Comments on: Emissions Cap-and-Share: Peak Oil, Global Warming, and Economic Depression

By: PlanetThoughts.org

PlanetThoughts.org — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:50:57 +0000

Countries that respond to the future shortages now (and that started years ago) will indeed prosper in contrast with those that wait for the last possible moment.

By: markusfleet

markusfleet — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 16:03:11 +0000

don’t know what’s so depressing about it really; In fact, this seems to offer a more equitable, more direct and equally practical means of avoiding the pessimistic scenarios envisaged…If you’re old enough to recall economic conditions in the seventies, and current on present economic conditions, fiscal policies and trade balances, you might think burying your head in the sand means conveniently overlooking the realities of today’s energy marketplace and the lessons history can teach…

By: thirdwave

thirdwave — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:17:15 +0000

The majority of national populations receive IRS, tax and income forms and other documents regularly, even before the Internet – why not fossil fuel pollution authorization permits?
The major oil companies all regularly file regulatory documents…
Seems upon reading the paper it is definitely linked to the science as well…
Is the the UN’s CDM mechanism global any more global or practicable or the EU’s ETS any more practicable or globally representative?

By: A Meyer

A Meyer — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:52:54 +0000

The obstacles to this well-intentioned scheme are conceptual. While all our greenhouse gas emissions go to an obviously political boundary-free atmosphere [changing the climate etc], the fuels that are burned causing these emissions come from fuels that are obviously form only some specifically boundary-defined entities called countries.
The international distribution between consumers and producers is very unevenly matched. Trying to merge the enormity of that away into a [presumably] UN led scheme where everybody [on the planet?] gets a global fossil fuel production-permit to sell back to these definitely not ‘globally situated producers’, is reaching towards a confrontation with reality and one hope’s beyond what’s needed.
To be precise, while estimable in its intent, this scheme is not ‘global’ and so by definition not linked to the science behind the relationship between emissions and concentrations that – perhaps inconveniently – is.
A global equal per capita emissions sharing scheme predicated on a safe level of their concentration in the atmopshere has been hard to get. The Contraction and Convergence scheme – on which the Cap and Share documentation claims it is based – is such a scheme and has more support now than at any previous time: -
http://www.gci.org.uk/kite/Carbon_Countdown.pdf
The authors of C&S are to be congratulated for their vigour in ‘insisting’ on equal right per capita per se. But there is a cost when such morality is advanced at the expense of methodology and its not clear after all these years that they yet recognize this. Nor have they explained why they turn their backs on the growing support.

By: Tapp Carr

Tapp Carr — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:21:29 +0000

Geeze, this is depressing. Let’s not forget, however, that all of these Gas price challenges and environmental challenges represent a phenomenal opportunity. Companies and countries who have already accepted high energy costs and started to do something about them will do great. Economies that are based on new models, like biomimicry, localization, and renewable energy are set to thrive. Those are the things we should be talking about, we know the doom and gloom scenerio and if we don’t start talking solutions, then we’ll only bury peoples’ heads in the sand further and live out exactly the prophesy you describe above.