Reply To: Cap and Trade

[Brian H]

Breakable wrote:

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the problems the poor of the world are facing. The techy solutions you suggest are available to them only in small measures at (for them) immense cost. And the most direct routes to improvement of their conditions are explicitly verboten under the anti-CO2 rubric.

I believe I understand quite well that the problem is money, and there are low tech solutions to most problems.
water transportation
http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/Design/q-drum
filtering
http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/Design/ceramic-water-filter
refrigeration
http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/Design/pot-in-pot-cooler
cooking
http://www.greenpacks.org/2009/04/09/kyoto-box-solar-cardboard-cooker-wins-climate-prize/

I agree that not all solutions can be low tech, and they might not apply for all the situations, but even high tech solutions does not need to be prohibitively expensive:
http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Humdinger_Windbelt
http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/Design/one-laptop-per-child

And no, i don’t think that power hungry appliances are the most important for quality of living in third world countries.

Brian H wrote:
They have no “carbon credits” to trade with, that’s simply dreaming. One’s saleable “right to omit CO2” is a function of the plant you have in place. If you have none, you’re SOL. A few areas can refrain from cutting trees and get them that way, etc., but for Africans living hand-to-mouth, e.g., there is no base from which to begin.
Many or most Africans themselves regard the prospect of C-a-T as a farcical disaster. They are right.
If you want an example of the kind of practical initiative that can work (nothing to do with C-a-T), check out lutw.org .

Regarding the complications of CAT in different countries, of course there are plenty. Some countries might be in a position where they don’t have anything except poverty. This is where their government (using international aid) should do something about it. If you can plant trees (or other growth) and make money from it, then it might become a profitable business. Of course you cannot plant anything in the desert, but even if you have access to saltwater – there a crops that can grow there.
On the other hand I don’t think it would be fair if the developing countries would be limited to much lower emissions of co2 (per capita) and would not get something in return, but even if that would be the case with recent legislation, it does not mean it can not change in the future.

Since reducing CO2 emissions will achieve nothing except hike costs and reduce local plant fertility, it seems rather brutal to put poor countries through the wringer. Watch India. They will pay faint lip service to the prevailing rhetoric, but will not play stupid C-a-T games. Nor should they.

Did you look up the lutw.org link? That’s actually saving money, resources, lives, and promoting education and independence. That it happens to be green is incidental.