Emissions trading, also known as the global warming market or cap and trade, is an attempt to control pollution and emission levels by giving traders economic incentives for lowering their rate of emissions. There is a lot of money now in reducing emissions, saving the planet, hugging trees, and so on. Al Gore himself commented on the bonus features of “An Inconvenient Truth” that you need to “follow the money.” When you dig deep enough, you’ll see that energy companies are still getting rich on this, even though it would seem that oil companies could only lose money in a campaign to lower emissions.

Carbon trading is a scheme that was proposed by Goldman Sachs, and has now made it through the White House and the Senate. It’s based on putting a cap on the emissions that a particular business is allowed to produce. Oil companies understandably aren’t thrilled about that, but they are still making some green by being closely tied in with financial and investment firms. So who really gains from this new carbon emissions trading system? Again, it’s the financial companies like Goldman Sachs who make the most on it, just like usual. The rich get richer and the poor get taxed. In 2009, the entire carbon emissions trading operation of Constellation Energy was purchased by Goldman Sachs.

Al Gore isn’t getting left behind either. He owns a company called Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers that deals in venture capital. They provided the capital for a firm that produces the equipment needed to get the most efficiency out of energy grids, and guess what happened next? Out of $3.4 billion given out by the U.S. Department of Energy, Al Gore’s little company Silver Spring got $560 million. Al Gore is well on his way to becoming the first billionaire from carbon trading.

Of course everybody remembers Enron, the infamous energy trading company that went down for embezzlement. They were among the first to capitalize on the global warming market. It’s easy to see how closely intertwined the government and the corporations are on this, and it isn’t difficult to pinpoint why a lot of wealthy people could stand to gain from the continuing idea that global warming is real. I mean, Al Gore, one of America’s most famous supporters of global warming, is now filthy rich because of it.

The Kyoto Protocol was the treaty that put a cap on carbon emissions for the first time, and was supported by many famous political figures. If you didn’t know, Ken Lay, CEO of Enron, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton all held meetings at the White House to discuss the Kyoto Protocol before it was made official. Ken Lay and George Bush were once friends as well, although Bush refused to sign the Protocol for unknown reasons.

Since the beginning of time, Earth has been through many ecological transformations.  From the peaks of Mount Everest, to the depths of the Pacific Ocean, climatic temperature has been one of the factors that have shaped the land we live on today.  As we look around us, nature is a constant driver of change.  It took Earth nine billions years to get to this point in evolution; a constant sustainable temperature that inhabits complex organisms.  Throughout Earth’s life history, it is only natural for the planet to adjust itself and continue evolving as it has for millions of years.

A Natural Occurrence

Earth has a history of temperature change, including warming trends that started well before humans came into existence.  While evidence may prove the temperatures have risen within the past century; we have little evidence that the cause is due to human activity.  In my opinion, global warming activists are using natural warming cycles to create a fear based movement.  A thousand years ago, the planet went through a period of global warming, called the medieval warm period. Temperatures were higher, but there were no automobiles or coal burning plans to blame it on.

Long-Term Climate Changes

Climate is generally defined as the long-term average of weather at a distinct geographical area.  It is essential to remember that climate changes can be defined for different spans of time, and that this has occurred throughout Earth’s life span.  Recent global warming changes are studied by drilling deep ice core samples from the Vostok Greenland tundra.  The Vostok ice sample shows that in the past 450,000 years, there were 5 major climate shifts.  These ice examples show that climate change, or global warming or cooling are a natural occurrence within Earth’s life cycle.

Earth’s Warming Phase Cycle

As I mentioned, 1000 years ago the Earth had a warming period called the medieval warm period.  2000 years ago, there was yet another warm period called the Roman warm period.  Again, there was no industrialization then.  There were no cars, factories, methane gases, or coal burning that could be the cause of the climate warming.  Finally, the Vostok ice core sampled showed there was another warm period 3000 years ago called the Minoan warm period.  The late 20^th century’s warm period falls into a cyclical stage that is showcased in the ice samples, occurring every 1000 years.

A Recent Global Warming Phase

The past couple of decades have showcased a warm period that was similar to the Medieval Warm Period, a phase that showcased extraordinary European achievement.  Our recent warm period, from 1976-2000’s appears to be coming to an end with record cold weather occurring every winter.  In fact, this past winter (2010-2011) has broken several records for having the largest blizzard in the U.S. in over 50 years.  Also, new temperature lows have been recorded throughout cities around the world.  Many scientists who study sunspot climate behavior believe the next century will be much cooler.

If serious climate change was really brought about by only two or three factors like burning fossil fuels or carbon dioxide emissions, we would have died out as a planet thousands of years ago. The hype is blown so out of proportion because if people are panicked about something, they’re more likely to fall behind the person spreading the hype without checking out the proper facts. What are the facts then?

First of all, climate change is the result of hundreds of thousands of individual factors. The oceans, seismic movements like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, minute solar changes, natural gases, and season all play roles in the direction that the global temperature trends. This has been going on for millions of years, long before humans even had a chance to breathe in oxygen and blow out carbon dioxide. Honestly, it’s a little egotistical to even think that we would be at the center of all this, although of course in years past we always believed we were at the center of everything. Galileo was even sentenced to death for his preposterous idea that the sun was at the center of the universe, not the earth.

Second of all, satellite readings, our most accurate source of temperature and weather data, have shown absolutely no warming trends since we began collecting data this way nearly 25 years ago. Data collected from weather balloons provide the exact same figures, with an average variation of .01 degrees Celsius. In fact, the only weather stations that show any warming changes are land based data collection centers near growing urban populations.

This data is hardly objective, and even if it was it provides only a localized reading, not global, and not above the surface. The troposphere, where warming trends would most likely occur that would cause global warming, has not experienced an increase in heat, but has actually cooled several times in the past few decades.

The whole concept of global warming has been completely blown out of proportion. A lot of people still quote Al Gore’s famous shockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” proving just how much misinformation has circulated and taken root in people’s ideals and beliefs. One of the shots in “Truth” was actually taken directly from the disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow,” and was used to illustrate how the polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate.

The United States government spends more money researching global warming than all other countries in the world combined. Where do you think that money’s coming from? The real inconvenient truth is that the government is milking this hype as much as possible and taxpayers are happily trotting after the talking heads, believing every single word they say without trying to find the facts for themselves.