[geeks] Global Warming questions...

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Frank Van Damme <frank.vandamme at gmail.com>
>Date: 2007/12/03 Mon AM 06:01:21 CST
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Global Warming questions...

>On Dec 3, 2007 12:34 PM, Phil Stracchino <alaric at metrocast.net> wrote:
>> Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> > My thought is that if someone wants to claim to be carbon-neutral, you
have to
>> > start with securing sufficient plants to "scrub" your carbon dioxide
output
>> > back to oxygen. THen we can talk about buying carbon credits for cars,
planes,
>> > etc...
>>
>> This whole business of buying carbon offsets and credits is BS in the
>> first place.  It's just like buying indulgences from the Pope in the
>> middle ages.  "Sure it's a sin, but it's OK, I just gave the Pope five
>> hundred gold sovereigns."
>
>Not exactly. It's based on
>1. distributing the right to emit a limited amount of CO2 per capita,
>evenly spread over the earth's population
>2. arranging for the trade of the emission rights since some countries
>will have a harder time then others to recude CO2 output (reliance on
>heavy industry,...)
>
>So the goal is to minimize the global economical cost of reducing CO2
>emissions. Free trade can be an efficient tool for this.

Horse Hockey!

Here is how I understand Carbon Credits:

I run a foul, nasty factory that in addition to spewing large amounts of
carbon into the atmospheres I also make little dolls.

Al Gore comes along and tells me "Wow, you make a lot of CO2, how much would
it take to make you shut down this factory?"

I give him a number, and Al Gore now has "credits" for a reduction in total
carbon emissions - he can now sell those "credits" to other companies (my
competition in the doll making business) so that they can continue to spew CO2
into the atmosphere making dolls while reducing the total amount of CO2
emitted...

Until I lease some new factory space and open a new doll factory, this time
buying the cheapest, most polluting, machinery possible in hopes of generating
an even larger amount of carbon credits for Al Gore's next visit.

Is that how it works?

I also find it interesting that virtually no one that did approve the Kyoto
Treaty will meet their emissions targets, meaning they will have to pay
someone an indulgence because of their CO2 emissions. An interesting passage
from the Wikipedia entry for the protocol:

On July 25, 1997, before the Kyoto Protocol was finalized (although it had
been fully negotiated, and a penultimate draft was finished), the U.S. Senate
unanimously passed by a 95C"BB0 vote the Byrd-Hagel Resolution (S. Res.
98),[65][66] which stated the sense of the Senate was that the United States
should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets
and timetables for developing as well as industrialized nations or "would
result in serious harm to the economy of the United States". On November 12,
1998, Vice President Al Gore symbolically signed the protocol. Both Gore and
Senator Joseph Lieberman indicated that the protocol would not be acted upon
in the Senate until there was participation by the developing nations.[67] The
Clinton Administration never submitted the protocol to the Senate for
ratification.

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol#United_States)

Yep, that George Bush is a real SOB, why, how dare he simply continue in the
direction of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and all the Senators that voted on the
Treaty (95 out of 100 total)...

Guyana criticizes carbon credit scheme of Kyoto Protocol:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070712182736.2zv65rro&show_article=1

(Canadian PM) Harper's letter dismisses Kyoto as 'socialist scheme':
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/01/30/harper-kyoto.html

Lionel