THE TRILLION-POUND TRADE IN CARBON!

The argument is that the carbon market allows industries such as TATA to sell more carbon credits if they build a more efficient plant, and it encourages Western power stations to be more efficient since they have to buy less credits. By encouraging efficiency it reduces the rate of increase in emissions relative to what would have happened.


Unfortunately, it is not a true global market where supply and demand dictates price and quantity. This creates a number of problems
  1. developed countries are limited in the amount of carbon they can emit whilst developing ones are still allowed to grow. It is less than clear if those more efficient plants would have been built anyway.
  2. the cap for carbon is artificially set, and industries try to get an over subscription so the price of carbon falls and there is no real incentive to reduce emissions.
  3. if there is a recession such as happened with the Eastern bloc, they don’t use their carbon allocation, and can sell it on at a later date. A lot of the emission reductions from Russia will have already happened but will appear to occur in the future as they sell on these credits.
The only way to make carbon-trading work it to place a world cap on carbon, and ensure this figure is based on the best evidence necessary to stabilise world temperatures. Rival Industries who use the fossil fuels then bid for lots of the fuel as it comes out of the mines and wells. This raises the price since the limit is fixed. It is easy to fiddle a project that would have gone ahead anyway, far more difficult to lose a million tonnes of coal.

The monies raised above the normal cost of the fuel can then go to pay for research, mitigation and adaptation. In this way the most cost effective means of reducing carbon would be used and it will be limited by science rather than greedy businessmen and politicians.


Unfortunately, there are many other sources of carbon such as deforestation, so satellites will have to monitor the forest cover. There are many other sources of greenhouse gas emissions than CO2 which are even more difficult to monitor. Most of these come from chemical fertilisers and cattle so perhaps these could be similarly capped.

Personally I am not convinced any of this will work either politically or practically, and it is even more unpopular on the left than the right of the political spectrum.

Perhaps it is better to just
  1. legislate with regard to forestry, surely the Indonesian, and Congolese army are capable of massacring, sorry policing the logging industry for a suitable payment. They might actually enjoy it! You can’t hide a deforested area.
  2. ensure any power stations being built are situated near storage strata and can be retrofitted for carbon capture and
  3. legislate for efficiency in homes and industry, this will improve energy security as well
 
Last edited:
perseus said:
Personally I am not convinced any of this will work either politically or practically, and it is even more unpopular on the left than the right of the political spectrum.

Perhaps it is better to just
  1. legislate with regard to forestry, surely the Indonesian, and Congolese army are capable of massacring, sorry policing the logging industry for a suitable payment. They might actually enjoy it! You can’t hide a deforested area.
  2. ensure any power stations being built are situated near storage strata and can be retrofitted for carbon capture and
  3. legislate for efficiency in homes and industry, this will improve energy security as well
Click to expand...
Wll,... I'm with you on this one.

It's all very airy fairy, yep,... we do have the theoretical knowledge. Putting it into practice in a manner that will not cost the earth (no pun intended) will be a completely different matter.

Countries like Brazil, Borneo and Indonesia will be a problem. The only way it will work in Inonesia is if we can set it up so the officials can make it into a personal cash cow for their exclusive use.
 
senojekips said:
Wll,... I'm with you on this one.

It's all very airy fairy, yep,... we do have the theoretical knowledge. Putting it into practice in a manner that will not cost the earth (no pun intended) will be a completely different matter.

Countries like Brazil, Borneo and Indonesia will be a problem. The only way it will work in Inonesia is if we can set it up so the officials can make it into a personal cash cow for their exclusive use.
Click to expand...

hate to be nit picky but Borneo is actually an island in the Indonesian archipelago owned by Malaysia, (provinces of Sarawak and sabah) Brunei, and Indonesia (known to them as kalimantan)...

and the major deforestation in Borneo is occurring so that officials (often from the army) can set up cash crops and i wouldn't trust them on policing their retirement fund...
 
Last edited:
and the major deforestation in Borneo is occurring so that officials (often from the army) can set up cash crops...
Click to expand...

Well that was another reason for having carbon market in some form, if the price being paid on maintaining the forest is greater than the profits from the crop, that is what they will do.
 
As much as I do not agree with his his climate change arguments I do agree with his argument that not enough "real" science is being taught these days, there is too much focus on social topics and not enough hands on study being done.

A lot of the graduates we are receiving these days seem to be crammed full of theory with little practical ability, as part of the pre-employment we give people a "Perkins" test (William Perkins discovered how to synthesize reagents to make a cheap purple dye) and almost none of them figure out why they can not get it to work, which is funny as almost every Lab Tech we get figures it out in minutes.
 
Volcanoes, on land and especially beneath the oceans where they are pushing the continents apart at about the rate your finger nailsgrow, produce by far the greatest amounts of CO2.
Click to expand...

Aaaaaargh! you will do yourself serious damage reading this stuff. Such people should be made to publically apologise and retract such ignorant remarks or face legal charges. The blatent lies such as the above cannot be be allowed to continue! Does this guy seriously think there is such a conspiracy that the IPCC would just ignore this if it was remotely true. It is incredible, he should be removed from teaching children.

Del Boy please re-use any other Express newspapers before you read them in place of your bog roll.
 
Last edited:
Ahh yes Perseus, demonise the messenger. In fact, as you should know, he is a widely respected figure.

Before defaming him, you should rather try to tell us where and why he is wrong; you challenge one point only, and without countering it. Do you not challenge any other of his many points? Do you have his qualifications?

We all now know how the IPCC deals with scientific content so selectively, and suppresses such info as it thinks fit. The cloth is cut to fit!

This is precisely why the questioners of this new faith religion are complaining that they get stoned as soon as they speak up. You seek to stone me just for reading a perfectly acceptable and a most popular newspaper in England. Here is another careful comment, for example; read and learn. You cannot defame the writer, he is of the finest quality, he and I attended the same school!:-



http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/144272


And while we are at it, you should try not to demonise our great free press in this way, just because certain points of view do not align with your own. Tell me why The Express is not worthy of reading, in your opinion; justify your attack. Obviously you are unaware that newspapers are now on line, judging by your crudity.

Address the arguments, and challenge them with proper back-up. Do not tell me what I should read; when I need patronising by censorship I will advise you of such.

OK? HAPPY XMAS.
 
Last edited:
Del Boy said:
Ahh yes Perseus, demonise the messenger. In fact, as you should know, he is a widely respected figure.

Before defaming him, you should rather try to tell us where and why he is wrong; you challenge one point only, and without countering it. Do you not challenge any other of his many points? Do you have his qualifications?
Click to expand...

As I have pointed out before I agree with his argument over the quality of education regarding science but I agree with Perseus on the rest of his message.

I think what starts to get people wound up though is the continued use of discredited information (In this case volcanic emissions) as fact and I understand the frustration over this as it has gone from unknowingly using incorrect information to the deliberate use of incorrect information (unless of course you believe in this giant scientific conspiracy that has existed unexposed since the mid-1800s).

Here is a pretty straight forward explanation of volcanic output (from Hawaii one giant volcano).

http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/volcano/

Clearly volcanic output is being monitored (both land and sub-sea) and has been determined a minimal factor in the production of CO2.

Volcano observatories and researchers have measured volcanic CO2 emissions for many years as way to understand how volcanoes work and what makes them erupt. All of these data have been gathered in a few studies to estimate how much CO2 is produced, on average, by Earth's volcanoes. The answer is about 200 million tons annually.

This may seem like a huge amount of CO2, but a visit to the U.S. Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) Web site (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/) helps anyone armed with a handheld calculator and a high school chemistry text put volcanic CO2 emissions into perspective. Compared to global fossil fuel CO2 emissions, which tipped the scales at 30,000 million (30 billion) tons in 2006, volcanic CO2 is less than 1 percent of the amount produced by human activity.
Click to expand...
 
The point I am trying to make is that sceptics should be permitted to voice their contribution without fear of death by stoning. And these should come from all variations of opinion, the subject should not yet be a closed book. I do not want to see an orgy of corruption and fortune hunting globally, we have enough of a mess already. It is possible that we might destroy the progress civilisation has so far achieved, simply by being led by the nose up a dead end, and losing so many freedoms in the process.

As I said to Perseus, picking out one point hardly a response to the article as a whole; there are many issues therein, and especially regarding ther nature of the political responses we see being piled up. At least Monty B addresses his point effectively, and I take that on board as one cosideration.

As my title indicated, this is how the responses work in reality:-


http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/147520/Traders-who-will-make-a-mint-out-of-global-warming

This is the big game now. Dive in boys - fill your boots. Money for nothing and the chicks for free.:pirate:
 
Last edited:
Del Boy said:
The point I am trying to make is that sceptics should be permitted to voice their contribution without fear of death by stoning. And these should come from all variations of opinion, the subject should not yet be a closed book.
Click to expand...
It is only closed in the minds of the Global Warming faddists. As yet, by and large, they will not even admit that it looks more like Climate Change than actual "global warming", because if they did so, they would then perhaps have to admit that it is no more than a process that has been going on since the earth was formed,.... and there are no research grants or personal glory in that. That would effectively kill the cash cow and 3/4 of the worlds climatologists would be jockeying for jobs as checkout clerks at supermarkets all around the world.
 
Last edited:
Del Boy said:
The point I am trying to make is that sceptics should be permitted to voice their contribution without fear of death by stoning. And these should come from all variations of opinion, the subject should not yet be a closed book.
Click to expand...

I don't have a problem with "skeptics" as long as they are bringing fresh material to the table but the problem is that a lot of the material being used is not only " out of date" it is also just plain incorrect.

The example used here is the "volcano's are pumping out more CO2 than man ever could" argument which has been proven incorrect from various sources over and over again and yet sure as eggs out trots the next guy with the same statement, after a while it just becomes frustrating no one can make any progress while people cling to these witch trials.

So I agree people should be able to state their cases without fear but there should also be a requirement to prove their case.
 
The point I am trying to make is that sceptics should be permitted to voice their contribution without fear of death by stoning.
Click to expand...

This is precisely why the public think that major bodies of climate scientists disagree, and why scientists have been brought into disripute by the media misrepresenting Email messages. The media is immensely powerful and can drive public opinion.

Why am I not allowed to deflammatory remarks about an individual, whilst can virtually sabotage the planet using lies?

Would you be happy to give Holocaust deniers equal time, with those who have examined the evidence? Do you denounce the latter as a Jewish conspiracy?

Why not allow the the tobacco industry to claim that a 'pack a day keeps the Doctor away' (no doubt they would win the court case because doctors don't attend dead people!)

You have to consider what freedom really means, the freedom to allow powerful lobbies to mislead the public, or the freedom to prosecute liars for endangering the public.
 
Last edited:
MontyB said:
I don't have a problem with "skeptics" as long as they are bringing fresh material to the table but the problem is that a lot of the material being used is not only " out of date" it is also just plain incorrect.

The example used here is the "volcano's are pumping out more CO2 than man ever could" argument which has been proven incorrect from various sources over and over again and yet sure as eggs out trots the next guy with the same statement, after a while it just becomes frustrating no one can make any progress while people cling to these witch trials.

So I agree people should be able to state their cases without fear but there should also be a requirement to prove their case.
Click to expand...


Take your point, but the proving is necessary on both sides, and this is precisely the nature of the argument and even scientists are divided. on the issue. Remember that here still only one point of Ball's whole article has been picked up on by both yourself and Perseus, that hardly demonstrates a counter; I am currently looking into the volcano issue personally in the light of your response. But I am striving to avoid a '30 pager'.

I say that because it seems to me that the argument is still relevant, indeed it is not a closed book yet. Proof is the search, unobtainable without questioning ; no-one wants to create a whole empire built on south sea bubble foundations, at tremendous cost to the world, and with enormous reward to the political class, powerwise and financially.

I will refrain from taking umbrage at the nature of Perseus' latest contribution, although it represents exactly the attitude which makes sceptics determined that the book is not yet closed, and reminiscent of a religious fervour. He obviously is not reading my latest carbon trading links, or he would discontinue seperating big business from politics and self-interest in this matter. He seems reluctant to actually challenge the balance of points made, this 'denier' accusation is disgusting, to be frank; we are not talking history, but a current debate. If I was not currently a questioner, I certainly would become one having seen his last post.

What has he to say re. the details of my last Carbon Traders fortune makers link. Nothing. He did not challenge or even mention it.

Here it is:-


http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/147520/Traders-who-will-make-a-mint-out-of-global-warming

This is the big game now.

Edit:
Hold the front page. 23 Dec 09 - Global Warming Alert - latest bulletin - Britain today is colder than Alaska - In Scotland the great River Clyde is freezing over. Brrrr - and I'm not kidding!
 
Last edited:
Does this mean gas is going up again?
Oh and where the hell is my alt energy I was promised?

Face it what ever they do what ever they say whoever does it or whoever says it somebody is gonna make millions off of it.

Climate change and energy is the same
 
I thought I'd responded to your link Del-boy. I've certainly read it.

There are not two opposing factions, but three in the AGW issue

The Deniers: a combination of the ignorant, corrupt and selfish who aren't really interested in anything but money and making one country richer at the expense of others. They will bend the law, distort evidence or bribe anyone to achieve their objectives. The US Republicans unashamedly represent this group as well as the right wing media, Fox, Express, Mail etc

The sustainable growth merchants. This probably encompass most of the mainstream parties in Europe and the Democrats in the US. Here they use the economic system essentially capitalism to solve the problems, by creating carbon markets by encouraging innovation in the private sector etc. Their mantra is that expansion can happen, green jobs can be created. It all sounds highly palatable, not too radical and politically achievable. Yes there will be financial winners isn't that the cost of capitalism? Unfortunately the numbers just don't add up, how can you economically expand and reduce the life blood of the economy carbon? It is a fantasy unless someone comes up with a technical fix, which is just possible, and will be to the horror of the eco-socialists.

The Ecologists/Greens/eco-socialists most scientists: These admit we don't only need to reduce carbon but also economic growth since low carbon technologies cannot solve the problem alone. These groups advocate large cuts in carbon use and substantial rises in prices to subsidise green technologies. It is exactly what Deniers fear most, that environmentalism will be taken seriously. However, although it is scientifically sound, it is politically unpalatable and few will get voted in an election. People are just too greedy to be realistic. This group hates most economic instruments as much as the Deniers, they see the Rich as being the main perpetrators through extravagance, and they would really agree with the Deniers that carbon trading is a scam.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top