Posted on 02/27/2007 6:01:57 AM PST by truthandlogic
February 20, 2007 Become Carbon Neutral Today! Filed under: Idiotarians, Ecofreaks
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Print This Post While perusing an article about Hannity nailing the GoreBot for his rampant hypocrisy when he’s traveling all over the world spewing CO2 like it’s going out of style while demanding that the rest of us quit breathing in order to save the polar bears, I once again came across something that makes me laugh like a deranged hyena every time I run into it.
You see, the GoreBot’s propaganda ministry promptly “rebutted” by claiming that the Inconvenient Moron “maintains carbon neutrality” for his jet-setting by buying “carbon offsets.”
So what are these “carbon offsets”, and why do they cause such enormous mirth in His Majesty’s daily life every time they’re mentioned?
Well, to answer the first question (and the last, really), they’re a scam that would have made Ponzi himself feel like a rank amateur. Not that the Enviroloons came up with the idea, they actually stole it from the Catholics of yore. Back then, they were called “indulgences” and, for a “modest” fee, you could buy instant forgiveness for any and all of your sins. Just confess (it’s good for the soul), let the kindly father ring up your tab, pay the fee and you were as pure as the driven snow again.
Let’s explain how the modern Indulgence Scam works: Let’s say that you own a business. Somewhere, somebody will be happy, for a “modest” fee of course, to calculate your business’s “carbon footprint”, which is a number describing how much you’re despoiling the virgin body of Mother Gaia with your wicked, capitalist ways. Now let’s say that you’re exceeding your “quota” by, say, 20 Kt of CO2/year. That’s bad. You evil, WICKED Zoot!
Not to worry, though. Somewhere else in the world someone else is 20 Kt below his quota, so all you have to do is to pay that guy another “modest” fee to “purchase” his “carbon credits” and hey, you’re once again a True Friend of Mother Gaia! And somewhere in the Turd World some guy is very happy because some rich jerk just paid him a fortune to sit on his arse and NOT produce anything at all. No, this doesn’t make the CO2 you’ve been spewing disappear, so other than making some poor sod very happy about the windfall that just landed in his lap, everything is exactly the way it was before, but don’t you feel better already? You will, once you get over the sudden feeling of being a World Class Shmuck and, what’s more, you get to impress throngs of addle-brained liberals with your sudden “carbon neutrality.”
Sweet deal and, as with any other scam, His Majesty wants his part of it.
So here’s the deal: I herewith form a business that will produce gizmos, doodads and thingummajigs. Producing each of those will create approximately 8 tonnes of CO2, and I plan to sell them for $50 a piece. Here’s where you come in, oh Conscientious Worshippers of Gaia™. For every $60 you drop in my PayPal account, I promise to NOT produce one gizmo, doodad or thingummajig, which will allow you to spit out the 8 tonnes of CO2 that I would otherwise have “polluted” the atmosphere with, all without increasing your “carbon footprint” one iota!
And don’t worry about the legitimacy of this scheme. I’ll produce, at my own expense, a certificate with the signatures of two witnesses stating under oath that I did NOT produce the gizmo, doodad or thingummajig that you just paid me not to produce, thus handing over the 8 tonnes of CO2 credits to you.
Hey, it’s an offer so good that you cannot possibly refuse it, right?
Hurry up, supplies of products that I won’t be producing are strictly limited and will be sold on a first-doofus-to-fall-for-it, first served basis.
***UPDATE:*** While I’m busy sitting around producing nothing and expecting to get paid for it (and thanks for all the ideas and kind offers to help getting this brilliant scam Sustainable Gaia-Friendly Business Venture™ started, I’ll be getting back to you), I just discovered yet another way to earn carbon credits that you can sell to gullible patchoulistas out there: Plant trees! It’s like this: By planting a tree, you’re “sequestering carbon” which, obviously, creates even MORE juicy “carbon credits” that you can sell off at premium prices.
Yes, yes, I know, it sounds too much like actual work to be worth doing, right? That’s what I thought too, until I read on and found out that, once I’m done planting about a 1,000 trees or so (let’s start small so as not to be greedy here, not to mention that I don’t much care for getting my soft hands dirty), I’ll form ANOTHER company, Imperial Bonfires Inc., which will be chopping down trees and burning them off so the neighborhood kids can come grill sausages and make s’mores (for a fee, of course). Now, the beauty of it is, obviously, that chopping down trees and setting them on fire creates a LOT of CO2 so, in order to prove my Gaia-Saving Creds and earn even more “carbon creds” that I can sell off, I’ll offer to NOT chop down a tree if the Birkenstock-wearing Buttinskis of Berkeley pay me a whole lot of money which, again, will provide them with “carbon credits” to “offset their carbon footprints”, whatever the Hell that means. Beautiful, isn’t it? The silly buggers will be paying me TWICE, and I’ll get a whole lot of trees for the grandchildren to build tree houses in.
Hmmm… Speaking of “sequestering carbon”, that gives me another idea. I’ll exhale into Ziploc Bags™ and promise to keep the CO2 in there sequestered. For a price.
The possibilities with this Indulgence Scam are endless, I tell you!
Posted by Emperor Misha I @ 11:09 pm | | 433 Views
This is a sad reminder of how completely self-serving Liberalism is...
According to the UN study, cow farts contribute more to CO2 emissions than industrialization. For my carbon credit I'm going to buy some Beano and feed it to local cows.
Will Algore pay me to stay on Free Republic all day instead of driving my car over 40 miles a day to and from work?
Somebody is making big money out of all this nonsense.
we need to regulate breathing
What emerged from the Kyoto meeting is that as each country produces CO2, it must be able to contain that CO2 by tree-planting or other processes that can absorb it, such as sequestration and changing farming methods. Or it can reduce the CO2 it produces in the first place. If that country produces more CO2 than it can absorb, it must purchase an ‘absorption ability’ from another nation. The Carbon Credit is this new currency and one Carbon Credit is equal to one Tonne of CO2 and is called a CO2e (CO2 equivalent). A nation might have a shortfall in absorbing 500,000T of CO2 and according to the Kyoto agreement it must seek to purchase those from another nation that has been planting trees for such a consideration. Costs are between US (ironically) $10 – 40 per credit.
So, Algore, show us the receipts!
Yes. I'll take care the paperwork for you, just mail your check to ...
But, I have a couple of questions. How do we know that the GoreBot actually purchased the carbon offsets? Is he issued a certificate by the person who supposedly owned them? And, how many of these offsets can a person sell?
I think I may have answered my own questions. All we have to do is set up a Federal agency to transfer our tax receipts to, let's say, the "Last King of Scotland" and he'll make sure all of his constituents receive their fair share.
Yes, you can stay home, but you have to surf at the DUmp.
...BTW: isn't the accelerated planting of trees, beyond their natural growth patterns, environmentally harmful? I mean it does tamper with the natural order...
You can all laugh, but Goldman Sachs is laughing to the bank to the tune of billions per year in commissions on carbon fees. This is BIG business. One of the biggest around.
It's actually worse than most people realize. That poor sod is going to have to do something with that money (or it's not worth taking). What's he going to do? Buy goods or services. Since his country isn't producing he'll have to buy it from an evil capitalistic society which will pollute more to produce it and then have to ship it to him which puts even more CO2 into the air. This scheme is likely to produce more pollution , not less.
Great comment.
bump
I’ve been buying dihydrogen monoxide offsets.
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