AL GORE
Posted on 10/11/2007 5:43:26 PM PDT by COUNTrecount
The Nobel peace prize committee continue to debase themselves. Yassir, Jimmy, and Al are utter jokes and failures.
And when Gore and his company are indicted for securities fraud for their “carbon offsets” swindle, then what?
http://www.greenbiz.com/news/reviews_third.cfm?NewsID=34085
Gore doesn’t really have anything to do with the carbon markets. Richard Sandor is the master mind behind the whole system. Gore may be an idiot, but Sandor is brilliant. The climate exchange will be tremendously successful, as his other ventures have been.
Everybody out there clap for Tinkerbelle!
This is a demonstration that this particular prize doesn’t mean anything. Although Gore has been fairly peaceful lately.
Ponzi was quite brilliant as well. That didn’t make him any less of a criminal, however. The whole carbon market scheme takes money from people and it invests them in companies with the promise that this investment is taking away carbon from the environment. Unfortunately, many of these companies are merely startups that have yet to produce any kind of service or product. Of those that do have a product or service, many of them offer reduction schemes that just don’t work. That’s fraud. If people want to invest in innovative companies that are trying to save the planet, so be it. But selling them absolution for their own carbon usage and delivering no real benefit to the environment is clear cut fraud. Yes, it’s a brilliant scheme. But brilliant doesn’t mean it’s ethical or legal.
Wouldn’t it drop dead hilarious if Pat Buchanan won instead?
The butterfly ballot strikes again!
Yasser Arafat
Kofi Annan
Jimmy Carter
Mohamed ElBaradei
Gore would fit into that club like olive oil at an Italian restaurant.
If that irresponsible idiot wins the Nobel Peace Prize, I will lose any respect I had for the Nobel committee. The prize, needless to say, will be cheapened and trivialized by bestowing it on Algore.
God bless him. He certainly has been trying his best and sacrificing his all in an effort to save humanity. Now, where did I leave my damn walker?
and the status and glory one used to get from winning it will be diminished greatly
I think you need to check out the actual carbon markets. I don’t think your assessment in entirely accurate, although it might have been in the earlier stages. There are now fairly rigid requirements on the allocation of carbon credits, and there is also a greater amount of data. Keeping in mind that the participation is voluntary, I find it to be a good conservative approach to the problem.
And Tipper is so overwhelmed with such spontaneous passion, they look about as hot as a couple of Fundamentalists going at it - imagine her shock as she is accosted for a public display of what apparently does not occur at any other time of their lives! Right up there on the sincerity chart with Al’s other profound pratfalls: wartime heroics, inventing the internet, donning tight jeans, talking underwear with students, bogus environmental scam, the audacious fun never stops, THANKS AL! Given Al Gore’s boldness, craftiness, sensitivity, and timing, it’s easy to see how he beats Rush Limbaugh’s shtick of merely reporting mundane facts and truth, and further exemplifies the world’s hunger for more of the same.
By the way, Richard Sandor is quite ethical. His markets although they are very risky, provide a good investment choice for the speculative.
Yes, at the very least it is market based and I initially thought it was a good idea. However, I have come to realize that selling carbon offsets is like a doctor who treats a cancer patient with nothing more than painkillers. The patient feels better but the problem remains. Actually, more accurately, it's like a doctor prescribing placebos for the cancer patient but tells him or her its a painkiller. It might help them feel better but it probably won't and the patient will still die of their untreated cancer. The doctor has presented the placebo as a solution to the cancer but it doesn't even address the illness. That, in my book, market based or not, is fraud.
The other example that comes to mind (and I can have quite the trivial mind) is Wile E. Coyote's little umbrella. In the cartoons, he whips out this tiny umbrella for protection just before he's about to be crushed by a huge rock. He thinks it's supposed to help, but it doesn't. It can't. With carbon offsets, you may as well be the Acme Company selling tiny umbrellas to boulder imperiled coyotes.
I am not sure why you think there are carbon credits being issued by start up companies. My understanding is that the carbon credits are issued to companies who have voluntarily agreed to meet pre-determined levels of emissions, which are monitored by pre-determined data collection and testing. Companies emitting less than their goal will receive carbon credits. Companies failing to meet their goal must purchase the credits through the market. Individuals, like Al Gore, purchase the credits through the market to offset their carbon emissions, but have little to do with the actual market.
Some companies may be installing equipment or pollution limiting equipment that isn’t fully tested or isn’t really a solution, but their credits are based upon actual emission data and not the method they are using to control the emissions.
Like I said earlier, participation is voluntary. It is a market approach to solve a problem. Whether global warming is man made or not, air quality is an important concern for all of us. I am all for a voluntary, market based approach, which at the very least, gives us less junk in the air.
Reality is that Al Gore uses the carbon markets, but isn’t nearly smart enough to have created such a system. He really has nothing to do with it. Just because he buys carbon credits doesn’t make the entire market bad.
Emissions from Virgin's limousine journeys could amount to a few hundred trees annually. But sustainable transport activists have pointed out that this would barely be a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of harmful pollution caused by the airline's fleet of 33 aircraft.
According to the government's formula, each kilometer traveled by an airline passenger on a long-haul flight accounts for 0.11kg of carbon dioxide. The Guardian has established that offsetting Virgin Atlantic's entire annual flight operation would involve planting 59m trees - which, according to the Forestry Commission, would cover 64,700 hectares (159,877 acres)- the size of a large Highland estate, or an area slightly smaller than the New Forest.
Click here for the entire story.
This from an site calling itself Carbon-info.org:
Carbon-info.org has produced a simple simulation that clearly proves this point. The model makes a number of best-case assumptions, which is explained in the following:
* 100% of all trees planted survives.
* That 1 tree over a 100 year period will absorb ~1100 Kg of CO2 from the Atmosphere. This is based on offset company claims and international research by the University of Florida, which states that an acre of young growing trees (~400 trees) can absorb 5000 Kg of CO2 per year. Our model also takes into account that a mature tree only absorbs 7.5 kg of CO2 per year, while a young and actively growing tree can absorb 13 kg+ of CO2 per year.
* That there is no growth or reduction in annual CO2 emissions each year either due to economical expansion or new low carbon technologies respectively. (This is a big assumption, as UK economic growth continues to increase CO2 emissions each year)
Click here for the entire story.
And finally this from the New York Times:
At this rate, environmentalists say, buying someone else’s squelched emissions is all but insignificant.
“The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences back before the Reformation,” said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group. “Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins.”
“This whole game is badly in need of a modern Martin Luther,” Mr. Hayes added.
Some environmental campaigners defend this marketplace as a legitimate, if imperfect, way to support an environmental ethic and political movement, even if the numbers don’t all add up.
Click here for the entire story.
So, even environmentalists disagree on the effectiveness of such offset programs. As for the startups, one carbon offset that you are able to purchase is basically an investment in a new company that has an idea (no marketable product, mind you) on how to solve Global Warming. The idea is not necessarily a bad one but since most startups go under within a short period of time, their usefulness as a long-term carbon offset is extremely dubious.
Do a Google search on carbon offsets and carbon neutral programs. It's a lot bigger and more underhanded than you think. There are even programs available for offsetters to purchase, that try to keep people in third-world nations from using advanced technology (like air-conditioning, computers, irrigation and some farm equipment, etc.) so their energy consumption and therefore their carbon emissions won't go up.
And all of this intended, basically, to keep people like Al Gore and his Hollywood buddies flying in their private planes and driving their fleet of SUVs. They offset, others sacrifice. Oh, and by the way, offsetting may be voluntary right now, but if you look at what they're saying to each other, voluntary is not enough. They want mandatory restrictions and sooner rather than later. They have even suggested limitations on how many miles an individual can travel in a year. That is not market based. That is pure socialism.
These stories you post are not part of the actual carbon market. They sound like more of a black market.
The Chicago Climate exchange is the real carbon offset market. It is highly regulated and fits well with a voluntary free market solution. This is the market that Al Gore buys carbon offsets from, and there is nothing fraudulent about it. It is just like buying pork futures or oil futures. (I don’t mean to use Al Gore as a positive here, only to explain) Do some research if you don’t believe me. http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/
Here's Wikipedia's explanation of the difference between the two:
Carbon offsetting is the act of mitigating ("offsetting") greenhouse gas emissions. A well-known example is the purchasing of offsets to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from personal air travel.
The idea of paying for emission reductions elsewhere instead of reducing one's own emissions is known from the closely related concept of emissions trading. However, in contrast to emissions trading, which is regulated by a strict formal and legal framework, carbon offsets generally refer to voluntary acts by individuals or companies that are arranged by commercial or not-for-profit carbon-offset providers. Nonetheless some formal standards for voluntary carbon offsets are emerging.
A wide variety of offset methods are in use — while tree planting was initially a mainstay of carbon offsetting, renewable energy, energy conservation and methane capture offsets have now become increasingly popular. Purchase and withdrawal of emissions trading credits is also seen, creating a connection between the voluntary and regulated carbon markets.
The offsets market is the one that is going to collapse on itself. It's a giant Ponzi scheme and many environmentalists know this and are very nervous about it as my former post mentioned. The emissions market is regulated, as you said, thus the danger of a collapse in the market is greatly reduced. Offsetting, however, is, to this point, almost entirely lawless with anyone able to make just about any claim they want about their idea/product/service. That's why I was talking about fraud. The entire offset market is a target rich environment for fraudsters and it will come crashing down sooner or later.
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