Living Guilt Free!

[kathyp]

I have been hearing about "Carbon Credits".  I didn't know what they were.  I was so pleased with what I found out when I researched the subject. 

I am a free market capitalist.  I believe in free trade.  I hope that we all will be as rich as Bill Gates some day.  I believe that the fewer regulations on individuals and businesses, the better.  The fewer taxes, the better.  The less international interference, the better. 

The global warming experts are telling us that soon we will all starve, drown, dehydrate, or burn up.....depending on where we live.  Children are losing sleep over this, and adults are in a rare panic.  We must cut down our carbon emission or all is lost.  Unless....we are rich.  If we are rich, there is another solution.  We can buy our way to a guilt free life of excess.  We can buy Carbon Credits.  We can even buy them as gifts.

There are those who would like to pass laws that force people to change how they live, and reduce carbon emissions.  Thank God Edwards is right.  There are two Americas.  There is the America that will have to live by new regulation, some of them thrust upon us by the UN.....and there is the America, the one Edwards and Gore live in, that will insist the regulations be imposed and enforced, but whos' inhabitants, with a little smirk behind the hand know they can buy their way out of those very regulations. 

Carbon Credits.  What a brilliant idea!

[Understudy]

I think Carbon Credits is a band aid on a tumor. Regardless of global warming or placing a value on carbon I have a much simpler view of things. Business needs some regulation. Weather it be anti monopoly practices or anti pollution measures buisness needs to be a responsible entity. When a fertilizer plant posions the local water they need to be held responsible and they need to clean it up. Not try to run and hide and say that is the cost of doing buisness.

What should happen is that the government should fund the EPA and give them some teeth. If a major argricultural corporation is spraying pesticiides that are know carcinogens and dropping them over a school because it is easier to maintain a flight pattern that goes over the school they should be held liable. If a steel plant is spitting crap out into the sky that is causing asthma and breathing problems for the residents they should be held liable.

Now on the flip side buisness should be encouraged to run clean factories and plants. The governement should give tax breaks and credits to buisness that have to spend the money to build proper factory and plants. The guidlines should be strict though. If you basically get to build the plant for free you darn well better have a clean rating. The government has a responsiblity to it's citizens that includes making sure they live in a clean area not rampant with pollutants. If a buisness can't do that then they don't get to be in buisness.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Kev]

The hidden detail of carbon credits is that buying one does little to reduce current carbon output. The money you spend goes into investments that will produce future carbon reduction. Future reduction is important, but won't do anything to halt the 2007 growth in carbon output.

kev

[kathyp]

understudy...bet you thought i'd disagree with you 

truth is, i don't.  loooong ago, i used to live close to where you are doing business now.  factories belched coal smoke into the air, and the Ohio river was so polluted it was like jello in places. 

it would be nice if people and businesses did the right thing just because it is the right thing, but that is not the nature of man.

tax credits for those who come up with innovative ways to clean up their act, and credits for those who make improvements in old, expensive to retrofit, businesses are a great way to go.  not only will that give business incentive to clean up, but it gives them incentive to stay state side.  if they face big fines or big renovations, but can go 3rd world and not have those restrictions, it makes good business sense to go elsewhere.

I'd also like to see businesses protected from some of the legal stuff that comes at them because of things done 100 years ago.  if a company acts in good faith and within the bounds of existing knowledge/science, i don't think it's fair for people or their relatives to be able to come back and sue years later for land or health damages.  i think some serious tort reform is called for across the board.

[Kev]

I'd also like to see businesses protected from some of the legal stuff that comes at them because of things done 100 years ago.  if a company acts in good faith and within the bounds of existing knowledge/science,

I agree tort reform is needed, but the point of tort reform should be to discourage frivolous lawsuits, not to give companies a free ride. Protecting companies who "acted in good faith" might encourage companies to hide adverse information. I don't really trust companies to do what is right if it is contrary to their economic interests. The big tobacco companies suspected that smoking was deadly long before science proved it. Their executives still refuse to admit that it is addictive and deadly, and they continue to peddle that stuff to kids in 3rd world countries. I have no sympathy for them.

Kev

[Brian D. Bray]

The definition of Carbon Credits:  A device by which the very rich attempt to swage their conscienous for living such a lavish life style.   In actuallity Carbon Credits don't exist.  It's just a tax gimic to help the rich get richer.