change, in reality, has never been about climate science. It has always been about one of the seven deadly sins: Lust. It was and still is the lust for power and money.

In the late 1980s, the corruptocrat Maurice Strong and the scientist James Hansen allied with many others and understood how they could use environmentalism to manipulate the masses and feed both their egos and bank accounts.

The money managers of vast wealth, with sensitive noses to the winds of change, saw an opportunity. Investment dollars are derived from the ‘grunts’ on the trading floors selling the ‘investment opportunity du jour.’ By chance, I contacted one of those day traders and his story is true and I’ll just call him JC.

Part 1

I am not a scientist. I have Masters degrees in public administration, business administration, and a partially completed a masters in microbiology (never wrote the thesis).

As predominantly a finance guy, I worked at a large hedge fund for a number of years and at the fund where I worked, we took a bit of a Gretzky-like perspective on investing.

I set out for over 2+ years dedicating a material portion of every week studying AGW, trying to skate to where the puck is going to be.

I had virtually unlimited resources to hire experts and scientists to talk to me about anything climate. In effect, they were my scientific staff.

Emphasis…I was looking for ways to place trades that would capture value from the schemes and trends in place as a result of AGW.

But after almost three years of hard work, chasing down rat hole after rat hole, I had to report to my boss that as promising as the possibility appeared when I set out to develop tradable ideas, the entire theory of trading AGW trends was thrown into question. Not because the science was too complicated, but because the science was bullshit.

With my report my boss said in response, “John, I was watching NPR the other day (major red flag!) and they had a NASA guy saying that it is certain that unless we curb and eventually end our use of fossil fuels, we will enter an un-excitable feedback loop where the earth will warm to the point that it is uninhabitable. JC, this WAS A NASA SCIENTIST!”

I said, “David, it’s all a bullshit scheme to capture and redistribute wealth to consolidate global power and convert the capitalist system into socialism and communism. The origins of the “movement” are Stasi.”

David was less interested in the political aspects of what I told (and showed) him. We managed $1Bn in energy assets; largely oil and natural gas both up- and downstream. When he eventually came to understand the politics of it, he definitely understood the economic ramifications on the energy space.

I’ll give you one-decade-later data point in support of my discussion with David. The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund is the largest SWF in the world with over $1.2Tn in assets. Six percent of their assets are in oil & gas ($60Bn).

They have agreed to divest all direct investment in energy-producing publicly traded companies. The irony, of course, is that the origin of the fund was derived entirely from North Sea crude.

Part 2

The fund did not invest in renewables but would have had we thought them a strong business with non-subsidized underlying fundamentals. Solar, of course, is a J-O-K-E.

When China ceased supplying support to its solar industry 3-4 months ago, the industry collapsed. Same in Germany. Same with UK wind.

Same would be true with US ethanol. This would make a great Peter Schweizerische documentary. The entire renewable complex in the US is corrupt. Joe Biden’s kids would merit an entire chapter. And Key Reid (Sen. Harry Reid’s brat) the same.

If the world took the trillions of dollars it flushed down the renewables’ toilet and directed the same resources to develop infrastructure in third-world nations, we would make a serious dent in the fight to improve/elevate the human condition. It’s tragic.

Much as Rachel Carson’s effort resulted in the death of 40 million impoverished children, the “Green” (RED) movement has ill-affected hundreds of millions of people in Asia, C&S. America and Africa. Sad really and I wish it would stop.

It’s why I lean strongly Libertarian. While I am not a card-carrying member of that group, I believe that when governments get involved in a big way in anything, gross distortions take place.

War, housing, healthcare, environment, science, to name a few. It all gets effed up when the government decides it is going to do “Good.”

So global warming…I studied it in an effort to make a profit from what I believed would be a government-driven wave. And in so studying, I realized that the underlying AGW “problem” was a complete fiction.

Note:

This is the ‘Information Age’ and as someone quoted years ago; ‘It lends credibility to uninformed opinion. The crux of this article is that JC did his homework, he acted and did not react. I suppose the best way to end this tale is as such.

When one of the rabid alarmists confronts you quietly reply; ‘I would love to listen to your argument. Please supply me with the facts ma’am, just the facts.’ Thank you, Sergeant Joe Friday.

—ALS al*******@*****ne.com