Word: carbons
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...BIRD: Australia-based British designer Rachel Bending uses only water-based dyes for Bird, her range of organic cotton and linen fabrics, clothes and housewares. The brand also encourages employees to switch to solar power at home (where many of them work), and participates in schemes to offset its carbon emissions, supporting Australian solar-power and water-saving projects. Bending sees her well-made lines-typically featuring funky, retro-style patterns-as an antidote to the big, cheap fashion chains. "If something feels good, is made well and is good for the planet," she asks, "why would you throw...
What is wrong with this scam? First, purchasing carbon credits is an incentive to burn even more fossil fuels, since now it is done under the illusion that it's really cost-free to the atmosphere...
...rich to export the real costs and sacrifices of pollution control to the poorer segments of humanity in the Third World. (Apparently, Hollywood's plan is to make up for that by adopting every last one of their children.) For example, GreenSeat, a Dutch carbon-trading outfit, buys offsets from a foundation that plants trees in Uganda's Mount Elgon National Park to soak up the carbon emissions of its rich Western patrons. Small problem: expanding the park encroaches on land traditionally used by local farmers. As a result, reports the New York Times, "villagers living along the boundary...
...other form of carbon trading is to get Third World companies to cut their emissions to offset Western pollution. The reason this doesn't work--and why the carbon racket is a farce--is that you need a cap for cap-and-trade to work. Sulfur dioxide emissions in the U.S. were capped, and the trading system succeeded in reducing acid rain by half. But even the Kyoto treaty doesn't put any cap on greenhouse gases in China and India, where billions of these carbon credits are traded. Sure, you can pretend you're offsetting Western greenhouse pollution...
...Gore really wants to save the planet, he can try this: Turn off the lights. Ditch the heated pool. Ride the subway. And spare us the carbon-trading piety...