[Terrapreta] NZ leading the way

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Michael, Naomi, et al,

Brian Fallows said this in the article you referred, ...  
At present the climate costs of the fossil fuels we burn are not sheeted home to the consumer.

They are diffused over the whole planet and accumulate for the future to deal with. It is a kind of subsidy from poor countries to rich ones and from future generations to the present.

We are choosing the pay later scheme, to the detriment of the poor and our children.

It seems pretty much like Un-Christian behavior, really, to continue to do so, don't you think?  In my catechism, if I remember, Jesus Christ said, "Suffer (take care of) the poor and the children, for they shall inherit the Earth".  To be Christ-like would not be to be too concerned over rising fuel prices.
Since conservation does not reduce consumption of fossil carbon fuel resources and the consequent increased emissions to the atmosphere, then the only real work is to replace fossil fuel carbon energy with another form of energy.  Or, make fossil fuel energy more expensive.
The market forces in the current energy industry allow enormous profits at the expense of many, with no promise for sustainability.

Perhaps the energy industry should be paid for developments into sustainability and taxed heavily on emissions, until they get it right!
The energy industry push for conservation to mitigate climate change is nothing but a profit push.  They intend to sell every last drop of oil and chunk of coal that they can, at ever rising prices too.  The conservation and efficiency gains drive demand and prices up, but they will never reduce total emissions.  It is a "demand side" policy, enacted by corporate monopolies, with avarice as the motive (another mortal sin), and negligence as an additional outcome.

We must change "supply-side" policies, be paternal, magnanimous in blame-taking, and philanthropic in our efforts.  Admit to the ensuing environmental damages and put the "real" cost of fossil carbon consumption into the supply price for fossil fuels.  It will land squarely onto the shoulders of consumers, who should bear the burden of making better or worse choices.  Tax the suppliers and consumers to extract payment for the "real" costs, where those taxes and prices increases can do the most to reduce demand and reduce supplies.

We need to replace the current fossil carbon energy supply with other less-expensive biosphere-based-carbon and non-carbon-based energy resources.  Enact taxation on fossil carbon energy resources until they are more expensive than bio-carbon energy resources.  Subsidize bio-carbon energy resource development with the fossil-carbon tax revenues.  Pay subsides to energy companies that convert from use of fossil carbon to use of bio-carbon.

We need to make "fossil-carbon" a dirty word!  Using it is as bad and self-serving as using a dangerous illegal drug, but with wider and expanding environmental and social consequences.  If we want to rid the world of fossil carbon emissions, then we have to attack the use of fossil carbon energy supplies.  Using a fossil carbon energy source has to come at a price higher than obtaining the energy another way.  Without doing this, then as fossil carbon supplies continue to be consumed, and eventually dwindle out of sight, then prices will soar, demand will yet continue, and emissions will never stop until there is nothing left.

When that is all done, there will be nothing to fall back on.  There will be nothing for the poor or the children of our future to supply the energy they will need.  If we could learn good husbandry of this planet, then it would come best as an everlasting support for sustainability.  It would immediately help the indigent and the children, and we would suffer that they should have a better chance to live.

Regards,

SKB



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Michael Bailes<mailto:michaelangelica at gmail.com> 
  To: Terrapreta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2007 9:51 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] NZ leading the way


  Naomi & list


  On 17/12/2007, naomi luckett <naomiluckett at gmail.com <mailto:naomiluckett at gmail.com>> wrote: 
    News from New Zealand,

    Published today in the New Zealand Herald.

   
  I went looking for that article & found these


  New Zealand Herald <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/index.cfm?unknown=>

------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  Search Results
  Roles focus on charcoal's benefits<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=10482706>
  Sunday, December 16, 2007
  Two professorships at Massey University have won Government funding for
  wide-ranging research of "biochar". Studies overseas have ... 

  Govt funds two professors for research in biochar sector<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=10482324>
  Friday, December 14, 2007
  Two professorships at Massey University have won government funding for
  wide-ranging research of "biochar". Research overseas has ... 

  Brian Fallow: Price signal faint at first but the key to tackling emissions<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=10465025>
  Thursday, September 20, 2007
  ... is crucial both to reducing the country's net emissions in the short to medium term
  and to ensuring there is a plentiful source of biofuels, biochar and green ... 



   


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