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Carbon Trading Halted After EU Exchange Is Hacked
chicksdaddy writes "The European Commission (EC) suspended trading in carbon credits on Wednesday after unknown hackers compromised the accounts of Czech traders and siphoned off around $38 million, Threatpost reports. EU countries including Estonia, Austria, The Czech Republic, Poland and France began closing their carbon trading registries yesterday after learning that carbon allowances had been siphoned from the account of the Czech based register. A notice posted on the Web site of the Czech based registry said that it was 'not accessible for technical reasons' on Thursday and the EC issued an order to cease spot trading until January 26 so that it can sort out what appears to be chronic security lapses within the system."
I always assumed this whole silly emissions trading business was just one big scam already.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
This scam is just the tip of the (melting) iceberg. Huge amounts of money have been scammed for hot air. If only we could make James Hansen personally liable...
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Yet more proof that pollution has a VALUE and is worth MONEY.
Hope they hang the crooks inside a smokestack.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
How much Carbon Credits do I get for the consumption of Jolt and Baconnaise sammichs? Is it prorated if I code in Perl?
I don't take Czechs.
What are carbon credits?
Details here.
Yes, it is. The news here is that someone scammed the scammers. That's the 21st century Robin Hood for you (and definitely better than that movie).
You should read more about the subject, and then you'd realise it isn't.
How does one liquidate siphoned carbon credits? Do they hold a black market value?
Laugh while you can, monkey-boy.
A sense of schadenfreude without the usual guilt is giving a bounce to my steps. Cap-and-traders got their noses bloodied, tra-la-la-la-la!
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
"Carbon pollution" is about as valid a phrase as "pigeon antennae."
The thing that costs the economy is people fabricating global catastrophes that aren't there, and legislating "solutions" to false problems in order to steal.
With the profit motive aspect behind this whole 3rd party carbon credit investi-scam in the first place. I wouldn't call these guys hackers. They just beat the other big scam artists... err.. carbon traders to the profit punch, so to speak. This scam got scammed.
At 38+ million? I hope none of that was Russian mafia money.
They're guilt removers. People can buy carbon credits to offset their overuse of natural resources and pollution of the air (like Al Gore). This makes them a better person overall, and allows them to continue to tell other people they should all be riding bicycles while they fly around in private jets (like Al Gore).
Or something like that.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
how do they deliver $38 million worth of coal ash to the hackers? i hope the hackers live near a rail line so they can take delivery of what they siphoned off
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. They stole the 'carbon credits', not electronic cash.
2. You can't legally sell them anywhere except via the exchange.
3. The exchange tracks all legal sales.
4. Therefore, can't the government require the exchange to show all legal sales and invalidate the unapproved sales?
Isn't that the entire value of using the exchange? To track the sales of said credits?
Assuming that they have already used the exchange to sell the the fraudlenty exchanged credits, is it not a relatively easy matter to find the account that sold the stolen carbon credits and force them to buy them back?
This assumes of course that it was actually carbon credits that were stolen instead of cash stolen from un-authorized trades (in which case, the article needs to be re-written, removing the sensational crap)
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Yes it is a scam. The very idea of "paying for the right to pollute" is simply bad and wrong. What they should be paying for is the cost of cleaning up and compensating everyone who has been damaged by their pollution. (Yes, I am aware of standard arguments such as "resulting in higher unemployment" and "passing the cost onto you, the customer" and all that crap. That's why markets where supply and demand do not apply require regulation. Such markets include utilities, medical/healthcare and any other needed service industry that has limitless demand.)
Some bastard stole my "slashdot first post" credit. :-(
Apparently you and I have completely different mechanisms for drawing conclusions.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
If there's money to be made, assume there will be people who don't want to actually do the work to get the money... and that they'll circumvent rules, regulations, laws, treaties, barriers (physical and digital) to get to that money. Moreover, it's safe to assume that if there's a consistent, reliable flow of money, that these dishonest or disingenuous people will plant themselves or others in the system to make the siphoning easier.
Or in order to promote investment in the green energy companies they're invested in.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
"siphoned off around $38 million..."
Isn't this the whole point? To just siphon off money for nothing?
So I own a coal power plant. I trade some cash for CREDITS from some cleaner nation instead of cleaning up my plant.
What are these nations giving in exchange for the cash? A promise to not cut down a tree? A promise to NOT build a factory in their nation? How does one produce and sell credits on this market? My business doesn't produce any pollution so we should have tons of credits to sell.
I have to return some videotapes...
You should read more about the subject, and then you'd realise it isn't.
You mean paying another group to reduce pollution so you can pollute isn't a scam? It's a shell game whose goal isn't to improve things just to maintain the status quo. It's a pointless exercise. Offer companies tax credits to reduce emissions and fine them for exceeding but letting them pay to pollute is a joke.
You should read more about the subject, and then you'd realise it isn't.
What, pray tell, should we be reading?
In theory, carbon trading is a good idea. But the way it is actually implemented in Europe, and the way it is likely to be implement in the USA, are scams. The credits should be auctioned, not handed out to politically connected corporations. The credits should be scarce enough so they actually mean something.
But it would be much simpler and effective to just have a carbon tax, paid at the point of extraction or import.
So...any bets on how long before they start trying to blame 'deniers' for this cock-up?
"They hate us, it's all a big conspiracy, so it must have been them!!"
I'm just glad to see the whole wasteful process slowed to a crawl, even for a little while...
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
While carbon credits may sound like a good idea in theory, I had assumed from the start that they were doomed to fail in practice. How do you verify that a company that sells credits has really reduced their own carbon footprint by the requisite amount? It just seems too easy to game the system.
I hadn't considered the possibility of cyber-criminals simply stealing the credits outright; that makes matters even worse!
Shouldn't these credits be individually traceable, so that the stolen ones can simply be voided and re-issued? If not, then someone really f**ked up the implementation of this system.
How dare you cast aspersions on carbon trading! It's going to save the planet!
And if Al Gore makes a few hundred million dollars off it, who cares! He earned it!
The entire cap and trade scheme is wrong. Companies should not be permitted to purchase "credits" from companies that are in compliance.
Those companies that are in compliance are following the law, not doing anything special.
Those companies who continue to exceed carbon emission standards should be fined progressively to the point that they achieve zero profit until they rectify the problem.
You either follow the law or you don't.
Cap and Trade is a farce. Perhaps I can purchase some "Non-meth dealer credits" and then sell meth without consequence.
Apparently you and I have completely different mechanisms for drawing conclusions.
Let me guess, one of you starts from basic propositions and works logically towards conclusions, the other one draws conclusions from his gut reaction and reasons backwards to find propositions that support the foregone conclusion. Yeah. That's it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Assumption
You are German
It does not matters CO2 is emitted in Spain or Germany – just that it is emitted.
You want to reduce CO2
Do you
Tear down you coal plants? [there paid for]
Tear down your nuclear plants? [also paid for]
Build new gas plants?
Build new wind turbines?
Install residential solar cells? [heavily subsidized in a cloudy nation]
Buy a Toyota Prius?
Install more insulation in homes?
The rational answer is to invest heavily in solar cells. Sure, they will never pay back their investment [either in dollars or carbon]. But they have great credentials and really sweet state subsidies.
Conversely, with a real carbon market, one could come to a rational decision – greatest impact for the least effort. Of course giving free carbon credits to heavy emitters who have a lot of political influence does distort the market – so people come to the wrong conclusion. Sigh.
We can either focus on making the big bad rich people pay or we can focus on solving the problem. I chose the later.
It is an idea thought up by those paragons of business ethics at Enron. Ok, maybe they didn't think up the idea, but they were early promoters of the idea. Enron quickly saw the promise in such a scheme. It fit right in with their business model.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
You should read more about the subject, and then you'd realise it isn't.
Indeed. It's more about economic self-mutilation. There are three warning signs: 1) Advocates for carbon trading are upset because carbon emission behavior not changed (market's goal is to ensure carbon emission costs are accounted for by carbon emitters, not to change behavior); 2) Carbon markets are poorly designed in Europe due to hard caps and the flaws have been known since early on (hard caps mean there is a sudden change from a very elastic supply of carbon credits to a very inelastic supply, instead as the supply of carbon credits increases, the marginal cost of additional credits should increase, resulting in a market with a smoothly more inelastic supply as demand increases); and 3) no economic justification for carbon markets (by this, I mean a proper cost/benefits analysis of whether carbon markets or for that matter, any carbon emission reduction strategy which shows greater harm from not implementing the strategy and which takes into account the time value of money).
Congratulations! You've won $38MM in carbon credits!
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Yes it is a scam. The very idea of "paying for the right to pollute" is simply bad and wrong.
what do think an EPA permit is? It is actually a permit to emit pollution to the current standards. It is not a permit that stops you from polluting.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
We've reinvented papal indulgences. Where's Martin Luther?
Because it was a government program, because it seems like a political cop out rather than dealing with the problem, because it focused on making money change hands between buisiness people rather than directly reducing carbon emissions, and / or because you're one of those people who trust oil and gas lobbyists rather than scientists?
I mean, I always assume that if I have doubts on something, I should explain myself. I guess the mods today like baseless skepticism though, so I'll pander to that:
For every story on slashdot, my response is "Yeah right, this is fucking BULLSHIT!"
Excellent! Tacos al carbon for everybody!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Why do people always have to bring up Al Gore? He may or may not be a hypocrite. Either way, it matters very little compared to climate change.
If your doctor tells you that you have lung cancer and need surgery, only an idiot would focus on the fact that your doctor smokes and is a hypocrite, and use that as an excuse to keep smoking and not get the scary and painful surgery.
Companies should not be permitted to purchase "credits" from companies that are in compliance.
"Compliance" is whether or not you are producing more carbon dioxide than allowed by the number of credits you hold. If a company pollutes more, but purchases the appropriate amount of credits, then they are in compliance, are following the law, etc. Sounds to me like you don't understand the point of cap and trade. They are an economically sound way to reduce overall pollution amounts, in other words, they address directly what pollution regulation tries to do indirectly. That is, cap net pollution from the entire system rather than capping individually pollution from each source.
Entirely different; that's a carbon offset.
Carbon credits are part of cap-and-trade, in which CO2-producing industrial concerns have their CO2 production limited by law. Entities that are below their limit can essentially sell the difference between their limit and their actual CO2 emissions to other entities (who presumably would otherwise be above their limit).
If CO2 emissions were simply capped by law, industrial concerns would all have to make CO2 emissions reductions regardless of the cost-effectiveness of doing so. Adding the "and trade" component means that it becomes economically advantageous to make reductions wherever it is the most cost-effective. Since CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't care where it comes from, this means that CO2 emissions are reduced more for lower cost than with a cap-only system.
I'm surprised people/companies were actually seriously putting any type of serious money into this crap.
Are there some countries that are actually mandating carbon credits, etc? I mean, if not by law, why would anyone take part in this scam, unless they were on the money making side?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Actually, this is for companies, not for individuals. It doesn't have anything to do with the extra "offset your CO2 footprint" fee that you can choose to pay when flying.
Instead, the idea is as follows: there is a certain maximum of CO2 that the industry - the *entire* industry - is allowed to produce. Each company is allocated a certain share; those that do not meet their allowance can sell off the remaining credit, and those that exceed their allowance will have to buy credit on the market. In other words, the idea is that companies who produce less CO2 will make extra money, while those that produce more will have to pay for it.
It does have its problems in practice, but it's an intriguing idea nonetheless: applying market principles to ecological concerns and letting the free market sort things out rather than creating a complicated bureaucracy with a system of fines and cashbacks.
None of this has anything to do with people using bicycles, or flying. But hey, I figure it's as good an opportunity to bash Al Gore as any.
The European Commission (EC) suspended trading in carbon credits on Wednesday after unknown hackers compromised the accounts of Czech traders and siphoned off around $38 million
According to Wall street journal (original poster yuna49) the latest theft was $7 million and the $38 million (0.02% of the market) is the total of the permits missing in action.
I'm sure you also think autism is caused by vaccines.
Fact: man-made carbon pollution is exacerbating the global weather cycles to an alarming degree.
Just ask anyone in Australia.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I've been selling my extra credits to all the animal life on the planet!
LOL SUCKAS!
Twisting grammar to fit the scheme doesn't make it any more sound.
There is a standard to be met. You meet it or pay the consequences. Anything else is lawyerly gibberish.
They're essentially the same thing, though one is for Sheryl Crow while the other is for DuPont.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Funny thing is, you can actually resell "carbon credits" for profit. And when "carbon credits" came too expensive, factories started moving to China, Africa and other places where they surely take good care of nature. All we got from that is more unemployment and higher prices for EVERYTHING (=energy). I currently pay 1.6 euros/litre when i buy normal gasoline to my car. My electric bill is 15% more this year. Heat coming to my house, is 10-15% more this year.
We did just that with SOx emissions and it worked. Mind you they also reduced the total allowable each year. Also the only people who could sell credits were those who were reducing their own emissions compared to past years.
Yet more proof that pollution has a VALUE and is worth MONEY.
Maybe we should switch our currency to the carbon standard, then.
Actually the solar panels do pay back their investment just fine. Takes about 8-10 years. Stop with the FUD already.
If you lower the total each year it could actually even work.
The problem with your analogy is that the other doctors, who disagree with the diagnosis, are paid spokesmen of the tobacco industry.
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The difference is that SOx is an actual poison and CO2 is the natural product of all animal life on the planet and is needed by the plant life. (With the exception of those few sulfur eaters down at the bottom of the ocean near the hydrothermal vents.) Other than that small difference, there is no difference at all between SOx and COx emissions.
I wonder if the guys who stole the credits are thinking they can sell them on the black market to europeans who want to have a backyard cookout? Or did they steal them to cover for the CO2 emissions from their weekend pot smoking binge?
Headline: "Millions Stolen From Ecomasturbators"
You should read more about the subject, and then you'd realise it isn't.
Please go to this site and let me know how your spouse feels about it.
I agree, does that mean that you concede that you haven't the foggiest what you're talking about? The way it works is that the total amount of emissions produced is the important thing. Whether Company A and Company B each cut half of that isn't any different than if Company A cuts 90% and Company B cuts the remainder. In both cases the target was met.
Now, there are issues with the way it's being handled at present, but if you're saying that there's something fundamentally wrong in letting companies buy indulgences in exchange for somebody else making the cuts, you're full of it.
Under that scheme they would be meeting it or paying the consequences. Additionally companies that more than meet the target get a little something for the pocket, fueling investigation into how to more efficiently hit the targets.
I agree. We can be most "green" when Western Civilization gets rid of our industry and focus on pure R&D and sell IP. Oh wait... Oh well, I'm sure China is better at cleaning up their industry than we are. Har har har!!!
It really does not matter who you give these credits, it will work as long as there is not an oversupply of them... Let’s say my dog is given some carbon credits, and company 'A' that's polluting would be willing to pay my dog for those 10 credits as long as it is cheaper than the cost of reducing pollution... Now let’s say the cost of reducing pollution is 11$ for that company and they paid my dog 10$ to buy those credits to continue polluting... Now let’s say company B came along and their cost of reducing pollution is 13$, this company would be more than happy to pay 12$ to company A to buy those credits. Company A would now be happy to use $11 to actually implement technology to reduce emission and make a profit of 1$ through trading... Yes giving credit to the wrong people in the first place means some unworthy ppl make some money but the system as a whole will still function as long as there is not an oversupply of these credits...
Except for one major difference. Carbon credits are for something that we can actually measure. We have the capability of determining how much carbon one particular activity expels and how much another locks up.
Now whether or not carbon credits are an accurate reflection of how much carbon is locked up vs expelled, however, is a whole other issue.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
"Good morning, Mrs. ShanghiaBill, congratulations on your new baby. What's his name? By the way, we caclulate that he will produce X tons of CO2 during his lifetime, so since you are the 'point of extraction' for him, we are taxing you $45,000 to cover his CO2 emissions. And another $340,543 to cover his uric acid production that is going to pollute the local water system. Net 30, 5% penalty for late payments. Thanks so much."
Enron didn't CREATE this market not did they invent the business model.
/. always seems to miss. Your previous post is a good example of that.
The GOVERNMENT created the business model. Enron just happened to be ONE of the companies that participated in that business model. You can hate Enron for all the illegal stuff they did (that's fair) but you hating them because they "thought up the business" or because it's their "business model" is just....well....naive.
I get tired of these "tail wagging the dog" statements like you just made. No private company, even Enron, can force a business model. Business models are created, in part, because of the very regulations the government prescribes. Regulation is tough to get right but one thing you can be sure of: all businesses, Enron or otherwise, will react to new regulations and will do anything they can within the law to profit from the same regulations.
You see, the regs cut both ways. That's the part the
Citation badly needed.
1) The point of it is to change behavior, had the market not been flooded with credits there would have been behavior change, just on a net basis not for every company.
3) You're full of it if you're suggesting that there isn't any economic justification for it. The justification for it is that the companies that can hit lower targets the most efficiently get a little something for their trouble, encouraging research and for companies to hit more stringent targets. The alternative is setting tough limits on everybody whether or not it's realistic.
You mean paying another group to reduce pollution so you can pollute isn't a scam? It's a shell game whose goal isn't to improve things just to maintain the status quo. It's a pointless exercise. Offer companies tax credits to reduce emissions and fine them for exceeding but letting them pay to pollute is a joke.
I have a headache and I'm quite tired, so feel free to correct me if any of my understanding of the subject is wrong here.
.
.
As I understand it, the basic concept is thus (shown via a hypothetical example):
1) The nation of Countrystan decides that there will be no more than 1,000 tons of carbon exhausted per year, by law, from certain industries.
2) Each business within the industry is allocated a certain number of "carbon credits" that effectively cap how much bad stuff they can spew into the air.
3) Since the total number of credits is a fixed number, any business that doesn't want to be hit with major fines will try to stay under their credits.
4) Businesses that are way below their credits can sell other businesses their credits. Businesses that may exceed their cap can purchase credits from other businesses, but the total number of credits (and thus the total amount of pollution) out there doesn't increase in any way.
5) Due to 4, there are economic incentives to reduce carbon output. Heavy polluters would likely need to buy extra credits, thereby incurring a cost that would offset any financial benefits of lackadaisical pollution control. Light (or non) polluters would (rather than a cost) receive a gain in revenue by selling their allotted credits to businesses that can't keep pace. Therefore, businesses stand to lose money if they pollute and gain money if they cut back on pollution, thereby providing the best kind of incentive (economic) for businesses to get their pollution under control.
6) Eventually, more businesses would have a surplus of credits that no one needs to buy. At this point, I imagine the total number of credits in circulation could be reduced.
.
.
So, this is how I roughly understand the whole carbon credits thing is supposed to work. Am I right here? And does the real-world application work like this model, or is it rife with corruption, bureaucracy, and an inability to accomplish its stated goals like every other government project? Have their been any studies on the effectiveness of such a system?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
The thing is, if the credit is spent on cleanup, and removes as much as it permits one to emit, that's actually just fine, and will provide exactly the right framework to let the free markets I'm sure you love find the most efficient solutions to carbon emissions.
I am trolling
The only way in which they are related is that both deal with carbon dioxide emissions.
*sigh*
That's not true (at least of all of them). That phrase is used by people who don't do any research into the matter.
And show me tests that actually prove smoking causes cancer. Show me where lab animals became cancerous by nicotine, tar, or even filaments from filters.
Some doctors actually believe without actual proof that it's only conjecture.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Believe me, I have plenty that I can criticize Al Gore for, but the notion that people in positions of great power are hypocrites if they don't ride the bus to work is ridiculous. The CEO of a company's time is probably literally worth $1Million/hour. Do we want him spending half is day rubbing shoulders with the public because of the negligible carbon footprint difference from his plane ride?
I thought the criticism of all the auto industry CEOs for not DRIVING to their Congressional hearing was equally without merit.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
let me guess, you have never been to any sort of economics class ever.
I haven't done a lick of descent research into them, but they always sounded like a silly, ineffective idea. What a surprise to find out that there's a Wall Street trading angle on the whole thing...
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The point of it is to change behavior,
No need for citation here when you grant the point.
3) You're full of it if you're suggesting that there isn't any economic justification for it. The justification for it is that the companies that can hit lower targets the most efficiently get a little something for their trouble, encouraging research and for companies to hit more stringent targets. The alternative is setting tough limits on everybody whether or not it's realistic.
Again, I note that no economic justification has been given for carbon dioxide emission reduction. Another alternative is no restrictions on carbon dioxide emission limits.
Twisting grammar to fit the scheme doesn't make it any more sound.
No grammar or semantics were twisted in the making of my post. You were claiming things that weren't true. I merely corrected your mistakes.
Urea is a key component in clean diesel engines. If we're going to this level, I'm pretty sure that the output of urea is going to cover his CO2 production.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I'm sure you love
WTF is that supposed to mean Captain Assumption?
You realize, of course, that injecting your own supposition discredits anything (potentially of value) you might have said, right?
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Yes, because CO2 in the atmosphere has absolutely not drawback whatsoever, regardless of its concentration. Newsflash: everything and nothing is poisonous, once you disregard quantities and way of administration. That's what matters. Any regulation of any activity or product takes into account quantity and distribution.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Not really.
They both allow for those who overuse to take measures to make up for it. That means they both really allow people to ignore the fact that they're being destructive.
The differences are:
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
If your doctor tells you that you have lung cancer and need surgery, only an idiot would focus on the fact that your doctor smokes and is a hypocrite, and use that as an excuse to keep smoking and not get the scary and painful surgery.
Wrong analogy. The analogy is that the doctor tells you not to smoke (in a condescending and moralizing way) so you don't get lung cancer, and then goes outside and smokes.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Or something.
I'll stop now.
I used to have a Czech room-mate, and I loved to play chess with him.
There are more economical ways to travel than by private jet that still offer privacy.
Ignoring that, how about his multiple large houses and their enormous electricity bills?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/05/03/stunning-pictures-al-gores-new-9-million-mansion-media-totally-ignore
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/gorehome.asp
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/17/photos-al-goree-new-8875_n_579286.html#s91230&title=undefined
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/05/exclusive-estimate-carbon-footprint-of.html
Do we want him spending half is day rubbing shoulders with the public because of the negligible carbon footprint difference from his plane ride?
I don't know about you, but people who say "do as I say, not as I do" can get bent IMHO.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
There have been decades of research into the links between smoking and cancer.
Some have even studied the links between second-hand smoke and cancer.
I invite you to go look it up.
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The theory of carbon trading is good, align real cost with real pollution, or make it cost more real dollars to use an often cheaper method of operation that pollutes the environment. The problem lies in the huge overhead of people, buildings, computers etc. to actually set up the market and complete the trades. This is a huge cost to the country in taxes usually and lost productivity making them less competitive on the global market. The market itself adds a lot of pollution to the environment. Similar to selling my car and walking everywhere, I'd love to, but for most of us the gains do not outweigh the cost. There are better options to arrive at the same ending.
But that's like focusing on fire suppression over fire avoidance. What you ultimately want is a system that optimizes the cost/benefit analysis (where cost and benefit can go far beyond calculating how much material was destroyed in a fire, and how much it cost to put out). There's a reason there are fire codes for buildings in fire areas: if you can prevent a house from catching on fire rather than putting it out, it is very likely that the overall cost to society is lower.
The same idea is behind carbon trading schemes. If you associate a cost with producing CO2, you can focus people on reducing production rather than cleaning up the mess. Bonus: you get market forces involved rather than strictly legislative forces. The trick is of course how to set up the market, because we are not used to associating value with the lack of a substance.
By the way, paying for the cost of cleaning up and compensating for damage caused by pollution IS "paying for the right to pollute". Every company does this kind of analysis before engaging in a potentially polluting activity. Why do you think BP did what it did in the Golf? Because it figured that the potential clean-up cost was less than the potential benefit. And now, it is paying for the right to pollute the golf.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
That movie was hilarious. Oh, wait, you weren't talking about "Men in Tights"? Never mind.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
What is it with all the global warming deniers? Did a diploma mill suddenly open up a climatology program where any asshole can earn a degree based on "life experience?"
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
It's also worth pointing out that, in a cap-and-trade system, environmental organizations can buy up carbon credits from the market to encourage industry to reduce emissions more quickly.
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Consider that people buy and sell goods and services in WoW for actual money.
Also, these kinds of markets is the "cure-all" of classical economist orthodoxy.
And as long as there is a chance to make a profit on it, someone will put money into it.
In the end, it is no different from the recent CDOs and such. It is all numbers being traded via computers...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Why do people always have to bring up Al Gore [with regards to anything environment-related]?
To appeal to simple people with simple minds. Condensing a complex, difficult-to-understand problem or concept down to one person allows anyone to frame the discussion any way they want, as the simple-minded now only have to focus on one person, not on the entire scope of the issue that can't possibly fit in their tiny, tiny brains. Adding in irrational fear and hatred helps, too.
As an example, for someone with an exceptionally limited amount of brain bandwidth, the following are what he or she hears on this topic:
"The release of harmful carbon emissions into the atomsphere is causing avoidable long-term damage to the environment. There's no one person responsible for it; it's a global problem with all fdiojfosi0jsdldx 0x554 mov 0x3834 0x9234BUFFER OVERFLOW BRAIN STOP UNTIL AMERICAN IDOL"
"AL GORE IS ENVIRONMENT HE WANT YOU TO CHANGE ENTIRE LIFE TO HIS CRAZY WHIM HE HATE AMERICA HIS FAULT HIS FAULT HIS FAULT HIS FAULT GO WATCH AMERICAN IDOL NOW"
As you can see, the second one is simpler to fit in the brain, as it appeals solely to primitive concepts of single-personal responsibility and authority, as well as the endorphin release of hatred and fear.
Note this doesn't only apply to environmental issues. The names "Steve Jobs", "Julian Assange", "Linus Torvalds", "Bill Gates", etc, etc all carry the same connotations to their same audiences, and for the same reasons. You see how many people still blame Bill Gates for everything that goes wrong with Windows, even though he's been out of the company for many years, right?
when you trade in currencies not backed by real things.
Same goes for many currencies in use... No more gold for you!
Perhaps it is time people get a grip and realize that trading is just frantically swapping floats (and/or integers) around a network.
No. In cap-and-trade a company can *make money* by not spewing CO2, and selling leftover credits. Carbon offsets are a method of trying to put a price on a negative externality. Cap and trade takes it a step farther by assuming that the negative is unavoidable, every business will create some CO2, but creating a system that rewards companies that minimize the externality, and punishing companies that don't.
Ssh!! Don't tell them that! According to the public, acid rain stopped being a problem not because of sulfur emission trading scheme, but because of God and miracles of good "free markets". Don't tell them that it was regulation and cap-and-trade that did it.
To anyone that is counting, sulfur emission cuts resulted in higher costs that are passed down to consumer. These costs allowed us to retain our forests and ecosystem, more or less...
Same thing for CO2. Don't like those tornadoes in New Year's Eve? Don't want more of them for your great-grandchildren? Don't want to pay $20/gallon? CO2 cap (cap-and-trade or carbon tax or whatever) is the only way it will work.
Now make the same argument about gasoline:
Companies should not be permitted to purchase gasoline from other companies that have it. Those companies that use less than their government alloted ration are in compliance. Those companies who use more gasoline are fined. You either follow the law or you don't. Commerce is a farce. If we allow commerce to happen, next people will be using it to buy and sell illicit drugs.
Except for one major difference. Carbon credits are for something that we can actually measure.
Oh, I beg to differ. The income from indulgences was quite measurable indeed...
I already have, have you?
There isn't a single piece of hard evidence that the two are linked. Again, very qualified opinions by doctors who have studied the issue lead to the belief, and it's probably true.
However, second hand smoke is a different story altogether.
This article from Medical News Today says it's a widely accepted notion and goes on to say more research is needed.
This article from Cancer.org says there is strong evidence that the two are linked, and that more research is needed.
In 2006 the UK Scientific Community on Tobacco and Health issued a report describing "a tentative link between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and lung cancer."
Of course there are no real scientific studies to show why people who have never been exposed sometimes die of lung cancer, but George Burns lived to 100 and died from fluid buildup in his skull from a fall in the bathtub.
So to sum up, invitation preemptively accepted, although it appears I'm the only one in this conversation who actually has done any research.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Thanks for posting that.
It’s not FUD
Solar Panels installed in areas with cloudy short days = fail
Solar Panels installed in areas with long days of sunshine = successes.
Or [for a analogy]
Ethanol produced from American corn = fail
Ethanol produced from Brazilian Cane = successes.
It’s not that solar panels fail. Done right the payback can be as little as 2 to 4 years. Iit’s that Germany got it’s price incentives wrong in this case.
yes
Right. And in order to comply with the standards, companies will have to spend money on infrastructure (generally a good thing).
And how does the company "make money" by not spewing CO2? By selling the leftover credits to companies who went over the limit.
and punishing companies that don't.
Which is really passing the costs along to customers.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
Congratulations! You've won $38MM in carbon credits!
Sorry, guess he didn't after all. The Czech bounced.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Basically correct except for the arbitrary economy generated by a mindless government. Companies are forced to by and sell what are essentially worthless indulgences. And don't forget that some politically favored company must run the exchange and trading firms must take a share of the profits and many agencies will be needed to regulate this fantastic monstrosity. And that all of these costs are paid by us, the people who the fair government is protecting from themselves.
No thanks, its cold and I don't live in a flood plain or on a beach so I am off to burn something.
What I want to know is, can I open a new company, produce nothing, and sell the carbon credits I get for not burning any carbon doing it? (Apart from continued respiration of course, as that is very important to me personally.)
...or would I have to establish a pattern of polluting first and then stop it?
If all else fails, I have some trees I could not cut down. There's got to be some easy money in here somewhere.
I mean, if not by law, why would anyone take part in this scam, unless they were on the money making side?
Guilt? Good public relations? There are plenty of reasons. Penn and Teller did a decent episode on it - they exposed some of the "carbon credit" companies for the scams that they are, and they also sent out a woman to randomly approach people doing their shopping, "assess" their purchases for carbon emissions (by randomly throwing out numbers) and then ask them to pay for the environmental damage. Most people seemed glad to fork over the cash.
And this is how I know that the folks who came up with this scheme failed high school economics. The mere fact that you can make money selling credits does not inherently provide any incentive to reduce pollution. It only provides incentive to do so if the amount you make by selling those credits exceeds the amount it would cost you to update your equipment to produce less emissions.
Here's the catch: if it would cost you less to update your equipment to produce less emissions, it would also probably cost your buyer less to upgrade their equipment than it would cost to buy the credit, so they will not buy the credit. As soon as you understand that fundamental flaw in this scheme, the whole thing falls apart. The inherent value of the carbon credit must, then, be cheaper than the cost of the upgrades in order for anyone to buy them. So with the exception of a few edge cases (where upgrading is unusually cheap or expensive), these don't provide any incentive at all, and most of those would either already have converted to cleaner energy or would be specifically exempted from pure caps anyway, making those edge cases largely uninteresting.
Thus, the only possible long-term effect of cap and trade is that companies who would have upgraded anyway will do so, but will now be able to sell their credits, allowing other companies to produce more pollution than they would have been able to produce under a strict system of caps.
Worse, this is the case in the short term as well. If initially there are companies that produce substantially less than the cap as you propose (as opposed to each company being capped at its current output), then there will be a glut of these credits, making them much cheaper than the cost of upgrading equipment, thus providing not just incentive not to upgrade, but also incentive to horde credits so that you can continue to pollute more and more at will, in effect eliminating environmental regulation altogether.
In short, cap and trade can only lead to increased pollution in reasonable human timeframes, not decreased. Sure, it does limit the growth to a certain total, which might result in lower total pollution in the really, really long term, but even that requires us to assume that the market will never result in newer, lower-polluting manufacturing technology being cheaper than ancient clunker hardware. Color me unconvinced.
The only way cap and trade is useful is if the current total is substantially less than the total output now, and to the extent that this is the case, the same can be achieved with simple caps, goals, and fines.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Why so defensive? All that is certain is that a few Slashdot posters question the wisdom of a carbon credit exchange. You can be a global climate change acolyte and yet refuse to support capitalization of it, can you not?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Because Al Gore has much to gain financially with the success of the carbon credit exchange.
Well, that's pretty much the same thing, isn't it? How is a small business going to afford any credits with GE bidding them up to $1,000,000 each?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
WOW!! REally? Ok..I'm gonna have to go look for these videos, and get some ideas.
I see some new activities for the upcoming weekends!! Hell, maybe I can convince drunk folks at Mardi Gras, throwing stuff in the streets to purchase some carbon credits from me!!!
Geez...that would be better than the years we pretended to be cameramen from the Girls Gone Wild videos...we ran out of tape early on, but still got plenty of good 'shows'....and even some real action from chicks thinking they were gonna be on the show.
Money sounds good too!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The problem with your analogy is that the other doctors, who disagree with the diagnosis, are paid spokesmen of the tobacco industry.
You mean the The Heartland Institute ? Who thinks not only smoking, but also Global Warming is good for you?
Given that there's no actual regulation, you can do whatever the hell you want. Next time someone you know goes on a vacation, tell them you'll stay at home if they pay you to offset their carbon emissions :) Given the current setup, the whole thing is completely meaningless, and plenty of companies have been raking in money without actually doing anything.
I'm sure you also think climate change is caused by man-made carbon dioxide.
Fact: vaccines are increasing the incidence of autism to an alarming degree.
Just ask anyone on Slashdot.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
No.
The caps are essentially "licenses" that are sold at market value for the "right" to pollute a certain amount.
You could purchase these licenses to pollute and then try to re-sell them (like a broker) but you don't automatically get credits just for having a company.
Must be MEDUSA's doing.
Cosplayers.net - The Cosplayers Network
Am I right here?
Yes. But...
...is it rife with corruption, bureaucracy, and an inability to accomplish its stated goals like every other government project?
Yes. The trouble is, the big players (typically energy companies) get the lion's share of the allocation and then trade them for real money as derivatives. And they make serious money. It's no more corrupt than any other part of the economy -- they're just another form of currency. I don't suppose it's corruption, per se, it's just a bit of a mess.
Have their been any studies on the effectiveness of such a system?
Not that I've seen, but you might want to search The Economist, that's where I'd look for this kind of stuff.
Because it seems like a shell game that takes the teeth out of anti-pollution laws (by letting the wealthy and well-connected buy what are, effectively, exemptions to the law). The whole thing looks like a con where everyone can SAY they're fighting pollution, without anyone actually having to really change or really sacrifice anything.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You are both idiots.
"man-made carbon pollution " has nothing to do with Austrialia's weather. and Vaccines do not cause Autism.
Man, Dumb and Dumber.
There isn't a single piece of hard evidence that the two are linked
There isn't a single piece of hard evidence that the big bang happened, or that evolutionary adaptations lead to speciation. If you think that "hard evidence" is the only way to reach a firm conclusion then you don't understand how science works. You'd be better off hanging out with the creationists, homeopaths, anti-vaxers and global-warming deniers rather than reading slashdot.
I don't mean to be too insulting, but are you one of those 9-11 conspiracy theorists, too? They're always whining about "hard evidence".
Yep, and while we are at it. You did not purchase enough hamburgers this month, so you have to pay me a dollar for each one you failed to buy...BUT, you can trade your quota with other people.
Stealing from the thieves is perfectly fine.
I'm sorry, but that Lancet article was proven to be a Fraud.
Three of my colleagues actually work in autism research, and quite a few of my friends actually work in fields involving climate - not TV metorologists, actual scientists doing earth and ice cores.
Myths won't help you avoid the harsh reality of what is happening in our world.
(please note: I personally have energy investments, including in firms that mine and use coal and other materials, and I know where the money for the climate denial is coming from)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I think the idea of cap and trade is that we need to drasticly cut emissions. The problem is it is hard to come up with a fair way for requiring all of the major polluters to cut emissions. The hope with "cap and trade" it that the free market can be used to fine-tune the original political decisions. If one major emitter finds it is prohibitively expensive to cut emissions because they are actually increasing production, they can buy credits on the carbon market. The hope is that industries with little growth may be able to accelerate equipment upgrades with funds from those industries growing faster than equipment upgrades help.
Of course, until every major government implements strong carbon caps, the carbon market is a shell game. Currently here in Canada they are still talking about "intensity-based targets"; that is to say: carbon releases are allowed to increase as long as there is economic growth. There is also the issue of using hard-to-measure things as "carbon sinks" such as forests. If a framer has a small forest they are being paid credits for; are the expected to pay back all that money if the forest burns down, releasing a lot of carbon?
I don't mean to be too insulting
Always means you are about to be insulting.
No I'm not a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. But thank you for the demeaning comment.
I am a global warming denyist though, but you worded that with what appears to be spefic intent. I understand climate change and that the real argument is how much impact people actually have on the change. I believe we do have an impact, but also that long before man climate changed as well.
My attempt was to show that there is more to the story. Again, George Burns lived to 100, while my neighbor as a child who never smoked died of lung cancer. That there's no hard evidence proving the link allows for conjecture from the other side in attempt to alleviate the assumption that there is a link after all.
And what I did say was that it's probably a good guess, but a guess at that. No lab tests ever proved the theory. We're not talking about something that happened billions of years ago, we're talking about something that is happening right now.
Of note: this will be my last response to you. I generally don't respond to people who like to discredit others with assumptions of ludicrous behavior (conspiracy theorist) however sugarcoated with "I don't mean to be" insults.
Saying Android is a family of phones is akin to saying Linux is a family of PCs.
There are creationists and [anthropomorphic] "global-warming deniers" who read slashdot. FYI. :)
You're assuming that it's equally easy for all companies to cut down on carbon emission, and that the total carbon credit can't be altered. Assume that the number of credits is inadequate to allow all companies to do all the carbon emission they want. Somebody's going to have to cut down in this case, which is the desired outcome.
Now, suppose that there's one company that finds it cheap and one that finds it expensive. The cheap one will cut down and sell its carbon credits to the expensive company. The economy is therefore reducing carbon emissions to the set limit in the most economical way possible. As time goes on, the number of carbon credits can be reduced.
There's lots of complications, but overall it's an economically valid approach.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Or, it may be eminently cheaper to set up a "rival" company which will sell credits while maintaining extremely low (if even existent) emissions by running at lowered levels (if at all). Or you could possibly create a holding company, separate your component industrial operations by name, and apply for more credits as an individual company.
Or you can attempt to redefine what exactly a carbon credit is.
Also, who can I sell my unused carbon credits to? I am a carbon producing entity, and I guarantee if you pay me enough, I will reduce my emissions to allow you to increase yours.
Bloody drivel.
Here's the catch: if it would cost you less to update your equipment to produce less emissions, it would also probably cost your buyer less to upgrade their equipment than it would cost to buy the credit, so they will not buy the credit.
This is only true if production is occuring in the same way. For example it may be cheaper for a steel mill to support expansion by investing (purchasing credits) making a plastic manufacturer more efficient.
Thus, the only possible long-term effect of cap and trade is that companies who would have upgraded anyway will do so, but will now be able to sell their credits, allowing other companies to produce more pollution than they would have been able to produce under a strict system of caps.
Currently industries can expand without regards to environmental impact since there is little cost impact. Creating a cap sets a limit to how much pollution can be released. The only way for an industry to expand is to become more efficient, or to offset its output elsewhere in the economy. The overall result is net pollution remains the same or is reduced.
It's not sustainable to have uncontrolled growth ignoring the negative environmental effects. Not that cap & trade is perfect, but it does provide market flexibility that traditional government controls don't have.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Okay, but now you're shifting the topic. Skepticism about global climate change is one thing. Skepticism about Al Gore's motivations are another, so I'll ask again: why bring up Al Gore in a serious discussion about climate change or ways of stopping it?
You're the one that chose to interpret it in a condescending and moralizing way. Others of us didn't let emotions get in the way when making a judgment on the validity of the message.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
What is it with all the global warming deniers?
What's a "global warming denier"? Is that like holocaust deniers? Is this some group of anti-Semitic racists? Or is denying that genocidal events in history ever happened now no worse than denying a vague prediction of events in some future probability?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Or you could avoid procreation and get credits for helping to not increase the human population. That's what China proposed at the last meeting - they feel they are owed a bunch of extra carbon credits for their one-child-per-couple policy.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Always means you are about to be insulting. No I'm not a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. But thank you for the demeaning comment.
*shrug* if you choose to be insulted even after I made it plain that no offense was intended, that's your choice, and your problem.
I believe we do have an impact, but also that long before man climate changed as well.
I'm sure you also believe that the sky is blue and the grass is green - I'm not sure what any of that has to do with global warming. The fact that you accept that human beings can and do have an impact on the climate tells me that you're not actually an AGW denier - you're just confused about what that phrase means. That's a good start, anyway :)
My attempt was to show that there is more to the story. Again, George Burns lived to 100, while my neighbor as a child who never smoked died of lung cancer.
What's the relevance? You know, some people fall out of an aircraft and survive, while some people fall off a chair and die. I guess this means that we have "no hard data" and there's "more to the story", so we can't assume that there's any kind of connection between falling and dying.
That there's no hard evidence proving the link allows for conjecture from the other side in attempt to alleviate the assumption that there is a link after all.
The other side will always "conjecture" - hard evidence has dick all to do with it. For any given position you can always find some idiot who will take the opposing view, regardless of what the evidence shows.
No lab tests ever proved the theory
Nonsense. All the "lab tests" and all the statistical studies show that the effect is real - the problem is that you reject the evidence on the grounds that it's "not hard evidence". The creationists pull the same shit, the AGW deniers pull the same shit, and the 9-11 nuts do it too; any time you don't want to accept a conclusion which is heavily supported by metric-fuck-tons of data and scientific analysis, you can always just claim there's no "hard evidence". I'm sure it makes you feel better about your position, but to anyone who isn't completely gormless you end up sounding like a simpleton.
I generally don't respond to people who like to discredit others with assumptions of ludicrous behavior
It's not an assumption - it's a fact. Your arguments are - to use your own term - "ludicrous". The fact that I inquired about a particular type of lunacy that you don't believe in is irrelevant - the rest of the stuff you're saying is equally silly.
Put a cost on carbon?
back in the 70s Ford had a car with a fatal flaw. but the bean counters calculated the cost of recall vs chance of accident x cost of lawsuit/settlement sums. the second was cheaper. they let people die.
Put a cost on carbon?
Except for one major difference. Carbon credits are for something that we can actually measure.
I beg to differ.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Climate Change is a scam and Al Gore is a scam artist. The usual way to prove a scam is to point out inconsistency within the scam itself. The usual way for folks to prove a scam artist is to point out the inconsistency in his behaviour.
You might have bought the scam, that doesn't mean we have. You talk about doctors and lung cancer in order to try to scare folks into your way of thinking.
Let's stop conflating the whether an emissions market is mechanically sound from the politically-charged question of whether it is wise to have established an emissions market for carbon. Emissions markets are common and typically function well. There are established markets in the United States for SOx, NOx, Particulate Matter and other various pollutants emitted from large stationary sources (i.e., power plants, cement factories, etc).
These markets are an excellent way of determining the marginal cost of complying with a particular regulatory regime. I emphasize that last statement because that is what we are really asking is what is the marginal cost of complying with a particular set of rules? Emissions markets are very effective at determining that marginal price.
Of course, the function of the market says nothing about (i) the social utility of complying with the particular rules or (ii) whether the market will actually limit the non-desirable behavior regulators are attempting to stiffle. Whether the market is going to increase that social good depends on on your base-case assumptions. Is global climate change real? Is it exascerbated by CO2 emissions? What is your assumption of CO2 emissions today? What type of compliance regime is utilized to police participation in the market? How strong is the evidence that purchasing and retiring a ton of CO2 from the market actually leads to a ton of CO2 not being put ito the atmosphere?
Personally, I think the evidence suggests that global climate change is happening, and that it is highly likely that man-made emissions are driving the process. But regardless of whether you share my opinion of the science -- you should agree that an emissions exchange is an excellent way of setting the marginal price of complying with a specific set of rules. In short -- just because you are a climate change skeptic doesn't mean you should ignore the rules of economics as well as chemisty.
So far as I can tell, you're the only one who has said this. I haven't.
Newsflash: everything and nothing is poisonous, once you disregard quantities and way of administration.
I routinely spend time in a place that has a CO2 monitor. It starts in the morning at 800 ppm and goes up to 1200 ppm by the end of the event. I have yet to see anyone die, gasping for breath, or pass out. The database I have in my pocket for emergency responders doesn't even list CO2.
On the other hand, it lists SO2 with an acceptable exposure level of just 5 ppm. I suspect that most people could detect levels below 1ppm, although that's just a guess.
The difference in toxicity is a well known fact. The difference in function of the two gases is a well-known fact. Pretending that CO2 is a poison that has to be regulated just like SO2 is ridiculous. Basing an argument for regulation on the fact that everything is poisonous at some level is just as ridiculous. Be careful what arguments you use; you may wind up with a complete ban on the sale and use of dihydrogen oxide because it, too, is poisonous at some level, despite it being mandatory for the existence of life as we know it.
That's what matters. Any regulation of any activity or product takes into account quantity and distribution.
And that's why regulating CO2 the same way you do SO2 is stupid. You've forgotten sources of production and sinks and necessity of the material to the existence of life.
In any case, the regulation of CO2 has nothing to do with quantity and distribution, it has everything to do with how much money can be made and how much power can be shifted where the regulators want it to wind up.
"Basically correct except for the arbitrary economy generated by a mindless government."
If only Adam Smith himself would have forgotten about externalities...
Bear in mind that most of the cost is not the equipment, but rather the difference in ongoing cost of operations. The physical equipment costs are a drop in the bucket compared with the long-term cost of using natural gas or electricity instead of coal for pretty much anything. The main driver is the cost of buying the energy from someone, and the cleaner forms of energy are always going to be significantly more expensive by about the same amount, whether you're buying that energy to turn a crank that spits out widgets or buying that energy to heat a vat of metal for smelting. That cost difference is proportional to total energy use and is likely to be fairly comparable across all industries, ignoring small market price differences in the cost of natural gas from region to region.
About the only situation where the cost should be significantly different, ignoring the initial hardware costs, would be in the case where you're talking about smelting, refining, or other operations that require insane amounts of heat. Those are at a disadvantage because producing heat by electricity tends to not be particularly efficient, leaving them pretty much only fossil fuels (including natural gas) as options. In regions where electricity is cheaper than natural gas, they would be at a *slight* cost disadvantage. However, and here's the kicker, they are all at an approximately equal disadvantage, so once the low hanging fruit in other sectors has transitioned to other energy sources, you're in the same boat.
Oh, and the power companies themselves are something of an exception, too, but ignoring early industrial nations, power companies are already working pretty hard to get away from CO2-emitting fossil fuels for cost reasons, making this something of a moot point.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"Those companies that are in compliance are following the law, not doing anything special."
True. That's why they are allowed to sell out credits they own *in excess* of being in compliance.
"Those companies who continue to exceed carbon emission standards should be fined progressively to the point that they achieve zero profit until they rectify the problem."
And then, the highest incentive you would be offering is the one of being in compliance. By cap and trade you are offering incentives to be *beyond* compliance. While doing so, new more effective industrial processes and methods will be put into practice and the selled out, again for a profit, for those not so good achievers.
Cap and trade can be a scam, can be unproductive, but certainly not because of what you say nor what you say is any better.
Urea is a key component in clean diesel engines.
brb, pissing on my truck engine.
Of course there are no real scientific studies to show why people who have never been exposed sometimes die of lung cancer, but George Burns lived to 100 and died from fluid buildup in his skull from a fall in the bathtub.
When talking about public health or the climate, anecdotal stories are really just amusing and nothing more. Why some smokers don't die of cancer, it's a statistics game. No one is saying 100% all smokers will die of cancer.
Evidenc on smoking and cancer, I found this study which found smoking was an increased risk factor for penile cancer. I went to that one since all the hits for lung cancer were references to references to studies, and I got tired within 5 mins of searching for the original studies.
There are also thousands of chemicals in cigarette smoke. Benzo(a)pyrene is one that is a carcinogen and causes cancer.
That to me is pretty strong evidence: smokers are more likely to die of cancer than non smokers, and there are chemicals in cigarettes that cause cancer. No one has shown that chemicals inhaled from the cigarette cause DNA damage in human lung cells and those then become cancer cells, but that would be a hideously expensive experiment just to tell us something we already know.
The situation seems similar to climate change: it's impossible to trace carbon from tailpipes or powerplants to the atmosphere and prove that they are raising the temperature. Nonetheless, we are emitting a lot of carbon, the last few years have been warmer than average, and carbon soaks up more heat.
This [medicalnewstoday.com] article from Medical News Today says it's a widely accepted notion and goes on to say more research is needed.
This [cancer.org] article from Cancer.org says there is strong evidence that the two are linked, and that more research is needed.
Researchers saying more research needs to be done is not a safe indication that something is uncertain. Find me a research paper that -doesn't- suggest more research is needed, and I'll show you a paper by a retiring scientist. We always put that on there: there's always more research to do, and always more grants to apply for.
Suggesting that your paper is the last thing that needed to be said on a given area of research is usually not true, would be quite arrogant, and is not a good career move.
"Because it seems like a shell game that takes the teeth out of anti-pollution laws (by letting the wealthy and well-connected buy what are, effectively, exemptions to the law)."
Except they are not buying exemptions to the law. That's an economical problem (the one of externalities) managed at the economical level (exchange of money). As long as there is no surplus of stocks and commitment can be properly ascertained, everything is just OK.
You can find flaws to the implementation (it probably has them, even flaws introduced by malice) but you won't find any flaws with the idea.
Real solutions are pretty evasive in this area, but fake solutions are easy to come up with. Cap and trade is a fake solution because, as you pointed out, it doesn't really make economic sense.
The major sources of CO2 currently are cars and power plants. The real solution isn't wind power because it isn't something that can replace base load generation, and the real solution probably isn't nuclear because it simply takes too long to build a nuclear power plant. The growth in the US has outstripped nearly all of the generation capacity there is and we are just about out of time.
The real power plant solution is probably to just start turning off coal plants. It is economically unfeasible to replace them with something that doesn't generate CO2 and any sort of cap and trade program is likely to just make electricity priced so high as to be out of reach for poor people. Add to that the costs for stores to operate would increase significantly and that is brick-and-mortar or online as both use lots of electricity.
Just turning off power plants would reduce the CO2 emissions and it would force people to think if they really want to come to the US in the first place, thereby limiting the growth. It is the growth that is destroying the infrastructure and the economy - if we had 20% fewer people than we wouldn't have 20% of the people out of work begging at the government window or your car window.
It would certainly change the perspective people have on things as well. If electricity became something unreliable and undependable you wouldn't have people buying food frozen half a continent away to store in their freezer. You would have to buy locally grown food frequently thereby further reducing CO2 emissions.
You can think of hundreds of things that would simply be better if there was restrictions on electric power availability.
One way or another, we are likely to be there soon. We aren't building lots of generating capacity and we are closing down old generating plants and decommissioning nuclear plants. At some point buying power from Canadian hydroelectric generation isn't going to help and we will certainly see widespread power management like they have in Florida and California already. In these places some people have little boxes that control their air conditioning - when the power company says it has to be off, the system is shut off. You get a discount on your bill by having such power management in areas where it is needed.
Wait until they start shutting off residential power during the day and offices at night. I don't think you have all that long to wait to see this happening.
Cap-and-trade has absolutely nothing to do with the environment. It is strictly an attempt to legislate and force the transfer of wealth from Western nations to non-Western nations. You'll notice the target is the US and wealthy European nations, but is not targeted at China. China emits more CO2 than the US. If this were truly about CO2, the outrage would be directed elsewhere and the "corrective action" would involve other measure. As soon as someone says "...but instead, you can just write me a big fact check", you know it's a scam.
That doesn't mean that the whole global warming thing is or isn't real, it just means someone's trying to get free money and is willing to say anything to get it.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
What you are missing here is two things.
First, I would be all in favor of carbon trading if I, as the owner of a software company got millions of "credits" to sell because I don't produce CO2 emissions. This gift would be offset by higher prices for everything - most of which would be passed on to customers.
Alas, it is unlikely to work out that way. More likely the only folks getting carbon credits would be those with businesses that today generate massive amounts of CO2.
The second part of this is that the way it is supposed to work is that these businesses would have to purchase more and more carbon credits to operate because their credits would be insufficient to cover their current (and future) output of CO2. So they would be faced with two alternatives: reduce CO2 emissions (at some cost) or buy carbon credits (at some cost).
Well, either way they go there would be increased costs. As we do not have a good way of pointing at a building and saying "X tons of CO2 are being emitted each day" it is highly likely that any such credit allocation scheme would be fraught with subjectivity and legal loopholes. This introduces massive uncertainity into the balance between reducing emissions and buying credits - there is no clarity between X real reduction and X credits being required.
Any large business, especially a public corporation, is going to stick to certainity which means buying credits. Reducing emissions might work in some cases but when the credits required depend on legal definitions, fuel input, revenue and other such coupled but yet rather different measurements it is going to be very difficult to determine if a reduction in real emissions is going to result in any benefit at all to the company.
Another factor is going to be whether or not some sort of emission reduction is cheaper than the credits themselves. If you are running a coal burning power plant it may make some sense to look at carbon sequstration rather than buying credits - if carbon sequestration is allowed, which under some rules I have heard about it would not be. How else do you reduce emissions? Reduce the amount of coal coming in and therefore the amount of electricity going out and raise the prices to compensate for less revenue per KwH. This works really well if what is being actually measured for a power plant is the type and amount of coal being brought in. Obviously, another option would be to change to a lower-carbon (lower energy) coal. Again, you get less energy, less electricity generated and have to raise prices to continue operations. And for everyone else, electricity just gets a big price increase.
Each succeeding year under a cap-and-trade plan there are supposed to be fewer and fewer credits available to purchase and fewer given to businesses to have, use or sell. Problem is, without some sort of massive change in thermodynamics it is unlikely that you can burn X tons of coal and get less than Y tons of CO2 out of it. Nuclear in the US is probably just not an option - the Universities have spent 30-40 years training people that all things nuclear are just bad, including the so-called "nuclear family". Geothermal would be nice, except you can't build transmission lines in the US, smart, dumb or anything else - people know they cause cancer, autism and impotence and won't stand for them to be in their neighborhood. Solar is pretty safe, except it doesn't really help the US peak load time of 5-9 PM. Wind might do it, but there is that transmission line problem again.
Simple solution is to just start turning down the electricity output and if they can't rely on air conditioning, their refrigerator or their TV maybe they will move somewhere else. With fewer people in the US the 20% that are unemployed today might be able to get a job. Yes, if you count all the people of working age that aren't working it is way, way higher than the 10% "unemployment rate" the government likes to talk about - it could be more like 30% but it is at least 20%. That way we would have fewer emissions (from power plants) and fewer people driving and a lot less CO2 all across the board.
The theory behind that goes that if we don't back off the climate is going to be so messed up that millions are going to die. Thus those who use that term are arguing that those who deny the existence of global warming are complicit in millions of deaths not to come. That's what it means and that's why they deliberately draw the Nazi connection.
Don't blame me, I'm just explaining it not somebody that uses it. Personally I think comparing everything to Hitler's Germany is tasteless, silly and a cheap shot to hit people's emotional buttons.
It also shows that describing climate change in emotive terms to get everyone's attention can backfire. We end up with people arguing about the silly analogy instead of the reality.
Your arguments for why this will fail all presume that the value of credits is fixed. The whole point of the scheme is that the value of credits will increase as time goes on. Partly through scarcity (by reducing the number of credits in the system each year) and partly through pricing (ie increasing the level of fines each year). As the cost of credits is monotonically increasing it will eventually be larger than the cost of upgrading, thus rendering your argument invalid.
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
7) It was a US idea pushed into Kyoto so that US industry could continue to pollute at the same level by pretending to export it to states that owe the USA vast amounts of debt that will never be repaid. On paper that debt would be reduced by a number proportional to the amount of pollution allocated to that state, but in practice nothing would be lost. That undermines nearly all of the quite good points above leaving a situation where there is no gain from reducing emissions and no loss from increasing them if you have a lot of bad international debts as the US has. It was deliberately inserted to skew the "playing field" to the advantage of the USA and allow the USA to hit it's targets merely by shuffling some numbers, something nations that are not owed huge aid loans can not do. Other nations played other games to get the same result of not having to change anything.
The USA pulled out of Kyoto but the damage was done leaving us with this strange artifact of international carbon trading. It has very little to do with actually reducing emissions. Just finding a few ways to improve shipping of goods or reducing the mass of a couple of popular brands of cars would reduce emissions far more than what is probably going to be a big artificial ponzi scheme.
Indeed, carbon credits are a fiat currency which will inevitably collapse sooner or later.
Carbon trading is bogus. It is a lie perpetuated by greedy people like Gal Ore (Figure It Out) who profit from this. Follow the money trail. Instead they should be making real differences. The issue isn't carbon. The issue isn't global warming. The issue is pollution.
By the way:
1) Carbon is good and necessary to the life cycle.
2) Global Warming is far preferred than Global Cooling.
Well, then how do you plan to keep the co2 emission below a threshold? Central planning comittee gives out carbon credits for companies or what?
Here's the catch: if it would cost you less to update your equipment to produce less emissions, it would also probably cost your buyer less to upgrade their equipment
You assume that my buyer produces exactly the same goods, with exactly the same equipment with exactly the same output volume.
The difference in toxicity is a well known fact. The difference in function of the two gases is a well-known fact.
Then stop arguing like they are identical.
And that's why regulating CO2 the same way you do SO2 is stupid.
And that's why they're subjected to different regulations.
In any case, the regulation of CO2 has nothing to do with quantity and distribution, it has everything to do with how much money can be made and how much power can be shifted where the regulators want it to wind up.
pics or GTFO. You're ascribing motivation to people you don't know. I'd like some proof, thank you.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Well, I asked the CSIRO and they said "The recent South-East Queensland (SEQ) drought was likely caused by shifts associated with climate variability over decades rather than climate change". Oh wait, you mean the floods. I asked the BoM who show this one was mild compared to historical events. See, there's this thing called El Nina that was responsible for the floods of the 1890-1900s, 1940s and 1970s as it was of the floods of today. Weather is not climate.
A small point or two is the US and Canada did it, the US and Canadian companies released the pollutants and the detrimental effect of the pollution was readily demonstrable.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Massive changes are.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Don't like those tornadoes in New Year's Eve? Well then warm the planet, since apparently it does wonders for reducing tornadoes, hurricanes and cyclones.
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/
2010 is in the books: Global Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Cyclone Energy [ACE] remains lowest in at least three decades, and expected to decrease even further. ...
Overall, since 1979:
**Global Tropical Cyclone ACE shows no upward trend.
**Northern Hemisphere TC ACE shows no upward trend.
**Southern Hemisphere TC ACE shows no upward trend.
**North Atlantic TC ACE has doubled since 1995, exactly compensated by a halving of Eastern Pacific ACE. It appears that in the context of global and NH ACE, the NATL increases are at the expense of the other basins, or simply within the common climate framework.
**Global TCs of Tropical Storm force show no upward trend in frequency.
**Global TCs of Hurricane Force + show no upward trend in frequency.
Carbon trading? I'll buy 100 kg. In ashes please.
I guess he didn't Greece enough palms.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Well lucky we haven't seen any massive changes then. You're deluding yourself if you think otherwise. Yes, we just had a bad drought frollowed by a bad flood, but we are a land of drought and flooding rains as that eloquent poet put it over a hundred years ago. We've had worse, well before man could have had an effect, and this is in no way a massive change, it is rather the opposite, a continuation of exactly what has happened on this continent in recorded history.
So, this is how I roughly understand the whole carbon credits thing is supposed to work. Am I right here? And does the real-world application work like this model, or is it rife with corruption, bureaucracy, and an inability to accomplish its stated goals like every other government project? Have their been any studies on the effectiveness of such a system?
The certification of carbon credits is taken very seriously and there are, according to the UNFCCC Parties & Observers, "Over 1,297 NGOs and 83 IGOs are admitted as observers." Further, carbon emissions especially from manufactures is fairly standard science. Fuel input + burn rate = carbon emission rate. The statistics are held not only on the scrubbers but the input valves as well. Also, it is reported by the fuel companies how much fuel they are selling and where it is being passed off. All this put together, along with thousands of NGO interests, allows the market to have enough watchdogs to prevent serious abuse. The key to carbon credits in the US is that you need a verification and certification process behind the carbon creditors. Again, NGO and even government regulation can go a long way towards certifying and making the market more transparent.
Denying Climate Change is exactly like denying that you have cancer when your oncologist tells you that you do. It's easier on yourself to consider this reaction as scepticism, although you know that if you were really sceptical you would seek a second opinion rather than simply going home and ignoring the symptoms.
Understanding this reaction as denial helps the rest of us to see that these people are not insane, not necessarily dumb, and not necessarily evil - it is just taking them a little longer to work through the cognitive coping process. Also the term is a useful counter to the labelling of this reaction as scepticism - a term used deliberately to imply that it is the role of those who accept climate change to convince those who do not (a obviously absurd notion, when stated explicitly, which is why that rarely happens).
Ultimately, "customers" are going to have to pay for anything. It's just a matter of which customers.
It's certainly just a system for (it's intended) getting money spent on reducing CO2 emissions, since spending money on it is how it will get done. (Though some CO2 emissions reductions have a positive return, rather than simply being a cost.) Cap-and-trade is just an attempt to have the money spent efficiently.
Simple solution is to just start turning down the electricity output
The government can't really simply control the power plants in that fashion, and there are a lot of industries that produce lots of CO2 that aren't electricity generation. It's a simple but ineffective solution.
I don't understand what you were trying to say with that. I'm not saying carbon credits are the answer. Only that, unlike papal indulgences, it is for something that exists. It can be measured, graphed, observed. If we're doing a poor job of it, that's an entirely different issue. But the fact remains that, unlike a soul, carbon exists.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Yup, climate changes, but that's not us doing it. JFYI
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
I am touching my penis right now.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
You must be an ugly journalism student. You know the kind, going for the Mrs. degree, but too repulsive to graduate.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
...the free market can be used to fine-tune the original political decisions.
We watched the free market try to fine-tune AM Stereo. It didn't work out so well.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
No, actually there is a twist. For instance, I get a 25% discount on my property tax if I pay it a month "early". Seems almost similar to moving the goal posts.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
So what is skepticism then? And if the science is settled. Why do we keep needed to spend more money on research?
It'll be kind of tricky to convince anybody of that unless you actually give some kind of proof, or evidence, or even some kind of convincing argument that makes that assertion plausible.
So, this is how I roughly understand the whole carbon credits thing is supposed to work. Am I right here? And does the real-world application work like this model, or is it rife with corruption, bureaucracy, and an inability to accomplish its stated goals like every other government project? Have their been any studies on the effectiveness of such a system?
I dunno, but I'm starting a company, and threaten to emit a lot of carbon. The guvmint will then issue me a bunch of carbon credits, and warn me that if I emit more carbon than I have credits, they're going to punish me. Of course, I will then sell the credits, and try not to exhale.
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.
Whether you agree or not is immaterial.
As for the "fuel" to perform further investigation, that's what the fines are for.
Sure.
Now make the same argument about Meth.
People who don't sell meth are in compliance. Those who do sell meth can by compliance credits from those who do not, making their sales, legal.
It's wrong. It doesn't matter how you phrase the idea. There is a limit. If you over reach the limit, you pay a fine.
The sensible solution is to couple them to taxes paid. Wait, what, you've using some shell company in the Bahama's to evade taxes? Too bad, guess you'll have to buy carbon credits on the free market then.
Offer companies tax credits to reduce emissions and fine them for exceeding but letting them pay to pollute is a joke.
So what is the difference between fining them for exceeding and letting them pay for exceeding?
Heavens, are you TRYING to Godwin this thread?
A "global warming denier" is someone who "denies" that "global warming" is taking place. Deny. Global warming. Global warming denier. Get it? The only one overinterpreting this is you.
<sarcasm>You, Sir, are worse than Hitler!</sarcasm>
What I'm afraid of is the creation of "collateralized carbon debit obligations" and similar "instruments" and the effect it could have. I guess I should move to Prague and start the first Carbon Credit High Frequency Trading company.
It is easier to force/guilt/... China and India into carbon trading if the Western world is already doing it. In my view Cap-and-trade is faulty, because it allows a default level of free pollution. If EVERYONE was fairly and equally taxed for their CO2 (and other greenhouse gas or pollutant) emissions and then the revenue from these taxes would be spent exclusively on cleaning up that pollution (most likely by purchasing carbon credits from carbon-negative businesses), then it would be fair. The pointis that a coal power plant does not pay for the pollution it causes, the harm that it causes to the whole population. If this harm is converted into actual finansial cost, then we will clearly see whether coal is really that cheap and we will see free market dump all they can into clean energy, because the dirt of the dirty energy would be taxed and make it not so profitable as it is now.
Oil, coeal and gas is only a cheap energy source to the consumer because part of the cost is hidden - the enviromental cost, as in, they don't pay for the clean air that they steal from all of them. Steal just a little bit from everyone and you have a nice profit. Government taxation and regulation is there to prevent exactly such abuses of the common good.
Actually, considering that CO2 emmisions are doing harm to people (in the long term), it would make sense to have people be the source of carbon credits - We the 100k people have a right to produce X tons of carbon emissions per year (in addition to inalienable bodily emission quota), and we are willing to sell that right to that steel mill for a summ of Y USD per year. And considering that someone needs to get that money from that steel mill and make sure it is either distributed to us or spent on something that brings good to all of us, lets make a company that will do that. Lets decide by voting among us who we trust to administer that money. Let's call that 'government', and let's call the whole system 'taxation'.
No, actually there is a twist. For instance, I get a 25% discount on my property tax if I pay it a month "early". Seems almost similar to moving the goal posts.
I find this tiresome. There's no moving goalposts. There's no changing viewpoints such as you do above (which is not the same as moving goalposts!). The original poster whined "Companies should not be permitted to purchase 'credits' from companies that are in compliance." They ignore that any company that produces less pollution than the credits they have purchased is, by by the law, in compliance. There's no changing grammar, no moving goalposts, no changing viewpoint. Their argument is based on a malformed premise, compliance doesn't mean what they think it means.
Finally, allow me to explain what the difference is between "moving goalposts" and "changing viewpoints". The former is literally a rhetorical changing of some definition, goal, or other related things, often on the fly, in a way that is advantageous to someone. Changing viewpoints merely transforms from one context to another. This transformation can be done inconsistently in a way that moves goalposts, but that's not automatic. For example, in your example above, there's no meaningful difference between someone who interprets paying property taxes a month past the deadline as "late" versus someone who considers paying taxes at the deadline "a month early". The real world consequences are the same no matter how they interpret the paying of those property taxes, hence no goalposts are actually moved.
And that's an important point to make here. Sometimes changing viewpoints leads to something interesting, fair, and rational, such as simplification of calculation (particularly in physics) or understanding the motivations of another person, but it has to be done in a consistent way, so that where viewpoints overlap, they agree in real world consequence. But sometimes it doesn't as in this case.