These coincidences are something.
First, when the Enron unpleasantness unfolded in 2001, the Pew Center quickly airbrushed its website of various fawning over erstwhile poster boy for climate responsibility, Ken Lay, and his cap-and-trade colleagues (who were also personal favorites over at the Heinz Center).
Luboš Motl spots the climate-specific similarities between Enron and the Lehman Brothers gang.
Iain Murray notices the Chair of the Pew Center for Global Climate Change (and also board member of you-know-who’s Alliance for Climate Protection . . . is this a bad time to ask where you guys got that $300 million . . . ?), Theodore Roosevelt IV, who I also see listed as managing director of Lehman Brothers.
As Marlo Lewis has pointed out, there’s just something about the kind of company that would champion these schemes (references omitted):
Gore’s [NB: and Pew’s] preferred policy, a cap-and-trade scheme, is essentially a carbon cartel. Such schemes set OPEC-like production quotas — in the form of emission allowances or credits — for all fossil fuels rather than just oil. By restricting the supply and raising the price of fossil energy, cap-and-trade creates windfalls for the lucky holders of emission credits. That is why companies with a flair of illegal market manipulation — Enron, American Electric Power, Cinergy, Entergy, and Calpine — have been among the most aggressive lobbyists for the Kyoto Protocol or kindred emission trading schemes. Among the most influential lobbyists for Kyoto-style policy are Wall Street firms that expect to make commissions on the purchase and sale of carbon trading credits.
Gentlemen (at Pew, and who knows where else this time), start yer airbrushes!