Is Carbon Emissions Trading a good or bad idea?

[Michaelangelica]

Should I post this in the Theology Forum?

Selling carbon indulgences

Posted on May 17, 2007
Filed Under Venture News, Venture Ideas, Energy Technology |

Greeen Cab, a taxi company in San Francisco, and TerraPass, startup founded by former Expedia CEO Erik Blachford, what do they have in common? They are environmentally conscience businesses monetizing on “feel guilty” sentiment . Green Cab drives only hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles. Terrapass sells carbon offsets.

How does Terrapass work? You took flight about 6,000 miles. Your share of carbon dioxide emissions is 2,500 lbs. You feel guilty. You buy Flight TerraPass for $9.99. TerraPass promise to spend $9.99 on noble causes works miracles for your sensitive conscience and balances your karma.

It reminds me indulgence, which is the prepaid full or partial absolution of sins practized by Roman Catholic Church in 15th century. Selling induldences was flourishing business.

Erik Blachford takes no risks by picking up historically proven business model.

Selling carbon indulgences | Venture Itch

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by Augie Auer

Climate change will be considered a joke in five years time, meteorologist Augie Auer told the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton this week.

Man's contribution to the greenhouse gases was so small we couldn't change the climate if we tried, he maintained...

Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.

"If we didn't have the greenhouse effect the planet would be at minus 18 deg C but because we do have the greenhouse effect it is plus 15 deg C, all the time."

The other greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrogen dioxide, and various others including CFCs, contributed only five per cent of the effect, carbon dioxide being by far the greatest contributor at 3.6 per cent.

More...

I'm still kind of waiting for someone to explain why the Mars caps are receeding at the same rate as Earth's if man made carbon is the cause of Earth's warming. Could it be the rovers we sent there?

[Zythryn]

There was a nice article on that very subject in the last Science journal. In short, the research they have done seems to point towards a change in albedo as the most likely culprit. I'll read up on it again and give you more detail.

[Zythryn]

Here we are, sorry for the delay.
It was not Science, it was the Nature Journal.
Global warming and climate forcing by recent albedo changes on Mars
Lori K. Fenton, Paul E. Geissler, Robert M. Haberle
From the April 5th issue, 2007.
Now, studying the climate of Mars is much more difficult than studying our own climate. However any possible links should be studied as best they can.

PS. you mentioned they are receeding at the same rate? Do we know that? I thought the mars southern cap was visibly receeding at a much greater rate? Is the northern cap receeding at all?

[C1ay]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

PS. you mentioned they are receeding at the same rate? Do we know that? I thought the mars southern cap was visibly receeding at a much greater rate? Is the northern cap receeding at all?

It was in some news article I read about the time the news release came out that Mars was experiencing global warming as well. I can't remember exactly how it was worded but I do remember that it also stated that Mars has warmed by about the same amount as Earth over the same period. I'll see if I can find it.

[Michaelangelica]

Mars is stuffed.Earth is next

Watch more videos like this at QuantumShift.tv - Your Move..

This month I've been writing about carbon - what a carbon footprint is, how to calculate it, what it has to do with climate change, and so on.

Our modern lifestyles have released a lot of extra carbon into the atmosphere. Can we somehow trap it again? Trees trap carbon, so does the soil. Can I fly to Malaga as long as I pay someone to plant a bunch of trees for me? Does that work?

There's an interesting video about carbon sequestration which you should look at if you have about 9 minutes to spare. It explains how organic farming can help trap some excess carbon in the soil, which just adds to the long list of reasons why organic farming is a good idea. I love the guy who narrates it, Percy Schmeiser. He's pretty rubbish at looking natural in front of a camera and reading from a script, but this somehow makes his statements more convincing. He must know what he's talking about because he sure as hell wasn't chosen for his presenting abilities.

But that's different from paying someone to plant trees for you so you can fly to Malaga with a clear conscience. Carbon offsetting is a last-ditch option. It's like having chemotherapy when you've got cancer. You don't say "Oh, I might as well smoke as many cigarettes as I like because I can always have chemotherapy if I get cancer". Similarly we shouldn't say "It's perfectly OK to live a high-carbon lifestyle because I can afford to offset it by planting loads of trees someplace". It's a radical attempt to fix damage already done, not a "get out of jail free" card.

Yes, we should be planting trees, returning to organic farming, collecting methane and all the other carbon offsetting things. But we should be doing them to offset the damage we have already done, not as a sort of "indulgence" permitting us to carry on with our planet-damaging activities and still sleep soundly.

Bean Sprouts: What are Carbon Offsets?

[Michaelangelica]

I think this is all to much for Bears of little Brain.
The article is ten pages long (!)

Clean Development Mechanism
Without any practical way to force developing nations to control their emissions, the Kyoto signers instead reached a compromise known as the clean development mechanism.
Under this scheme, investors could earn credits for projects that cut emissions in developing nations even though the host country faced no binding restriction on its output of these gases.
A British firm that faces strict (and thus costly) limits on its emissions at home, for example, might invest to build wind turbines in China.
The company would then accrue credits for the difference between the “baseline” emissions that would have been released had the Chinese burned coal to generate electricity and the essentially zero emissions discharged by the wind farm.
China would gain foreign investment and energy infrastructure, while the British firm could meet its environmental obligations at lower cost because credits earned overseas are often less expensive than reducing emissions at home.

Making Carbon Markets Work (extended version): Scientific American

[Michaelangelica]

Is life too short to inform youself on all the things you need to know about saving the planet?

Carbon trading

Carbon trading has become the central pillar of international agreements aimed at slowing climate change. Proponents of this market-based approach to addressing an environmental crisis argue that carbon trading allows reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the most economical manner. What proponents of this market based-approach do not mention are the hidden consequences of carbon trading - the creation of a new commodity and of private property rights to the atmosphere, the hand-out of tradable pollution rights worth billions of euro to large emitters in industrialised countries free of charge. Through this process of creating a new commodity - carbon - the Earth's ability and capacity to support a climate conducive to life and human societies is now passing into the same corporate hands that are destroying the climate. Carbon trading will thus not contribute to achieving protection of the Earth's climate. It is a false solution which entrenches and magnifies social inequalities in many ways.

The public debate about these consequences of carbon trading has only just begun. The Durban conference on "Commodifying Carbon: Consequences and Strategies" , held in Durban, South Africa, in October 2004, brought together some 30 organizations from more than 15 countries to exchange information, analysis, and strategy ideas concerning the social, environmental and human problems posed by the emerging carbon market.

This page aims at providing access to the existing and emerging literature and analysis challenging the assumptions of the emerging carbon market.

Click here to read the Durban Call to Action or to sign the Durban Declaration on Carbon trading.

Read the Carbon Trade Watch report Hoodwinked in the Hothouse

Check out Carbon Trading - the different trades explained

Read about some lessons from the EUropean Union's flagship Emissions Trading Scheme here

Click here for links to the Durban Group's comprehensive critique of carbon trading, published by the Dag Hammarskjold Foundation and edited by Larry Lohmann. Carbon Trading. Critical Conversations about Climate Change, Privatisation and Power. Send an email to info@fern.org

Read the Carbon Trade Watch report 'The Carbon Neutral Myth. Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins'

www.sinkswatch.org

[Michaelangelica]

Some more anti voices on carbon trading.
carbon trading | Raised Voices

[Michaelangelica]

What to look for when purchasing carbon credits

Wednesday, 06 February 2008
. . .
. . .
the report found that:

* Some industrial companies are profiting from doing very little, or from gaining greenhouse gas credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.
* Brokers are providing services of questionable or no value.
* A shortage of verification exists, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of greenhouse gas credits.
In fact, critics argue that the carbon offsets industry is allowing individuals, organisations and countries to think it is alright to keep polluting

. . .

In their RMIT report, Ribón and Scott developed a set of criteria that can help customers choose between offset products:

* Additionality: Would the project have occurred anyway without funding from greenhouse gas offsets?
* Baseline determination: Does the provider state commitments to a robust process to determine the baseline greenhouse gas emissions?
* Benefit quantification: Does the provider have a track record of accurate quantification of emissions reductions or has that provider had failures in the past? Do the figures quoted reflect uncertainties?
* Permanence: Are there risks of loss of greenhouse gas from bushfires and drought? Is there a risk that customers will not install compact fluorescents? Is there a potential for future reversal of sequestration?
* Ownership and registration: Is ownership of offsets clearly and formally registered? Is there any possibility of offsets being sold many times over?
* Monitoring and verification: Does the provider commit to regularly monitor, verify and report greenhouse gas offsets over time?

The fact is, because the voluntary greenhouse gas offsets market is immature, no universally accepted standards for product quality have yet gained market dominance.

What to look for when purchasing carbon credits (ScienceAlert)