Sunday
Apr252010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Falck Renewables and the mafia
Apr 25, 2010 Climate: Oxburgh Remember Falck Renewables, the Italian company whose UK arm was headed up by Lord Oxburgh? Observers wondered if the chairman of a green energy company wasn't quite the right choice for the head of the investigation into CRU.
Tom Fuller has been doing some research into the company and has discovered that the Italian side of the business seems to have been implicated in a mafia investigation.
Reader Comments (8)
There is nothing better than an EU supported fortune making incentive. It brings a whole new perspective to open boarders vote Cosa Nostra May 6th.
Is this sort of thing really more than the simultaneous distastefulness and desperation of ad hominem?
Regards
I don't think so, Nigel Sedgwick. The public role taken by Oxburgh was to be an honest broker reviewing an academic subgroup, the CRU, for evidence of ungentlemanly behaviour with regard to data and unscientific behaviour with regard to the assuming of a political position and its defence. It was known in advance that he had vested interests in the alarm generated by the IPCC, supported in no small way by the CRU, and the consequent headlong rush of governments to subsidise otherwise hopelessly uneconomic ways to produce large quantities of electricity for national grids. Therefore it is not inappropriate for people to enquire further after his interests, in an industry in which malfeasance has been established in Spain, and where, in Italy, the mafia is known to thrive by latching on to government largesse. This brief article makes no accusations against Oxburgh, but merely adds a little to our knowledge of his background and the kind of things he is involved with or up against. His character and business interests are legitimate areas for public attention, not least because he chose to chair the CRU enquiry.
@| Nigel Sedgwick
"more than the simultaneous distastefulness and desperation of ad hominem?"
Indeed more than this.
Don't forget that the "noble Lord" has direct personal and financial interests in the AGW scaremongering agenda, which he apparently pointed out to Acton himself at the outset.
And also don't forget that the "investment" of £100,000,000,000 over the next decade in offshore wind farms (promoted by the Labour Pain and enthusiastically supported by the Tories and the Dims), which will generate precious little electricity, avoid the emission of virtually no CO2, have no measurable effect whatever on the climate but will (Ofgem's forecast) result in average domestic electricity bills of £5,000 by 2020.
And how many lives in the third world might be saved, and how many poor people given hope by the sensible and measured investment of £100,000,000,000? (Not that we have that kind of money to throw about anyway.)
So I think that it would be a distasteful ad hominem attack on Oxburgh to suggest that he combines the avoidance of transparency, the lack of morality and carelessness of the consequences of his actions on others which one associates with the Mafia but unfortunately that he seems to lack their business acumen and ability to inspire loyalty in 'co-workers'. They would likely also be capable of producing a more compelling whitewash job that he has achieved.
But even this might be defended as fair comment.
Pussyfooting around the niceties of Oxburgh's self-evident pecuniary interest in whitewashing inquiries into enterprises wherein he holds major interests seems unnecessarily even-handed. You can bet that Oxburgh et Cie. have no such compunctions when it comes to chivvying and hustling every Green Gang scam available at public expense.
I expect the Godfathers would regard Lord O as a pain-in-the-ass innocent bystander.
I have long suspected that the reason the EU Accounts have, for yonks, not been signed off by their auditors is that the Italian Mafia have been syphoning off our taxes, big-time. I also suspect that Cosa Nostra have bought enough EU bureaucrats to protect them if the cops get too close.
Regular visits to Italy have left me aware of the Mob in the middle distance almost everywhere, though they seem to be in retreat in Sicily, at least for the moment. However, I recently visited Calabria for the first time, and was introduced the local Capo within two days (No, I hadn't asked: this was a matter of hospitality). Readers may be interested to know that the Godfather-style hand- and cheek-kissing still goes on.
Now that the East Europeans are in the EU, their organised criminals will be eating their heads off at our expense, beside the Italians.
Real industries keep crooks to the minimum: free market pressures help. Artificial industries, like carbon credits, windmills and so on, bring the flies to the jampot. If Oxburgh is embarrassed by all this, I have no sympathy.
Wow and Ouch.
It is now a Guest post on Watts UP !!!!
Given how many hits that website gets a day.
Something will surely come of this in the USA legally
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/25/global-warming-the-oxburgh-inquiry-was-an-offer-he-couldnt-refuse/