The currency is money (what else is new?). A cap-and-trade system allows a polluter to continue poisoning the air, water and/or soil by shelling out a few dollars to a company that's coming in under prescribed emission limits. It's a bad system because (a) is sends the message "Sure, you can shirk your responsibility if you can pop the bucks for it, and (b) as near as I can tell, it does not take into account the differences in air, water or soil conditions that affect how well a particular locality or region can absorb carbon or a carbon compound without suffering irreparable environmental damage.

Case in point: when California lawmakers enacted a cap-and-trade system, they envisioned interstate and even international bucks-for-credits swaps. You might recall that the bill drew loud applause from leading Democrats, Republicans and the likes of PG&E; that in itself is reason to distrust it.

If we're going to have a cap-and-trade system, yes, we want transparency requirements for it. Better, though, to enact a system that will require everyone to contribute to reducing emissions of carbon and other pollutants.

Also worth remembering is that DiFi did radio ads opposing the public-power initiative (Prop. D) in 2002.

Best,
Rick

"BIG government isn't the problem.
SECRET government is the problem."


Don Eichelberger wrote: 
The following is from a letter I just got from Dianne Feinstein:

  
It may also interest you to know that on December 6, 2007, I 
introduced the "Emission Allowance Market Transparency Act," which 
establishes federal oversight for new carbon emissions trading 
markets. This legislation is designed to prevent fraud and 
manipulation in the greenhouse gas credit markets that are expected 
to develop once Congress approves comprehensive climate change 
legislation with a cap-and-trade system for the trading of emissions 
credits. Specifically, the "Emission Allowance Market Transparency 
Act" requires the Environmental Protection Agency to create a 
regulatory structure to oversee the new carbon credit markets.
    


Is establishing a Carbon Trading Market an efficient way of reducing 
carbon use?  I would agree with setting up a mechanism for carbon 
users to pay in to a fund whose purpose would be to invest in 
technologies and conservation to cut carbon emissions.

But, I fear making carbon a market player will prove a disincentive 
for setting serious carbon emission limits needed to help defuse 
global warming.  And, what will the currency be?

I can easily envision Kennicott Coal paying off its obligations as a 
carbon producer by investing in palm oil plantations in Indonesia, or 
am I misunderstanding?

Who has answers?

Don



Don Eichelberger
DJ Fix Independent Productions

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The Hegelian/Marxist goal is emancipation.  Marx said it best in 1843:

"Human emancipation wll only be complete when the real, individual 
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individual man, in his every day life, in his work and in his 
relationships, he has become a species-being (politically accountabe 
to the whole); and when he recognizes and realizes his own power as 
social powers, so that he no  longer separates this social power from 
himself as political power."

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