Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin
This carbon credit thing always struck me as one big shell game.
If anyone can explain how (and if) it works, I’d be grateful.
There are some useful links on the right hand side of the FT article.
All new schemes attract hucksters eg railways in the 19th century and dotcoms in the 21st. ‘Old’ schemes such as charity also attract fraud and inefficiency. Poverty is not a fabrication for the benefit of charitable agencies.
Should we dismiss the idea of charity or new technology or should we investigate specific technologies, charities and carbon reduction schemes carefully and press for methods of reasonable certification? Many environmentalists are sceptical about the effectiveness of some of the existing market mechanisms for carbon reduction.
Whatever we might think about anthropogenic global warming, I think we all agree that waste is a sin and that energy conservation and reduced dependance on being blackmailed by Middle Eastern oil is prudent.
I wanna sell my carbon credits. How much would I get for a single family home’s worth of carbon credits?
😉
create a system, and some human being or other will immediately set about figuring out how to game it.
Okay, so company X produces 100 units of carbon.
They pay company Y a certain amount for Y to either produce less carbon themselves or to in someway bind a certain amount of carbon (from a different source than X) so that it won’t get into the atmoshpere.
Does that sound about right? In a simple form.
There’s a radio talk show host in Boston, Howie Carr, peddling his own “Carbon Credits.” Honest Howie’s Children’s Carbon Safety Fund , it’s pretty hilarious.
http://imgsrv.wrko.com/image/wrko/UserFiles/carbon.jpg
Don’t humans convert oxygen to carbon dioxide just by breathing. Someone should write a Swiftian proposal to solve global warming by killing one infant for every ton of carbon dioxide we emit.
Oh wait, that would be abused just like carbon credits are. People would get paid to abort babies they were planning on murdering anyway.
Just as I guessed. But I seem to remember that every time people have pointed this out in the past, they’ve been attacked for their uncaring attitude towards the environment. Probably won’t change a bit. It’s the spin that matters.
Here in Canada where everyone and everything is pure and clean I am willing to sell my carbon credits in Canadian dollars!!! Each one is now worth .92 cents USD so it’s a real bargain.
I may even throw in a partial indulgence.
Now you can’t beat that Al!