Carbon trading - Anyone explain, yes or no?

[Winston001]

Carbon trading is a cynical scheme by big business to make money out of the whole deal by off loading their crap onto others - mainly the poor schmucks at the bottom of the food chain, like you and me.

I nicked this quote off the Climate Change Swindle thread because it needs separate discussion. I think I understand carbon trading but have my doubts about whether it will really work.

One thing which troubles me is how a tiny island country with only 4 million people could possibly be releasing more carbon than we lock up. NZ is a pretty green (in both senses of the word) place compared with most countries.

[Skyryder]

I nicked this quote off the Climate Change Swindle thread because it needs separate discussion. I think I understand carbon trading but have my doubts about whether it will really work.

One thing which troubles me is how a tiny island country with only 4 million people could possibly be releasing more carbon than we lock up. NZ is a pretty green (in both senses of the word) place compared with most countries.

To be honest I have not looked seriously into carbon trading but those who knock it seem to use it as further proof that Co2 is not causing global warming.

Whether you believe in the 'merits' of carbon trading or not can in no way can be used as a means to dispute the obviouse.


Skyryder

[hellkat]

The whole carbon trading market is a scam for big companies to make more money, for the polluting industries to keep polluting as much as they already are (and possibly more) ... and for the already-stupendously rich to become even richer.

Effectively it works like this:

Say each company that produces harmful carbon emissions gets 100 points.

Little companies who are only pumping out <100 points can't use up all their 100 point 'allowance'.
And the big companies, pumping out loads of carbon, use up their 100 points real quick.

So the big companies get to buy the spare points off the little companies, so that they can keep pumping out the same amount (or more, if they can afford to buy extra credits) of noxious gases as they always did.

And, of course, the agents who trade these spare points get a commission $$

The little company gets money from selling its spare carbon points $$ as well as the money it was originally making from whatever industry it is in $$ (and still could use up more of its points if it wanted, the next year)

The big company keeps making as much mess as it always did, and earning as much money $$.
If it buys more credits, it gets to make more mess than ever, and exponentially more money $$$

And we all keep wondering what its all about, and diligently recycling our scraps of rubbish, paying extra tax for everything, and getting whacked around the head with a big stick about how its all our fault and WTF are we doing to solve it by driving round in our cars and taking trips in those naughty naughty aeroplanes (at twice the cost we need to be paying).

NZ probably is pretty green, a fair bit greener than a lot of other more industrialised countries. But we're human, and prone to being beaten with the 'guilt' stick, cos we are more conscious of our own very beautiful environment.

[hellkat]

oh, I didnt notice the 'swindle' thread
prolly someone else in there has explained it better than me.

Whatever ... its still a rip off moneymaking scheme for those at the top of the food chain.

[Headbanger]

What i want to know....

Cows fart right, which releases gases into the air

To be "carbon neutral" the farmer would need a block of tress to off-set his carbon output...

Why the fuck don't they count grass?, Surely that shit sucks in carbon?, each blade would have the surface area of a leaf, and there are 60 billion trillion blades of grass in a square KM of paddock, and NZ is covered in the shit.

So,.......Why not count the grass?

[hellkat]

Ya, but ze cows eat ze grass, dude.

[Skyryder]

Basicly Carbon trading works where one company trades off its excess credits to another.

I've had a quick look and this link seems the best explanation. It appears that over time governments will reduce the carbon credit. I'm still a bit dubious about all this but on the surface............who knows

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18288820/


Skyryder

[DingoZ]

I'll trade you one carbon credit for one fly buys point.....

(p/t)

[scracha]

I nicked this quote off the Climate Change Swindle thread because it needs separate discussion. I think I understand carbon trading but have my doubts about whether it will really work.

One thing which troubles me is how a tiny island country with only 4 million people could possibly be releasing more carbon than we lock up. NZ is a pretty green (in both senses of the word) place compared with most countries.

Bwhahahahahahahahah. Spend about 5s doing some research before posting such daftness Winson. Per Capita, NZ is one of the filthiest polluters on Earth.

[James Deuce]

Bwhahahahahahahahah. Spend about 5s doing some research before posting such daftness Winson. Per Capita, NZ is one of the filthiest polluters on Earth.

Exactly, and it isn't helped by outsourcing all our manufacturing and assembly industries to countries that don't care about managing the environment AT ALL.

It's like those morons who insist that electric vehicles will reduce carbon emissions. The vehicles are made mostly of plastic and aluminium and require electricity to charge batteries. Electricity that in the short term would have to be generated by burning carbon.

[Jantar]

...One thing which troubles me is how a tiny island country with only 4 million people could possibly be releasing more carbon than we lock up. NZ is a pretty green (in both senses of the word) place compared with most countries.

That is the part where our politicians got it wrong. They, innocently, believed that are green vegetation would count as obsorbing CO2, and hence NZ is a net absorber of carbon.

However, the provisions of kyoto say that it is only trees that count, so that 10 acres of manuka in your back gulley is considered scrub and doesn't count. Then, it is further modified, so that only some trees count, but not others. Our pine forests are good, but only those planted since 1990. Apparently the ones planted prior to that must have a different chemistry as they don't count.

Wind farms count, despite the many thousands of tons of cement used in the installation, but hydro stations don't.

It all adds up to making us a net emitter of CO2 under Kyoto, despite all logic saying we are an absorber.

[Tank]

That is the part where our politicians got it wrong. They, innocently, believed that are green vegetation would count as obsorbing CO2, and hence NZ is a net absorber of carbon.

However, the provisions of kyoto say that it is only trees that count, so that 10 acres of manuka in your back gulley is considered scrub and doesn't count. Then, it is further modified, so that only some trees count, but not others. Our pine forests are good, but only those planted since 1990. Apparently the ones planted prior to that must have a different chemistry as they don't count.

Wind farms count, despite the many thousands of tons of cement used in the installation, but hydro stations don't.

It all adds up to making us a net emitter of CO2 under Kyoto, despite all logic saying we are an absorber.

Please, please tell me in regard to the Hydro and the pre 1990 trees that you are taking the piss?

Our G'ment couldnt be so stupid to sign anything like that right?

Also - Id be keen to know if Nuke energy is counted as 'good' or 'bad' under the Kyoto agreement.

[Jantar]

Please, please tell me in regard to the Hydro and the pre 1990 trees that you are taking the piss?

Our G'ment couldnt be so stupid to sign anything like that right?

Also - Id be keen to know if Nuke energy is counted as 'good' or 'bad' under the Kyoto agreement.

I wish I was taking the piss. But my understanding is that only NEW forests planted since 1990 qualify. New hydro stations may qualify, but only if it can be shown that they are directly replacing fossil fueled generation.

[riffer]

But isn't there a penalty for chopping down all trees planted before 1990 and replanting new trees?

Damned at both ends it seems.

[Drunken Monkey]

But isn't there a penalty for chopping down all trees planted before 1990 and replanting new trees?

Damned at both ends it seems.

It's one of the reasons why the carbon trading scheme reeks.

Real example; my colleague's family owns just under 1000 acres of land up near Whangerei. There's quite a bit of native bush still left on it. It's worthless as carbon credits. If they burn it down then plant pines however, then they suddenly have a tradeable carbon sink.

Tell me why that isn't fucked up!?