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Pay as you pollute (buying "carbon offsets", Maine Sunday Telegram)

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jpak Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-10-06 05:47 PM
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Pay as you pollute (buying "carbon offsets", Maine Sunday Telegram)
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/061210carbon.html

A growing number of Mainers and other Americans are buying their way to more "carbon neutral" lives.

Less than $150 can cancel out the pollution produced to power the lights and appliances in a typical Maine home for one year. Another $75 a year might cover the climate damage done by the average car.

Businesses have been doing it for years, but only the most savvy environmentalists have known that regular folks can, too. The idea is basically this: Pay to reduce a certain amount of carbon dioxide pollution anywhere in the world and neutralize the damage caused by your house, your furnace, your car or even your family vacation.

While the carbon offset market is growing fast, it also is unregulated, and some purchases may do more to ease a guilty conscience than actually fight global warming. And some fear the system may even make matters worse by leading people to believe they can simply pay to make climate change go away.

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IDemo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-10-06 08:31 PM
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1. If all that Mainers and other Americans do is pollute 'n pay
they are doing little to actually stem CO2. That is part of why the concept of 'carbon credits' may work better, by creating the incentive for businesses and individuals to lower their carbon output directly.
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YankeyMCC Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-10-06 08:57 PM
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2. The trap here is
reinforcing the idea that an artificial resource (money) can replace a real resource (the air we breath, diminishing fossil fuels, etc...)

If the money is used to promote a reduced (or non-carbon) based economy, that reflects the real cost by reconnecting us to the ecology we depend on, then that's fine. We instituted a personal tax at home where when we buy food from outside New England we put money into a pot and buy some green credits from time to time. But it's always with the understanding that the purpose of the tax is to adjust our life style not to replace natural resources for money.

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