The mere fact it's called a "scheme" should tell you something.

Environmental scientists said this in the 1990s. David Suzuki led several months of articulate, strong media-driven campaigning against what the Canadian government was doing to change the Kyoto protocols. The horrible injustice here is that Nature and other media outlets are not simply telling the truth: the carbon schemes are failing exactly the ways that the scientists told us they would. Suzuki, especially, made a big deal out of telling us that the science was totally eliminated from the protocols by the demands of the Reform Party and Conservative Party in Canada. Who knows what other governments did, but it was probably the same.

Carbon offsets = wealth redistribution upward.

Yay, capitalism.

Catsaregreen: The mere fact it's called a "scheme" in the headline should tell you something about subby.

FTFY

FTFA: Like many such programmes around the world, it includes an emissions trading scheme, which allows polluters to meet their emissions reductions targets by buying carbon offsets from a selection of approved projects.

/Not subby.

Benevolent Misanthrope: Holy Fark - people took that whole carbon offset idea seriously? I mean, really - even I saw that there was no way to regulate it, no way to measure emissions, no way to measure offset by those "approved projects"... It's just another snake oil scam at a social level.

Damn, people are stupid.

FTA:

Lax verification for carbon-offset projects has been a problem for several schemes. For the credit-creating projects to be effective at reducing overall greenhouse-gas emissions, the scheme operators are supposed to approve only projects that would otherwise not have gone ahead. The auditor-general criticized the Alberta Department of Environment and Water for allowing carbon credits for emissions-reducing activities that have become common practice.

The Alberta report found a lack of standards for how agricultural credits were verified - not one of the credits the auditors checked could be confirmed. It also pointed out that there was no standardized, accurate method for measuring the emissions from oil-sands tailing ponds, which store contaminated water, clay, sand and bitumen from oil-sands processing.

So the program was badly designed and badly run. There are legitimate arguments against the use of emission credits, but this isn't one of them (although it is another example of politics as usual). This is (also FTA):

Many opponents of emissions trading programmes also argue that companies are likely to purchase carbon offsets instead of reducing emissions by adopting new technologies or changing their operating practices.

common sense is an oxymoron: Catsaregreen: The mere fact it's called a "scheme" in the headline TFA should tell you something about subby my reading skills before breakfast.

FTFYM

Mea culpa.

I can't imagine why the most conservative part of Canada, and the one most dependent on carbon emitting industries, would have a badly run carbon trading system.

common sense is an oxymoron: common sense is an oxymoron: Catsaregreen: The mere fact it's called a "scheme" in the headline TFA should tell you something about subby my reading skills before breakfast.

FTFYM

Mea culpa.

+1

Foxxinnia: I can't imagine why the most conservative part of Canada, and the one most dependent on carbon emitting industries, would have a badly run carbon trading system.

Whole idea is bullshiat, a non-starter. It just creates another derivative security to speculate in and rip off investors with. Actual carbon emissions reduction? virtually zero. When you trade your carbon credits to a firm that needs them, they get to continue polluting the same. If you didn't need them, you weren't polluting much anyway. Nothing changed but the location of some money, and in cases where additional cost cannot be passed on to the consumer, as they almost certainly will with electric utilities, you can hasten deindustrialization by moving to somewhere with no such scheme. Then you can merrily pollute away, and the trade winds will carry all the shiat you spew back to us.

How can you possibly say that it's a failure? Al Gore has made millions from it.

Foxxinnia: I can't imagine why the most conservative part of Canada, and the one most dependent on carbon emitting industries, would have a badly run carbon trading system.

Hey, we're the ones electing chicks and brown people. You guys keep electing fat white people.

its a scam, an extra tax that does nothing except line the pockets of liberal activists and ruin our economies.

As an Albertan let me say...

For every gram of CO2 you don't emit, I'll emit 3.

/Make a living supporting many businesses in Nisku Industrial Park, the largest Industrial Park in North America, dedicated to supporting the oil and gas industry.

Foxxinnia: I can't imagine why the most conservative part of Canada, and the one most dependent on carbon emitting industries, would have a badly run carbon trading system.

The big goal in western Canada is to have lots of CO2 injection into depleted formations (sequestration). I have worked on several studies (jointly funded by the government and industry) which show promise. Also Oilsands companies pour lots of cash into new technology which cuts emissions and costs. For example suncor no longer needs tailings ponds, they are now in the process of reclaiming the ones they have.

Sorry they aren't actually demons.

Now, buy our oil.

Shazam999: Foxxinnia: I can't imagine why the most conservative part of Canada, and the one most dependent on carbon emitting industries, would have a badly run carbon trading system.

Hey, we're the ones electing chicks and brown people. You guys keep electing fat white people.

^

PS. Al Gore is FAT.