Cargon Offsets for us?
07-18-07, 10:48 AM
#26
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One of the things Enron was working on when they blew up was privatizing and monetizing water rights, world wide. That's still an ongoing project in financial circles. I don't think you misunderstand anything. I'm just giving you a little glimpse of what might be taking place backstage. Someone will come along in a few minutes to tell you, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
In her book, Blue Gold, Maude Barlow brings the focus on this issue a bit closer:
"The privatization of municipal water services has a terrible record that is well documented. Customer rates are doubled or tripled; corporate profits rise as much as 700 percent; corruption and bribery are rampant; water quality standards drop, sometimes dramatically; overuse is promoted to make money; and customers who can't pay are cut off... When privatization hits the Third World, those who can't pay will die."
07-18-07, 12:21 PM
#27
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OK, so they're trying to monetize "less carbon in the atmosphere" and apparently already have partially accomplished this. So, it is only fair that there is now some extra cash value in the carbon we car free people are keeping out of the atmosphere. If carbon dioxide is fungible it's fungible. Do we car free have to organize, form some sort of corporation, in order to slurp up some of this gravy? I read of some corporation that is going to make money spreading iron dust in the pacific in some sort of carbon offset scheme. Is that any more strange than some yuppie paying a car free person by the mile to offset some SUV use? Somethings not right if atmospheric carbon is only fungible for some privileged transactions but not all.
07-18-07, 01:37 PM
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Through a fortunate accident you may now potentially be the owner of a federal trademark for Cargon Carbon Offsets. Maybe buy an ad here on BF, keep proof of the date of publication and that it was seen in more than one state, and you can probably nail it down. As for whether that's a successful business model, who knows?
07-18-07, 10:25 PM
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It does help some. Carbon is stored in the woody material of the tree. Some in the leaves. In the case of some trees, it can be stored for hundreds of years (the life of the tree). Also, the tree can be harvested and used as a product which can store carbon even longer. for example, the wood floors of my house are 100 years old. Bunch of carbon stored in them as well as the frame. The downside of these "plant a tree get a carbon offset" programs is that it takes a long time for a sapling to become a tree. I don't know what kind of credit you get for one tree but it shouldn't be much if they're just planting saplings. Mature trees do provide shade which reduces energy consumption which should be considered also if the trees are planted in suburban/urban settings.
