Is carbon trading the modern equivalent of Papal Indulgences.?

Question

In days gone buy, people could buy reductions in the time they would spend it pergatury by making donations to a particular order. A cleric would assess the donation and issue a certificate to the donor saying how many days their time in purgatory would be reduced by. Great for people who lead sinful lives looking to reduce their suffering in the next life.

This seems to have some parallels with carbon trading. In theory, you can still drive to work if you pay someone else to take public transport on your behalf, but the industy is entirely self regulated. People send money to which ever carbon offset services has the best marketing and they get a certificate with picture of trees and a statement of how much CO2 reduction you've bought.

Answer 1

Awesome analogy ... I never thought of that one.

The theory behind it is not quite as vapid as that. The ideas of carbon reduction and offsetting date back to the era when the buzzword was not "climate change" but "pollution."

Pollution has a cost, but that cost is not felt right away. (It's traditionally been "cured" rather than "prevented.") When pollution became a front-page issue, economists suggested that it could be better "prevented" by levying taxes and / or penalties on polluters and / or consumers. Nowadays it's all about your "carbon footprint." Whatever.

Anyway, now the international approach is to set specific goals on national levels, such as, "Country X shall cut its carbon emissions by 15% by the year 2012." Since the effect is global, though, it's really only the worldwide total that has to be reduced. So if one country can manage to exceed its goals, then another country can afford to fall a little short. If Country X knows that it will beat its goal by 5 "points," then it can sell those points to another country. Then you have this whole market created in the carbon-emissions trade.

Ideally, it's a win-win situation. It encourages some countries (generally the first world) to find cleaner and more efficient sources of energy, so that they can trade their credits for whatever good favors they can get for it. (Hot brides from Moldova, or whatever). The market also allows other countries (generally the 2nd world) to buy these credits so they can continue developing as industrial nations. (Countries such as India and China are not as concerned about global climate as they are about developing their economies).

Somehow, this became the hot new trend among image-conscious 21st-century celebrities, who then decided that it was good for their image to offset their carbon emissions too. (Like it's going to make any difference. Fart once, inhale twice!) So now, you're right, we have these carbon offset services that you were talking about.

Usually, your carbon is "offset" by planting a tree, which will absorb CO2 and release oxygen. While it's alive. But what happens when the tree dies? Yep. There goes all that greenhouse gas back into the atmosphere again.

But hey, if it makes people feel better, then there you go ... papal indulgences indeed.

Answer 2

In a word, "Yep".

It's an excellent analogy because both examples are based on a premise of ignorance and dupability.

For those of us humans born short in the brain cell department it sounds very comforting to think that global warming is being contained with carbon credits.

Corporations and economists love the system. Accountants who understand debits and credits, not so much.

The way it works is the credits are based on net production.
If you produce 100 widgets with 1 ton of carbon emissions now and next year you produce 200 widgets with 1.5 tons of carbon emissions you've earned a carbon credit of .5 tons because you doubled your production but only increased your pollution by half.

Hmmmmmm, more efficient yes.

Only one problem no one (Not the polluters and certainly not the governments) wants to mention is, POLLUTION STILL WENT UP BY A HALF TON and our atmosphere remains constant.

Last time I checked anyways.

So, what do you think is going to happen with this carbon trading scheme if all those polluters keep on getting more efficient?

Yep. It's true. Soon we'll be so rich that we won't be able to breath anymore and there's gonna be a whole whack of new beach front property comming on the market.

What can you do?

Well, for one you can stop driving that holier than thou fossil fuel burning four tired internal combustion external polluting beast you say you can't live without - your automobile.

Each beast adds 5 tons of pollutants to our limited air supply per year!

The other thing you can do is contact your government at EVERY level at least "ONCE" a day and tell them you want laws that shut down pollution. You know, end it as in Companies that pollute are shut down.

The science is there to do almost everything we now do with fossil fuels and the only reason fossil fuels continue to be used is so a very limited group can continue to make huge profits.

So, if not for yourself how about for all the children of the world who may never grow old if we don't stop now.

The clock is ticking.........

Answer 3

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Answer 4

Ben - You need to look at two uses of carbon offsets.

Traded among industries, they're a good idea. They let carbon reductions come from the companies that can do it the cheapest. Good for society. Industries can verify transactions are legitimate, and the government wants that also.

For individuals, they make much less sense. There are great possibilities for scams, and the government has no interest in trying to verify a huge number of tiny transactions. Individuals have many better ways to fight global warming; better lighting, more insulation, buying the smallest car that meets their needs, etc.

Don't throw out the baby (carbon trading among industries) with the bathwater (carbon trading for individuals).

Answer 5

A good analogy and there are indeed many similarities.

Carbon-trading is different to carbon-offsetting. Offsetting is more a voluntary measure and is the road that Yahoo and many other companies have gone down in going carbon neutral. Trading is often mandatory and is a method of imposing a cap on total emissions, it allows a company that is going to exceed it's limit to buy credits from companies that fall short of their limits. In theory there are as many winners as there are losers, the problem is that brokers and middlemen have set themselves up as intermediaries and are taking a disproportionate slice of the money and some of them are doing very nicely from these schemes.

A better idea is to do it yourself, it only costs a few cents to plant a tree and you can have them in your own yard as opposed to a forest that you'll probably never get to visit.

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Answer 7

That is a great and fitting analogy. They have adopted the current version of the "world is going to end in my lifetime" that is always taken up by some religious extremists. What is amusing is that they, in general, don't like religion and don't even recognize that they are practicing members in the cult of Global Warming.

Answer 8

Sounds like a school mate of mine who wants us to baptise him every week because we were told that baptism cleanses your soul of all sins. In this respect I think they are both theorectically the same.

Answer 9

Yes, that does make a good correlation. Both present ways to atone for ones sins.

Back in those days a consensus of Papal scientist believed this is the was heaven worked. That is enough to prove that it had to be true.

Answer 10

Excellent comparison. Well put.