Thursday, April 26, 2007

Carbon Credits - It's All About Feeling Good

Way back when (1962), the Diefenbaker-led Conservatives devalued the Canadian dollar from par to 92.5 cents US. The Liberals (who later let the dollar float down to around 70 cents) ridiculed the action, and came out with a piece of funny-money called the Diefendollar -- it was only worth 92.5 cents!

See a Diefendollar at --

http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/fr/collection/artefacts/M999.66.1.2

Carbon-offset credits remind me of the Diefendollar. They are funny-money, subject to corruption, waste, graft, dishonesty, and deception. So, naturally, the left supports them. (And, apparently, Al Gore stands to profit from them.)

Not-then PM Harper was right about carbon offsets. Every dollar spent on carbon offsets is a dollar wasted, and a drain on wealth-producing nations. They don't actually reduce carbon emissions in developed countries, they just make us feel good.

As the feel-good Liberals made clear with their self-congratulatory passing of Kyoto (followed by... nothing), western actions on global warming are largely about self-congratulatory appearance rather than substance.

Compliant and complacent feel-good populaces will be content to be told that Kyoto targets are being reached, regardless of the actual effect on global warming, which, if Kyoto succeeds, will range from miniscule to infinitessimal.

Sound do-good pollution-curbing measures can be supported by all, but C02 is not a pollutant, and this is not just dumb, it's scary.

And that's the way the Ball bounces.

No comments:

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"