Originally Posted By Swamp Rat
@ Sachiko & Brad: Your points bring me back to another question concerning a carbon tax… what to do with the tax money? So how about this? Instead of polluters continuing to pollute by paying off someone to offset their pollution, let’s tax their carbon and use the money collected as a fund to pay that Panamanian farmer to let the rain forest reclaim farmland.

Actually, I think this is where carbon trading potentially has the advantage: taxes rarely go straight to where they are supposed to, but profits from carbon trading would theoretically do so naturally.

The problem with temperature arguments is that the raw data is easy to find and the numbers are at historic highs, but the interpretation of the data involved a large amount of guesswork. Computer climate models are still pretty primitive so scientists have to make a lot of assumptions, which cause politics to enter into the equation. For instance, I saw the data that Al Gore used in his original movie (I sold the cold heads used to bring the temperatures down to single degrees K for analysis of the ice core samples in one of the testing labs so I knew the raw data was accurate) but the conclusions he came up with were speculative. I also noticed many of the scientists who say global climate change is a fantasy aren’t trained in climate science but tend to have their degrees in completely unrelated sciences, making them suspect in my mind.

I also sold process control instrumentation for industries like power plants, petrochemical refineries, etc. when I was younger and temperature loops are by far the most difficult to control. Now these loops are relatively simple; the temperature loop of the earth is huge and incredibly complex, and it isn’t even a closed loop as it can be affected by forces outside the planet itself (radiation, sun spots, etc.) so anyone claiming to know what will happen is blowing smoke.

Having said that, the numbers are at historic highs for several gases. That means we’re in uncharted waters so we have reasons for concern. Since temperature has a lag effect, changes we make today won’t have an effect until sometime in the future, so we’re rolling the dice in terms of climate change forecasting. So if we can clean up the air, lower the CO2 levels, make the oceans less acidic, slow down or stop the melting of icebergs and glaciers, isn’t that a good thing that will cure several problems instead of one?

I’ve lived in China before and the air quality is horrendous. That doesn’t effect just poor people, it affects everyone. Wood fires from India help melt the Himalayan glaciers. Something done in one hemisphere affects the climate in another. Now is not the the time to point fingers. But if the solution involves developing countries not being able to develop while developed countries maintain a much better lifestyle, it’s a non-starter. If developing countries that are huge polluters use the “we’re new to polluting so we can do more” or “pollution should only count as a ‘per capita’ number, it’s a non-starter.

The problem is now, not then and the earth doesn’t care about the size of your population, it only cares about the total amount you create as a percentage of your land area and your absorption potential. If this becomes just another political negotiation, things will just get a lot worse. The solution can’t be political but has to be one that is in every country’s advantage to implement. In my mind, the carbon tax fulfills these requirements in that it is blind to borders or populations. You create it, you pay for it, that simple.

Originally Posted By SachikoHi Swamp Rat,

I am pretty much in total agreement with you. I am not sure that carbon trading is the best way to tackle climate change, but I am sure that it isn’t a conspiracy! I agree that a carbon tax is simpler and more direct, but on the other hand, the potential profitability of carbon trading that jr finds so corrupting is potentially also its strength. If we can set it up so that whatever profits are made actually do result in carbon reduction, then the fact that people can make money out of it is actually a good thing. For example, much of the third world is in tropical rainforest areas, which are the world’s biggest carbon sink. Hence, this could be an enormous opportunity for the third world to make money while saving the planet. The reasoning behind carbon trading is to convert our greed into carbon reduction – I guess the question is as to whether it really can work this way in practice.

A few Central American countries like Panama practice this quite successfully. They pay their farmers to let the rain forest reclaim farmland. and it has proven to be quite profitable for the government because the rain forest acts as a natural water filter and reduces pollution levels in the air, reducing the need for costly technologies that would otherwise need to be implemented. its really quite a genius plan.

I am pretty much in total agreement with you. I am not sure that carbon trading is the best way to tackle climate change, but I am sure that it isn’t a conspiracy! I agree that a carbon tax is simpler and more direct, but on the other hand, the potential profitability of carbon trading that jr finds so corrupting is potentially also its strength. If we can set it up so that whatever profits are made actually do result in carbon reduction, then the fact that people can make money out of it is actually a good thing. For example, much of the third world is in tropical rainforest areas, which are the world’s biggest carbon sink. Hence, this could be an enormous opportunity for the third world to make money while saving the planet. The reasoning behind carbon trading is to convert our greed into carbon reduction – I guess the question is as to whether it really can work this way in practice.

I’m saying all this as a person who isn’t keen on carbon trading (I much prefer a carbon tax; current emissions hold no financial penalty to the polluter) but understand the need to take steps now to forestall future temperature increases. I don’t think this is best done by creating huge multi-government bureaucracies but that’s just my own personal opinion; I’d like to take the approach that was taken with acid rain and smog.

Yes, there are people out there that stand to make huge profits by combating climate change and yes, there are benefits for academics to support combating climate change. That means there is nuance in this issue, but nuance is the last place conspiracy theorists look when arguing their points. That would mean having to think, and thinking is antithetical to a conspiracy argument. It’s all black and white to them. And when in doubt, they can always blame the CIA.

EDIT: great video BTW – it’s definitely on the money.

“..what you are referring to is not a conspiracy amongst politicians and business men, it is organised crime.”

have a heavy workload looming (couple of weeks or so) and am pre-occupied already, would like to revisit this argument in the near future, if you’re game?

on a different note, found this curious/nice video short on by accident, there are others on the same site (haven’t watched them yet):

http://www.vidoemo.com/yvideo.php?i=MklSN2FMcWuRpZlctUGs&atheism-made-idiot-simple

regards