CO2

Seen in the Daily Mail:

Every adult should be forced to use a ‘carbon ration card’ when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.

The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain’s CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

Anyone who exceeds their entitlement would have to buy top-up credits from individuals who haven’t used up their allowance. The amount paid would be driven by market forces and the deal done through a specialist company.

Well, that would be one way to incent consumers to behave in a more sustainable .  Rather than loading up prices with “hidden” costs, either in the form of a carbon tax, or a windfall profits drag, you’re putting an actual cost of CO₂ blatantly in front of the consumer.

I’m not sure I agree with the notion of of such a mechanism being a fairer way to allocate costs away from the poor to those who can better afford it.  After all, the less affluent families in society are probably less able to adopt more efficient technology due to the expense of that technology.   It’s all too easy to imagine a world where the rich drive around in their nice shiny new hybrids or electric cars, while impoverished folks try bumming a few carbon credits to enable them to drive their old beaters home.

If you’re going to try to promote “economic/social fairness” in the transition to a world dominated by greener gadgets, I think effort would be better spent in accelerating the availability of affordable green tech.

It’s for that reason that I’m still intrigued with the idea of adopting a carbon or windfall profits tax, but requiring that the additional revenue be considered a mandatory investment, funding research and early production of new, practical, conservation-minded technology.

Seen in USA Today:

The widespread use of ethanol from corn could result in nearly twice the greenhouse gas emissions as the gasoline it would replace because of expected land-use changes, researchers concluded Thursday. The study challenges the rush to biofuels as a response to global warming.

The researchers said that past studies showing the benefits of ethanol in combating climate change have not taken into account almost certain changes in land use worldwide if ethanol from corn — and in the future from other feedstocks such as switchgrass — become a prized commodity.[...]

The study said that after taking into account expected worldwide land-use changes, corn-based ethanol, instead of reducing greenhouse gases by 20%, will increases it by 93% compared to using gasoline over a 30-year period. Biofuels from switchgrass, if they replace croplands and other carbon-absorbing lands, would result in 50% more greenhouse gas emissions, the researchers concluded.[...]

“We should be focusing on our use of biofuels from waste products” such as garbage, which would not result in changes in agricultural land use, Searchinger said in an interview. “And you have to be careful how much you require. Use the right biofuels, but don’t require too much too fast. Right now we’re making almost exclusively the wrong biofuels.”

I’m one of several folks who have been concerned about the unintended consequences of drinking the ethanol kool-aid, ranging from stressing already limited water supplies to fallout from the increased competition for food crops.

Can we now start looking for more viable sustaniable fuel options, rather than just pandering to agribusiness lobbyists?