Carbon credits
Brad Karr - Emporia
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
THE APRIL 18 EDITION of the Gazette featured an article about how farmers and ranchers can apply for carbon credits and may be eligible for cash payments for such practices as no-till planting or lighter grazing of pastures. On the surface, this seems like a good thing that can put a little extra cash in our collective pockets for sensible agricultural practices that sequester carbon from the atmosphere. However, when the country is crying poor, how can we afford to pay people for something they may already be doing? Well, the answer appears to be that through the developing cap-and-trade system, large manufacturers and energy suppliers will have to pay extra taxes for the excess carbon dioxide they spew into the atmosphere. Those taxes will then be used to fund carbon credits for people who reduce their emissions of carbon. Good so far, right?
Now, how will the manufacturers and energy companies make up for this tax? By reducing their carbon emissions? Not likely, as long as there is a demand for their goods and services. After all, that is why they exist. No, they will account for the carbon tax by raising their prices, thus increasing the cost to consumers for machinery and energy. So that extra cash provided to the sensible farmers and ranchers will go right back to the manufacturers and energy companies.
While I understand the intention of cap and trade is to reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses, how is this anything other than an artificial money-recycling program created by the government? I guess my question is, other than the government bureaucracies, who will really benefit from this?
Brad Karr
Emporia
madpoet (anonymous) says...
I have always detested the trading of pollution credits. That is a bunch of crap. Everyone should have to come up to the same standard not be able to pollute their area because someone somewhere else doesn't pollute their spot.
Where is common sense? I couldn't believe the Topeka news this week when they said they wanted to run a sewer line under a lake! A lake with a creek exiting it, no less. Because it would cost more to go around. I heard the term "felony stupid" today in regards to another matter. It fits here, too.
April 29, 2009 at 3:47 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
allintogether (anonymous) says...
Well stated Brad! Too bad Obozo has his mind made up and will not listen to opposition like he said he would during his campaign. Carbon credits are obviously bogus. Does cash have a chemical in it that eliminates "greenhouse gasses"? Are we sure this isn't a payoff to Gore and his fear mongering ilk?
Being fair minded I will offer another paradox. Say the program works as intended and energy companies respond by making less energy available. How will the customers (people) react when they have to deal with rolling blackouts, brown outs, etc.? I think this is another administration with no energy policy and no real interest in achieving balance between energy need and environmental protection.
I hear the coal companies saying clean coal technology doesn't tax the environment as much as dirty coal does. Then I hear rabid environmentalists and people like Al Gore (who has a vested interest in carbon credits becoming a form of business currency because well, he is basically the only one that sells them) saying clean coal does not exist. I am currently giving clean coal the benefit of the doubt because the carbon credit crew doesn't have the one, huge, meaningful, chip in the big game. The ability to meet our current and future need for electricity at an affordable price.
April 29, 2009 at 4:31 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
open_eyes (anonymous) says...
We looked into some of these some time back. Basically the government would give us free money. Pay us for leaving a bunch of trees stand that we never had any intention of cutting down anyway. But, in return, Al Gore could run his 20x more energy-guzzling house without any guilt or remorse because he could claim I was offsetting it. (The math just still isn't adding up for me somehow). I think I deserve a piece of his Nobel Peace Prize. Which I still don't understand what it had to do with "Peace" anyway.
April 29, 2009 at 4:43 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
open_eyes (anonymous) says...
BTW, we didn't follow thru on it, so I guess somebody somewhere needs to cut back. Or pay someone else to leave some trees alone that were going to be there 100 years from now anyway.
April 29, 2009 at 5:11 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
dalelinn (Dale Linn) says...
Amen, Brad It appears the U.S. is well onto a slippery slope heading towards socialism. Even worse, the Judeo-Christian way of life, so prevalent the first couple of hundred years has seen a slow but steady move to secularism and the Obama administration is going to cause that move to greatly increase in speed. The tea parties were probably as much about the loss of a way of life as they were about fears of a government financially out of control. The "cap and trade" just transfers more power to the government. Surely, locally, someone can get the smoking banners (pun intended) to jump on this bandwagon.
April 29, 2009 at 7:54 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
alfalfa (anonymous) says...
I couldn't have said it better myself Brad. Your logic is flawless...too bad the DC and Hollywood crowd can't figure it out.
April 29, 2009 at 11:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
open_eyes (anonymous) says...
I hope everyone who has been screaming about lobbyists and "Change" are aware of how many global warming lobbyists we have now in Washington. And the companies and people that are poised to start raking it in. Gore will soon be our first "carbon billionaire", and companies like GE are on the verge of making it big. THAT's the change THEY wanted.
Oil profits, carbon profits - what's the difference? It's still all about the $$$.......
May 1, 2009 at 8:09 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )