A question about carbon credits.

[Coyote]

I've heard of the idea of 'carbon credits' mentioned now and then for the past several years and never gave it a lot of thought. Recently though, I've had my interest piqued, and started wondering about the concept. What exactly are 'carbon credits' and how exactly do they work? In a Big Picture sense, is the concept good, bad, or ugly? Does the idea have potential, or impotential?

Early this morning, just before work, I was wandering around the internet, spotted a link to an article about the subject, and thought it might make for an interesting read. I'd planned on looking it over once I got back home, but now I can't seem to find the darned link! (I know, I should have bookmarked it or something. But you can't change the past.)

I still think the topic is interesting enough to warrant further discussion, so here's my question: Should I ask a moderator to lock this thread, or simply delete it myself?

[lexprod]

I recommend you use a separate browser for your secret dirty internet browsing so you don't have to constantly wipe your history which made you lose the link.

Oh wait, that wasn't what you were asking about.

The biggest problem with carbon credits is probably the same problem with "organic" food or what have you: not a lot of standardization, and possible abuse of the system which will not stem carbon emissions. This is slightly unrelated, but it's like some companies offering consumers "zero carbon" or
"clean" energy. Turns out many of those companies aren't zero carbon themselves, they just give you the same energy and purchase the offset from a clean energy company. Whether or not this has the same effect as buying directly from say a solar energy plant is debatable, but it's still a misleading tactic used to exploit environmental guilt. I think that if the sole reason for carbon credits is to provide a monetary incentive for people to use less greenhouse-gas-emitting techniques, then why not tax and/or subsidize accordingly? Credits seem open to abuse, like a large coal company setting up a wind plant company, and selling their unused carbon credits back to the coal factory under market value.
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