Cap and trade carbon credits? Another wacky liberal idea!

Wyldgusechaz

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As I read somewhere cap and trade is like 2 people dieting at Weight Watchers and one gets to eat the others unused calorie portions. How does that cut carbon use?

And if we implement them in America unilaterally won't carbon intensive industries/capital simply move to less onerous more carbon friendly countries? Why cripple American industry if China/Korea/Brazil refuses to cut its carbon use?

This is some really nutty shit.
 

jason_els

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It is stupid if other major industrialized nations won't cooperate. I'll agree with you right there.

If they do cooperate, however, then it may not be a bad idea. The weight analogy really doesn't hold in this instance. There are X number of carbon units the world can have and if an un or low industrialized country doesn't need all their credits, then the richer countries can buy them from the low industrialized nations. So long as the cap isn't surpassed, then it would work. Getting the world to cooperate with this, even assuming that nations would shut-down industries to comply with their caps, is going to be close to impossible.

I would suggest creating world trade standards for environmentally-friendly industry instead. Create certification programs and for any industries over a certain size, make that certification necessary for export and import permits, tax credits, and other economically-attractive incentives for industries to want to comply. If you build it, then it has to be (at least somewhat) green. Onerous restrictions are a joke and people will find ways around them. If you make compliance attractive to the bottom line, even a little, then you'll have businesses scrambling to comply and achieve the goal of the original intent.
 

thadjock

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the only reason the republicans don't like cap n trade is because

it will cost them a fortune to buy enough carbon offsets for all the gas that comes out of rush limbaugh's holes.

rush limbaugh's carbon footprint = 2/3 of africa, china, and india combined.
 

jason_els

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the only reason the republicans don't like cap n trade is because

it will cost them a fortune to buy enough carbon offsets for all the gas that comes out of rush limbaugh's holes.

rush limbaugh's carbon footprint = 2/3 of africa, china, and india combined.

Since when do politicians pay for anything themselves? They'll just charge it to the public.
 

TurkeyWithaSunburn

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Didn't cap and trade help reduce acid rain?
Acid rain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Emissions trading - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

How is cap and trade a liberal idea? Any proof? Any elaboration? Or are liberals to blame for everything that is wrong in the world?:rolleyes:

Wiki article:
Thus, in theory, those that can easily reduce emissions most cheaply will do so, achieving the pollution reduction at the lowest possible cost to society.
^ Montgomery, W.D. "Markets in Licenses and Efficient Pollution Control Programs." Journal of Economic Theory 5 (Dec 1972):395-418

Gee, sounds freemarket neo-con to me. Didn't Enron love those unregulated markets?