C02 and why Carbon Trading won’t work

By Dark Politricks

With fallout from the recent climategate scandal still being felt across the global landscape it’s worth looking at one of the main ideas that those proponents of Anthropogenic Global Warming have put forward as a reason for the warming which is an increase in C02 levels. The level of C02 is measured in parts per million and the CO2 levels in pre-industrial times were around 278 ppm. The levels we currently have are 385 ppm an increase of roughly 40%.

Now this may seem like a large increase but we are talking about parts per million here which means when we talk about a level of 278 ppm that meant 99.9722% of all gasses in the atmosphere were NOT C02 and we have moved down to 99.9615% of total gasses which is total increase in overall gas levels of 0.0107%.

Now I am not a scientist but I can do basic maths and apply logic to a given situation and I cannot see how this minuscule rise in C02 levels is the single factor that underpins the whole climate change crisis. Looking back over historical levels of CO2 we can see that in fact we are living in a period of historically low CO2 levels and that we have successfully survived levels of up to 6000 ppm going back a few million years.

This period of our earth’s history was one in which the whole planet was populated with many life forms and in fact it corresponds with the time in our planets history, the Cambrian period, when all the major life forms suddenly appeared on the scene. Could it be that the relatively high CO2 levels of that time were a contributory factor in this major evolutionary period? It certainly suggests that high levels of C02 were not detrimental to life on this planet and when we look at the current levels of C02 in relation to this period the rise of 0.0107% seems very insignificant in relation.

CO2 seems to be a very odd compound to pick on as the evil that must be combated if we are to save our planet seeing that its required by living organisms to survive. The fact that humans inhale oxygen and breathe out C02 means that the subtext behind this campaign to reduce C02 is that we humans just by living are contributing to the earth’s slow death.

There is a debate amongst climatologists about whether temperature drives C02 levels or whether its the other way round. Al Gore famously showed in his film a graph that seemed to suggest that temperatures were driven by C02 levels however many scientists believe its more complex than that. Temperatures rise which then increases C02 which in turn helps trap more heat in the atmosphere which then helps drive the temperature up even more. Which ever way this chicken and egg scenario actually plays out doesn’t really matter in the politicised world of AGW as the environmental message has now been hijacked by big business and is now nothing more than a marketing tool aimed at eco conscious consumers to be used as a way to make more money.

This recent article by James Corbett asks all true environmentalists to look in the mirror and decide whether you are happy about being on the side of big business as the core values that you believed in have been taken and twisted and sold back to you.

We can begin to concentrate on the serious questions that need to be asked about the genetic engineering technology whereby hybrid organisms and new, never-before-seen proteins that are being released into the biosphere in a giant, uncontrolled experiment that threatens the very genome of life on this planet.

We can look into the environmental causes of the explosion in cancer and the staggering drops in fertility over the last 50 years, including the BPA in our plastics and the anti-androgens in the water.

We can examine regulatory agencies that are controlled by the very corporations they are supposedly watching over.

We can begin focusing on depleted uranium and the dumping of toxic waste into the rivers and all of the issues that we once knew were part of the mandate of the real environmental movement.

Or we can, as some have, descend into petty partisan politics. We can decide that lies are OK if they support ‘our’ side. We can defend the reprehensible actions of the CRU researchers and rally around the green flag that has long since been captured by the enemy.

One of the many solutions proposed by big business to solve the problem of excess CO2 in our atmosphere is the idea of carbon credits. Many politicians, scientists and commentators have even proposed that each individual person be given a yearly carbon allowance which they can use to carry out activities such as flying, driving and other carbon emitting activities. If you were to go over your limit you would be faced with a fine or carbon tax. For those people who could afford to there would be the opportunity to buy credits from those people who didn’t use there full allowance.

These carbon trading schemes are doomed to failure as they would not actually solve the problem of reducing carbon emitting activities as those people who could afford it would just pay the money and then carry on as before without changing their behaviour. The only people who will benefit will be those that run these carbon trading schemes, people like Al Gore who have substantial shares in carbon exchange schemes. In fact there are many good reasons why carbon trading is not the answer to anything let alone supposedly high levels of C02 and the site http://www.350reasons.org/ lists 350 of them including:

• “If we put a price on every square inch of air, there are some of us who won’t be able to afford to breathe.” ~ José Bravo, Just Transition Alliance.
• Trade in the carbon market provides a new source of funding for companies that produce large quantities of greenhouse gasses.
• Companies can pass the cost of carbon credits onto consumers, allowing them to pollute at the same profit margin.
• The sulfur dioxide market is often held up as a successful model for the carbon market. What is not told is that it led to pollution hotspots, areas of increased emissions, in majority people-of-color and low-income communities.
• “Cap and trade…is almost perfectly designed for the buying and selling of political support through the granting of valuable emissions permits to favor specific industries and even specific Congressional districts. That is precisely what is taking place now in the House Energy and Commerce Committee…” – New York Times (05/17/09)
• Carbon markets hold carbon credits in reserve as a safety valve. If carbon prices get too high, the market is flooded with these reserve credits, preventing any chances of emission reductions.
• Carbon trading pushes pollution overseas into poorer countries with lower caps
• Emission reductions units, the currency of the carbon trading system, rarely represent actual emission reductions.
• Ratings company IDEAcarbon reports that actual emissions reductions from offset projects are 30% less than promised.

This debate has nothing to do with real environmentalism and we should always be looking after the planet we live on however it seems that even environmentalist organistations are not in favour of the solutions that have been proposed so far to combat climate change. Therefore we are in currently in a situation that should be familiar to everyone who knows how the world really works in that an idea has been hijacked and twisted through bad science and fear mongering to be then taken up by the politicians and big business to be used as a way of generating more revenue from the public.  Hopefully the public is finally seeing this for what it is.