Tuesday, April 29, 2008
How They Nail It Down
we’re so scrod
Good sense and science need not apply.
California is know for being on the cutting edge, so it may come as no surprise that there are people here trying to figure out how they can make money off the air we breathe.
There is a gold rush of sorts only it’s not in the hills, but in the sky.
$6 eggs and $20 Hangtown- Fry here we come!
It is a global concern - scientists increasingly say our planet is heating up largely because of carbon dioxide emissions.
I think that word “increasingly” does not mean what you think it does…
Now, many governments around the world are looking for ways to reduce a source of that warming, and California may be one of the biggest players.
Never saw that coming… CA has this weird mexture of gullibility and jaded cynicism.
Governments have a choice they can do two things - they can regulate things, or they can create a market that will try and find efficiencies in the reduction of a particular pollutant,” said Ricardo Bayon from Ecosystem Marketplace.
Ecosystem Marketplace: where they have an article with this pic on the front page
See what I mean?
Ricardo Bayon is a carbon market industry analyst in Mill Valley.
a what?
"What’s happened is that governments all over the world have found that markets may be a better way of achieving regulatory ends than the standard tax or command and control approach to regulation,” said Bayon.
Here’s how a market works: the government issues permits to industries that pollute; “capping” them at a certain level based on environmental regulations. ...Companies that emit less than their allowance can sell their leftover permits to brokers, who then sell to companies who exceed their pollution “cap."
At a fee.
Investment banks, hedge funds and investors then speculate on the value of those leftover permits and trade them on an open market—much like trading gold or oil.
Or pork bellies, or corn and wheat futures. Great way to lose yer shirt.
"The regulated markets are now huge. In Europe, the regulated markets transact about 40 billion euros, so that’s almost $60 billion,” said Bayon.
And which one of those market players is in the slightest open to the idea that their market is based on computer models which don’t even take into account precipitation, much less solar activity?
In 2006, the state legislature approved the California Global Warming Solutions Act. [Kalifornia Kyoto—tks, Ahnold] It calls for a dramatic [read: crippling] reduction in greenhouse gas emission by 2020.
“It commits California to emissions reductions. Now those emissions reductions are quite drastic, and there is no way the state’s going to do that unless the state finds creative ways of reducing greenhouse gases and the market is one way,” said Bayon.
And by “creative,” he means “bunkum twaddle.”
Mary Nichols chairs the board. She says her agency is looking at all the options including more regulation and even a tax on emissions to meet the 2020 goal.
“Some type of market is the mechanism that almost everybody who’s looked at the carbon situation has said has to be used because carbon is so pervasive in our society that you can’t pass enough regulation to deal with it in every one of its aspects,” said Nichols, herself a carbon-based life form.
Ok, I see why we need ignorant peasants illegals—these folks ain’t bright enough to run a weed-wacker.
"The question is - by trading carbon back and forth really the ability to pollute, are we going to bring down our greenhouse gas emissions fast enough and are the big polluters truly going to make the improvements they need to clean up,” said Sen. Kehoe.
“Fast enough” for what, exactly?
"San Francisco is certainly a breeding ground for innovation and entrepreneurs. There is a lot of activity happening now in Sacramento, so it’s a great proximity,” said [Michelle Passero from EcoSecurities].
It’s hard to reckon all this Doom-ocrat hue and cry about the horrors of the *ghasp* recession—which simply means 6 or more months of lack of growth in the economy—with the kinds of actual economic nosedive we would need to force ourselves to make—on purpose—to reduce carbon emissions.
AKA: the unrealistic ‘hair shirt’ approach
Exit Brain Refresher: The Relation Between Net Carbon Emissions and Income.
Regulators of carbon emissions should take great care not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The results presented in this chapter indicate that net carbon emissions will decline if economies grow and people get richer. The analysis supports the view that higher incomes are associated with a better natural environment. Fascination with emissions controls and the Kyoto Protocol is somewhat hard to understand in this context.
One simple but profound fact remains. Even while U.S. and global total gross emissions are on the rise, there is little or no growth in total or gross carbon emissions per person in either the United States or the world. Moreover, taking sequestrations into account, there is even less of an issue with carbon emissions.
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