Lawyers embrace US climate practice at $700 an hour

MarineCorpsVet brings the poop:

Lawyers are becoming some of the best-paid environmentalists. Twenty of the 100 highest-grossing U.S. law firms have started practices advising Companies on climate change, according to a Bloomberg survey of the firms’ Web sites. The attorneys help clients finance clean-energy projects and lobby Congress, typically billing $500 to $700 an hour.

Firms including Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Heller Ehrman and Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton joined the global warming cause as real-estate and structured-finance attorneys lost jobs to the worst U.S. housing slump in 27 years. The move into climate-change law is gaining traction as Congress considers a mandatory carbon market to curb greenhouse gas emissions. ``Since the elections last November, climate change has had a higher profile as a political issue,’’ said Paul Gutermann, co- leader of Washington-based Akin Gump’s group, which comprises 50 of the firm’s 1,023 attorneys. Gutermann’s team is helping clients including PG&E Corp. push U.S. lawmakers to establish a market that uses so-called carbon credits to penalize heavy polluters financially. Senators John Warner and Joseph Lieberman introduced a bill inspired by Europe’s carbon market, and attorneys predict some legislation will pass after President George W. Bush, who opposes mandatory caps on emissions, leaves office in a year.

Fraudulent "priests", lots of money... heck, all we need now are some hookers and some drugs... and we've got a scandal that makes televangelists look like saints...

 

Comments

[Morgan K Freeberg]

So when I asked in another thread...

Do you mean to say nobody is making any profit off environmentalist movements?

...I basically guaranteed myself that I'll never get a serious answer to this. Even though the person to whom I asked it, made a frosting-sarcastic point that makes NO sense unless an answer could be provided in the affirmative.

This shrinking planet is covered with so many bright, cheerful smiles that sparkle away whenever the U.S. dollar takes another one in the shorts. There's either a financial investment in all this schadenfreude, or else it's all emotional and rather childish.

But I see a lot of these people who are happy when the USD is doing its tanking, are deep into the environmental movement. (Many of them, driving big cars, bitching away about gas prices.) According to the story you've linked, for the benefit of people like myself who wonder "where exactly does the money come from" -- it's the carbon exchange market. A nothing-is-produced market. A parasite market. Currently pegged at a $30 billion industry, it's expected to multiply tenfold by 2020.

Which means...the people bitching about gas prices, when they have to reach for their wallets while filling up their enormous cars. Looking forward to a brighter tomorrow when GWB leaves office.

We are being SO had.

[Mommynator]

Like the cynic said, "Follow the money."

There's gold in them thar habitats!