Word: carbonization
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...Even more pertinent was the criticism that the giant carbon footprint of an event that involved jetting pop stars and their entourages around the globe, and encouraging hundreds of thousands of fans to travel to concert sites, was inherently at odds with Live Earth's energy-conservation message. Around half the carbon footprint in any given show usually comes from the audience traveling to the concert, and though Live Earth promised to offset those emissions, it wasn't yet clear how - not to mention that offsets are inherently dicey. The Tokyo show drew much of its electricity from an existing...
...ranks No. 151 out of 163 nations surveyed in Transparency International's 2006 government corruption index. Addressing donor representatives gathered in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh this month, Hun Sen promised that long-delayed anti-corruption legislation would be passed "as soon as possible." The statement was a virtual carbon copy of what he had pledged last year...
There is a new service from Expedia, Travelocity and other travel websites: environmental expiation. If you wish, when you buy a plane ticket, they will figure out how much carbon your trip will be adding to the atmosphere and charge you for it. (For Boston to Los Angeles, about 3,000 miles, it comes to around $9.) The money goes to nonprofit groups that either plant trees to absorb the carbon or produce an equal amount of energy in an eco-friendly way (using windmills and such). You are still increasing the carbon in the air, but someone else, thanks...
Similar deals are available for other eco-embarrassments. Some commentators (like TIME's Charles Krauthammer) have uncharitably compared carbon credits to the indulgences sold by the medieval Catholic Church. But indulgences are apparently misunderstood. The Catholic Encyclopedia, in an eye-rolling, "Here we go again" tone, scolds that an indulgence "is not a permission to commit sin, nor a pardon of future sin." No doubt environmentalists would insist the same about carbon credits: they are not a gift certificate or get-out-of-jail-free card for would-be polluters. But they sure do play...
...what? Maybe if the idea weren't so closely associated with hippies like Al Gore, conservatives might see carbon credits for what they also are: a brilliant next step in the development of capitalism. What offends conservatives about carbon credits is not some green absurdity but the very core of our economic system: the free exchange of goods and services, a.k.a. the deal. If a deal is voluntary, then by definition it leaves both parties to it better off. Otherwise they wouldn't do it. Put all these deals together and--with a few exceptions--you have free-market capitalism...