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Climate Scams Won’t Save the Planet
Whether you listen to NPR or Rush Limbaugh, you’ve probably heard about climate change. And if you’ve heard about climate change, chances are you’ve also heard about “cap and trade.” It’s a scheme that tries to sell business-as-usual as a solution to global warming.
Here’s how it works. The government puts a limit on how much greenhouse gas can be released in a year (the cap), and industries covered by the system are issued an equivalent number of emissions permits. As the cap is tightened each year, permits become scarcer and thus more valuable. The increasing value of the permits is supposed to encourage dirty industries to clean up their act fast, and sell their spare permits to the dinosaurs that didn’t innovate. That’s the trade.
The theory behind cap and trade is that the planet doesn’t care where you reduce emissions, as long as you stay under the cap. And by trading permits, you maximize efficiency and make it profitable for corporations to shrink their carbon footprints.
Everybody wins, right? Wrong. A new short film, The Story of Cap & Trade, released by the Story of Stuff and Free Range Video (www.storyofcapandtrade.org) explains why the real of story of cap and trade is that it’s easy to scam, riddled with loopholes, and a dangerous distraction from the real change needed to protect people and the planet.
First of all, cap and trade programs are easy to cheat. In Europe, where carbon trading has been under way since 2005, energy corporations were asked how many permits they needed and were given that amount for free. But they made out like bandits when they still raised consumer prices as if they had paid top dollar. The result: more than $30 billion in windfall profits. And to add insult to injury, emissions didn’t decline because corporations had overestimated how many permits they needed. Under the U.S. cap and trade law snaking its way through Congress, 85 percent of the carbon credits would be given away to polluting industries for free.
Here’s the second problem. Cap and trade includes offsets—a kind of carbon trading that allows polluters to finance projects outside the cap that purport to cut emissions, and then claim the cuts for their own. Even in theory, offsets don’t lower emissions—they simply move reductions from one place to another. In reality, offsets are rarely “additional”—meaning that the cleaner projects were going to happen anyway. But because the offset creates carbon credits, the company that provided finance has permits to keep polluting at home. Even if the atmosphere doesn’t care where pollution comes from, the people who live next to the power plants and factories do.
Unfortunately, many offsets are just scams. Consider the case of Sinar Mas. This pulp and paper company cut down native forest in Indonesia, causing major devastation, and then planted palm oil trees on the wasteland it had created. Guess what it got for that? Offset credits for reforesting. This company destroys an entire forest ecosystem, installs a monoculture industrial plantation, and can still turn a profit from selling the trees cut down, the palm oil produced in their place, and carbon credits. As a result, a company somewhere else can continue to pollute. It doesn’t make any sense.
Third, carbon trading creates a new derivatives market in carbon credits that’s ripe for speculation. Remember the mortgage crisis, where bad loans were bundled and resold ad nauseum? Now imagine the investment banks that brought us the financial crisis gambling on carbon derivatives—and toxic carbon credits backed by nothing but hot air—creating a carbon bubble. This time when the bubble bursts, we could lose more than our houses. Our planet's ability to sustain life as we know it is at stake.
Above all, cap and trade is a dangerous distraction from what we must do to avert climate chaos. That includes shifting public support from fossil fuels to wind, solar, and other renewable energy alternatives, rebuilding our economy around new jobs in clean industries and energy efficiency improvements, and promoting policies that reward real innovators, not dirty industries.
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34 Comments so far
Show AllGood to see an easily understandable explanation of why cap and trade won't work.
Amen!
About time someone admitted it was a terrible piece of legislation and pretty much for profit and nothing else.
Good article, really lays out the issues we're going to have to overcome if we're ever going to have real climate change and not just a cover-up.
So first the Earth was privatized (Chief Seattle never could get his head around that one). Then Fire (in the form of the burning of fossil fuels). Now they're talking about privatizing Air (via 'cap and trade').
Again, why do you suppose Brand Bush purchased land (allegedly) atop that aquifer in Paraguay?
The piece does an excellent job illustrating why 'cap-n-trade' won't work. Only a direct tax on the use of carbon emitting fuels will be effective.
Excellent article. Now someone needs to clear up the controversy on AGW.
If you're talking about the stolen CRU emails, here you go.
http://mediamatters.org/research/200912010002
Thanks for that link. I just wonder how many among the skeptics and the deniers would bother to read through the explanation. I just finished reading "Virus of the Mind" by Richard Brodie. It seems like the right-wing fanatics, being infected themselves, have perfected the art/science of spreading strong mind viruses, and unless the person infected himself wants to get rid of the virus, it's a tough job fighting this virus with facts and scientific knowledge.
zmann
Not particularly, though a couple of their explanations were pretty weak. But stuff like the "Don't any of you three tell anyone the UK has a freedom of information act" (paraphrased) is obviously a joke in my opinion. Aside from which e-mails cannot give the tone of speaking.....I have trouble with that myself because I write as I speak.
The thing that I found unbelievable was the fact (that they don't dispute)that they had destroyed the original data. That negates any claim to science. Science must be replicable and the original data MUST be available for other scientists to test the theory and hypothisis. At least that was what I was taught in school and I don't believe scientific method has changed.
They make no explanation of that, there is no mention of it in your link. It seems to me there is no doubt considering this fact that their conclusions are in doubt.
Whats your view? Do you interpret it differently? Something I'm missing?
I think their explanation was that they got rid of the data for server space. If that's real or not, I don't know, but there must be data elsewhere in the world. Nothing that was on the Internet ever disappears forever. This isn't something I've followed closely, I've just been grinding my teeth every time Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck declare that this is proof that climate change is a hoax.
Yep, I heard that, but it just doesn't make sense to me. The raw data has to be available to check their conclusions. If you only have their interpretations, you more than likely would reach the same conclusions I'd think. And their models are based on their interpretations.
When I check everyones claims about all scientists support AGW I find that its not close to true.
So I guess I'll remain among the skeptics till somebody, somewhere comes up with the definitive science.
As to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, I can help you there. Never listen to Beck again. I listened to him once and got heartburn. Only listen to Limbaugh twice a week foor no more than 15 miniutes, you'll know what he said for the entire weeek. Thats my method.
I get paid to listen to them :-)
Actually I'm currently writing today's Limbaugh Wire. I should probably get back to it. Shh.
At last! A valid reason to listen to them!!!!!!
CRU doesn't own the data, they just compile it, integrate and average it. I'm pretty sure its owned by individual data sources. They might drop certain data, like Tree Ring proxy temperatures after 1960, that doesn't fit more reliable data sources, like satellite and instrument data. And why would anyone use tree ring data if instrument data was reliable?
In any case, you might want to read some of the comments at
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Was-there-a-Medieval-Warm-Period.html
where they talk a bit about data requests by the skeptic community. It's all pretty detailed, I suppose there should be an open inquiry. In any case, from one of the comments there:
"What I like best about McIntyre piece, http://www.climateaudit.org/pdf/ohio.pdf, is his describing how hard he tried to get the actual raw data and couldn't.
The 2% of the data that CRU is not, legally, able to hand out freely. The other 98%, of course, which is all that NASA GISS uses, has been available on the internet for years now.
Same with Briffa .. Briffa said, "go ask the Russians, it's their data", McIntyre got it from the Russians in 2004, and continued to scream "Briffa won't give me the data", and later, when called on it, "oh, I didn't know it was the same data ..." Sheesh. McIntyre reminds me of a two year old with a migraine."
Clearly, the scientists and skeptics have been at each others throats now for years. And I think, when the smoke clears, it'll be obvious that the skeptics have had the data available to them for some time, most of its on the internet. They may not like the format its posted in, or lack the expertise to know what to do with it (esp tree ring data), but I don't believe its the scientists responsibility to bring them up to speed.
ubrew12
Thanks for the links. Interesting. I don't get too far into this because I'm not smart enough to follow the science. Like most folks thats what makes this most confusing.
One thing, it never occurred to me that they used data they couldn't legally publish.
To make their data credible are they not required to have a copy of the raw data they actually used on hand for others to use to prove or disprove their theory and models? (am I wrong about this) Thats what I understood. Checking into it the scientists seem to be more or less evenly divided on AGW.
Why can't it be simple!
The one thing I am fairly sure of is that there will be nothing done by the US till this is all cleared up and there is much less doubt. At least thats what I think because its far too costly to make a mistake on this. In the meantime conservation and frugalness are never out of style.
Thanks for jumping in. And when do you think "the smoke" might clear?
Alleluia....
Church of Climatology. Where do your grants come from? Cui bono? Carbon Tax benefits BIG BUSINESS and the ELITE....
"The thing that I found unbelievable was the fact (that they don't dispute)that they had destroyed the original data."
I would be surprised if they generated the raw data in the first place - more likely were working on data sent to them by labratories elsewhere and that will surely have backup copies. If, indeed, the raw data has been destroyed then the results deduced from it will certainly be suspect and should be discarded. There are, of course, numerous other studies that have a good pedigree although sometimes the conclusions are less convincing.
I find the following links to be quite interesting since the atmosphere stores only a tiny fraction of the incident solar energy compared with the sea.
http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/10/skeptical-science-global-warming-not-cooling-is-still-happening-ocean-heat-content/
(reference to the Journal of Geophysical Research article on sea temperatures and energy stored in upper 2000 meters)
And fingerprints in the rock?
http://www.unisci.com/stories/20011/0227012.htm
(borehole temperature profiles)
I understood they had collected data from many places, don't believe they generated any themselves, just interpreted it.
But we certainly don't want to depend on my understanding of this area! I'm not versed in this at all...even hated biology.
Thats just what I gathered from various reports. And the apparently have no back up for the raw data, its just gone.
Wrong the data was from an insider most likely and it is not a stunt. It is an attempt to right a fraud that is being promoted by criminal scientists on the TAKE.
I guess you go the the church of CLIMATOLOGY.
TAX THE POLLUTION! TAX THE POISON! TAX THE FRIGGIN CORPS THAT ARE CAUSING THE GLOBAL CANCER PANDEMIC.
Great article!!!
We could have had a cap without the trade crap in it. Even better, we could have had policies that reward cutting down emissions and taxing the polluters. Instead, cap and trade will be just another boon for Wall Street. The easiest way to cap without the trading is to stop oversubsidizing Big Oil and Coal so that the oil drilling states, one of which I live in, won't bother to turn the state into a bigger waste dump.
Green jobs such as the ones Van Jones proposed in San Francisco will be easier to implement in big cities such as Houston and San Francisco. For smaller towns, we need to switch the fuel source to cut down pollution from gasoline. Solar panels and wind turbines are also easier to operate in the countryside.
Actually I wonder why we should subsidize big oil or coal at all? If its worth it for them to look for oil they will, if its not, they won't. Profit is reward enough I'd think.
yes, the professional sports stadium scenario...why subsidize stadiums?
Rich man can only afford the team, not the stadium, too?
Public must build stadium for team, and must continue to upgrade said facility indefinitely, or lose team to other city whose public will?
what a racket...
dubet
You should see the new stadium in Arlington that belongs to my Cowboys. I enjoy watching them play, love them to death.....but if I were a resident of Arlington I'd be choking on it. It will cost them a fortune before its over and I don't believe the figures they used to "prove" that it would bring in more money than it costs.
Jerry suckered them for sure. But then he used to be an oil and gas man........
Right! There's no reason why we should be subsidizing oil, coal and gas in the US with our tax dollars. Switch that to real clean energy - solar and wind. And let's stop subsidizing dirty energy in other parts of the world - people in the global south deserve clean energy, too!
And great points about crafting green jobs that are smart about the different needs of urban, rural (and don't forget suburban) communities. And then there are steps we can all take ASAP like weatherization (how mnay of us live in leaky apartments or leaky old farm houses?). Didn't Obama have a plan for that?
A core challenge:
In emergency situations, most humans freeze. That's why so few choose, and even fewer qualify, to be firemen or police officers - it's the rare human who can react accordingly when the time comes.
And right now, it's like a fiery tidal wave of immense proportions has topped the horizon and is heading straight for us. Most of us are frozen, helpless, hoping the fire department arrives in time to 'save us.'
The 'deniers' are no different - they, too, are frozen with fear. Inside, they know the fire department ain't showing up, so their only choice is to deny that anything is burning.
'Cap and Trade' isn't designed to do anything except relieve the fear temporarily so We The People can focus on important stuff, like buying lots of useless crap to celebrate the birth of Jesus. IOW, C+T is meant to trick us into believing the fire department is on the way.
It isn't.
I'm a little confused. Can someone PLEASE answer me on this one?
For starters, with a tax, is it predictable at how much global carbon emissions will be cut as it is with cap and trade? I'm saying no, whereas with a cap and trade, yes. (so if coal burner A wants to pollute more than expected, with tax, yes. With cap/trade- no, unless they can purchase more permits)
2. In correlation to the above, how will we know how much reduction of emissions will take place with a tax? How will we know emissions will decrease with taxes? Do we have time to find out? Don't we already use pollution taxes? At least my county in GA does.
3. Who will make sure developing nations are taxing polluters since this is a global problem? Is the US going to enforce Mexico's pollution? Would it not be more efficient, within the regulation arena, to run cap and trade since the heavy polluters would have to buy permits from the more green polluters so the green polluters would in fact regulate in order to make more profit? So in essence, does cap and trade regulate itself?
4. Do we have the time to wait until coal and oil become more expensive? The last I read, we, as a planet, have plenty of coal.
5. Can I purchase caps and then burn them?
6. Maybe we should vote out the rep's who manipulate the full practice of cap and trade? If 100% instead of 10% of caps must be purchased, at the real price as with no grandfather clauses. Wait- does voting out rep's work within a representative democracy? Maybe we could use the profits from cap and trade to repurchase our reps:)
7. Is it not true that cap and trade, used for the decrease of acid rain, has worked incredibly well with a 65% reduction from 1975?
8. Does it not seem that cap and trade, within the carbon market was, in policy, broke down to not work, implemented, and then heavily bashed by large corps under the disguise of 'environmental groups,' since this is the answer to at least kick the shit (at least one good time) out of major polluters?
Cap and Trade is joke... Why not have anal probes with GPS devices so our emissions can be turned into a revenue stream for the Elite... what a JOKE!
Talking and writing about 'saving the planet' is really counter productive. Anybody who can think knows that the planet is not going to die. It is animal life and plant life, including human life, which is in balance here. NOT the planet. Please.
The dangerous distraction is believing that an economic system based on greed and the never ending need to grow and consume, can possibly address the climate change problem. The problem is capitalism. The solution will not be found within the "solutions" being put forward by the capitalists.
Who listens to Rush or NPR?
Something like 30 million people listen to El Rushbo, unfortunately.
NPR, me, sometimes. When DN! isn't on.
Ah....but you are PAID to listen.
Haha not for NPR.