Cap and Charade

The idea of a cap-and-trade system for limiting carbon-dioxide emissions in the U.S. has become all the rage. Earlier this year, 10 big American companies formed the Climate Action Partnership to lobby for government action on climate change. And this week the private-equity consortium that is bidding to take over Texas utility TXU announced that, as part of the buyout, it would join the forces lobbying for a cap on carbon emissions.

But this is not, as Lenin once said, a case of capitalists selling the rope to hang themselves with. In most cases, it is good old-fashioned rent-seeking with a climate-change patina.

Start with the name. Most of those pushing this idea want you to think about it as cap-and-trade with emphasis on the trading part. Senator Barbara Boxer touts all the jobs that would be created for people trying to game the system--er, save the planet. And her colleague Jeff Bingaman calls cap-and-trade "market based," because, you know, people would trade stuff. But for that to happen, the government would first have to put a cap on CO2 emissions, either for certain industries or even the economy as a whole. At the same time, it would allocate quotas for CO2 emissions, either based on current emissions, or on energy output, or some other standard. If a company then "over-complied," which means it produced less carbon dioxide than it was allowed to under the rules, it could sell the excess allowance to someone else. That someone else would buy the right to produce CO2 if doing so cost less than actually reducing emissions.

We don't begrudge anyone the opportunity to make a buck. But there's a difference between making money by producing things people want and making money by gaming the regulatory process. There's no market here unless the government creates one, and who has the profit opportunity depends entirely on who the government picks as the winners and the losers in designing this market in the first place.

Good straightforward article exposing the hypocrisy of CAP-and-trade.

CAP = Climate Action Partnership. I propose renaming it the Corporate Ripoff Action Partnership. I leave development of a suitable acronym to the reader.

http://carbonoffsets.blogspot.com/2007/03/al-gores-tale-with-due-credit-to.html
In medieval times, a pardoner was a charlatan who sold people indulgences, or pardons for their sins. You could even buy pardons for the souls of deceased relatives, so as to reduce their time in Purgatory. With due credit to Geoffrey Chaucer for the original:

Now, good men, Earth forgive you each trespass,
And keep you from the sin of greenhouse gas.
My carbon offsets cure and will suffice,
So that it gains me gold, or silver brings,
Or else, I care not- brooches, spoons or rings.
You must embrace fully Al Gore's line of bull,
While o'er your eyes we will pull the wool!
An offset certificate I'll give you, anon,
And into environmental bliss you'll go, each one.
For I'll absolve you, by Kyoto's special power,
You that send me money, as Green this hour
As you were born.
And lo, sirs, thus I preach.
And the United Nations, who is a parasitic leech,
So grant you each his offset to receive;
For that is best; I will not you deceive.
But, sirs, you must swallow my whole tale;
I've carbon credits in my pouch that cannot fail,
As good as Kyoto Treaty ever saw, I vow,
The which I got by kindness of Al Gore.
If dollars your change of heart and mind reveal,
You'll get my absolution while you kneel.
Come forth, and send me your lucre bright,
And quickly I'll set your consciences aright;
Or else receive a carbon credit as you wend,
All new and fresh as every mile shall end,
So that you offer me each time, anew,
More gold and silver, all good coins and true.
It is an honour to each one that's here
That you may have a competent pardoner
To give you carbon offsets to you acquit,
For all greenhouse gases you may emit.

Luckily, this SCAM and FRAUD is being exposed (rapidly) for what it is.

"the hypocrisy of CAP-and-trade"

Ha Ha Ha!!! I been putin my carbon footprint in chem trails all over the friendly skies of United last week!!! Those 757's are a beautiful thing, like most of man's other creations made possible by God!!!

It would be blastphemy to convert to the NEO-PAGAN's GANG-GREEN religion with Algore as it's high priest!!! The proof of this was at the "Oscars!"

Can you imagine "The OPRAH" callin him the new NOAH??? Yes!!! Oprah Winfee called Algore "the new Noah!" Now a Republademocrat Governor of CA is his biggest "Born Again Pagan" desciple with undying swoonery by far too many FReepers!!!

The only reason I saw so many pigs flyin out my windows is because they're all souped up on evil spirits from deceptive demogogICK DemonicratICKs!!!

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