[Terrapreta] Fwd: Fwd: Global Carbon Cycle

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Tom

Thanks for the references.

Tom Miles wrote:
> See wikipedia for Carbon Credits
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_credit

This one opens with:
"Carbon credits are a tradable permit scheme. They provide a way to 
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by giving them a monetary value. A 
credit gives the owner the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide."

This states clearly that carbon credits are simply a right to emit more 
CO2. They would only reduce Carbon levels in the Biosphere if people 
bought them, and did not use them.

The article goes on to state:
"By way of example, assume a factory produces 100,000 tonnes of 
greenhouse emissions in a year. The government then enacts a law that 
limits the maximum emissions a business can have. So the factory is 
given a quota of say 80,000 tonnes. The factory either reduces its 
emissions to 80,000 tonnes or is required to purchase carbon credits to 
offset the excess."

Referring to the above, if a Country mandates that a given Business must 
cut its CO2 emissions to 80,000 tonnes, it makes a true saving of 20,000 
tonnes CO2. Instead of allowing the company to buy Carbon Credits which 
they consume and put their pollution level back up to 100,000 tonnes, 
why not freeze total emissions at 80,000 tonnes? That way there would be 
a real benefit. There is only a real benefit when fossil fuel remains 
unburned.

Carbon credits as they are now are clearly a "license to pollute".

The article further indicates:
"So, for this factory it might pollute a tonne, but is essentially now 
paying another group to go out and plant trees which will, say, draw a 
tonne of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."

This statement glibly assumes that there is area for young trees to grow 
and take CO2 from the atmosphere. The fatal flaw here is that the trees 
for the most part only grow in areas that were previously harvested. At 
the best, they temporarily sequester carbon until the trees mature and 
are again harvested. At that time, if the wood is used for fuel, then 
all the sequestered carbon is released in a short period of time. If 
they are not harvested, tehy die and rot anyway. If it is put into Terra 
Preta, it is virtually permanently sequestered, and if put into 
buildings, it is good for perhaps 20 to 200 years.
> 
> and 
> 
> Personal Carbon Trading
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_carbon_trading
>
The last paragraph of this article is very telling:
"The current carbon trading market has also been criticized as an 
unregulated activity that has questionable results to actually offset or 
reduce carbon emissions. It is quite possible to spend money investing 
in carbon credits that do not exist. At this time it is important to 
research the company you have business dealings with since there is no 
governmental body that checks for you. [1]

That looks very much like Carbon Trading has great scam potential

At any rate, I think that the "Personal Carbon Allowance" is "the thin 
edge of a good wedge." It is basically a Fuel Rationing System on a 
personal level. If it was expanded to include Industry, then it would be 
able to get the problem of excessive C additions to the Biosphere under 
control.

Once a Country was assigned a fossil carbon allowance, it could 
distribute it to the Country in the most advantageous manner. One 
industry might be able to create $10,000 of wealth with a tonne of 
carbon, and another might be able to create $15,000 with teh same tonne 
of fossil carbon. Obviously, the second Company should get the carbon. A 
lot of big oxen would get gored, and thats where Politics and favoritism 
would come into play in a large way.

One could define "Gored" as "To suffer a loss in Corporate Profits as a 
result of an Inconvenient Truth." ;-)

Best wishes,

Kevin