Please Don’t Tax My Footprint
It seems the liberals have found a new way to absolve their guilt for existing. This time it has to do with carbon footprints and carbon credits.
A carbon credit is a certificate that is worth one tonne of CO2 emissions. These credits are designed to create a real financial cost for businesses that emit CO2. They buy these credits from other companies that might plant so many trees for every carbon credit purchased as a way to offset the CO2 they have emitted or to lower their carbon footprint.
This is relevant because environmentalist claim that we all have a carbon footprint that is attributing to global warming. Recently Al Gore chastised the nation about how we need to lower this footprint before we destroy the planet. You may have noticed that the light bulb police are already on the prowl.
In fact Gore is so dedicated that he is purchasing his carbon credits from Generation Investment Management which is an investment firm that invests other peoples money, for a fee, into stocks of green companies. But surprise, surprise as it turns out Generation Investment Management is owned by, who else, Al Gore.
Mr. Deception is buying carbon credits from himself as a way to drive up the value of green companies like the ones in which he invests. That crafty devil has devised a way to assure his carbon footprint can be as large as he likes while still appearing to save the planet. Just think he throws a big fat guilt bomb at us and profits at the same time.
Now, even more important than Al Gore being a fraud, the real question is what does this mean to you and me? Soon these carbon credits will move from business into our everyday life. They will appear as an environmental tax on such things as cost of fuel, airline fares, if you buy an SUV instead of a “recommended” vehicle, or whatever they determine is attributing to global warming. Since governments already tax everything possible you can bet they will not stand in the way of this new horizon of green taxes.
On your quest for wisdom you must understand that environmentalism is all about control of how you live your life. This carbon footprint scam is simply a precursor for a global tax on the use of all energy. You can expect as always that there will be two sets of rules. One for the creators of this abomination who I might add are already setting up ways to totally exempt themselves from any lifestyle change. The other set for you and I who will be forced to adhere to the new order.
Lord Crimson 
Hi LC,
Well stated. However, I suspect you have not seen deep enough into the scheme. Remember, we spew CO2 into the environment with every breath. How, I ask, can Big Brother long allow us to do that with extracting a price?
the Grit
the Grit
March 2, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Hi Grit
I’m sure they will get to that but first they must come up with a term that hides what the tax is really for. You can bet education will be somewhere in the title.
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 2, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Hi LC,
I don’t recall Al coming clean about co-founding and charimanship of the company he was piously paying his fair share of cabon credit cash.
In preparation for liberal weenies who gush to appear above the riff raff, I’ve set up a payment station on my blog, directly into my personal account, of course.
Grit makes a good point, since people are chronic CO2 exhalers, death to as many humans as possible will only further Mother Earth’s health, and should be considered a plus.
Also, pointing to the elitist remedy for pesky regulations: greasing the palms of your fellow elitist buds. Nicely done.
Hank
icanplainlysee
March 3, 2007 at 12:08 am
Hi Hank
It appears you’re on to something. You can absolve all that feel guilty about well… being alive. For a small fee you can offer a guilt free life.
I’ve already noticed that a few politicians were talking about, and some may have already purchased these carbon credits. The only problem is they will use taxpayer money, not their own. So again they get the credit for caring and we get the bill.
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 3, 2007 at 12:22 am
Imagine this.
Henry Ford is hounded by the press for investing into his own company whilst AT THE VERY SAME TIME espousing and promoting the widespread uptake of motor vehicles. Hmmm.
See the point? There’s nothing unethical here guys. What’s your footprint Lord Crimson – size 13?
Verdurous
March 3, 2007 at 3:23 am
It “seems” that a reasonable approach is needed here. You don’t have to be an Einstein or an enlightened “liberal” to know that overt pollution is bad, and instead of wasting time to assuage guilt sane measures to safeguard the planet for the well being of the six billion or so who breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide is needed. Right now the US isn’t the worst offenders, India and China are, and while they have an understandable need for energy, there has to be a better way to get it rather than from the unrefined coal that they currently use.
avoiceofreason
March 3, 2007 at 6:24 am
Hi Verdurous – Welcome Back
Henry Ford was selling a “real” product so it would be quite natural for him to invest in his own company. People didn’t have to buy his product.
Environmentalist are selling fear and deceit. These are not real products but they do have real consequences. We will all be “forced” to pay these new green taxes and get nothing in return except more government oppression. It’s not like the world doesn’t have enough of that already.
If you really look at what Al Gore is doing you would find it is no different than manipulating stock prices which is a crime.
So you see it’s not the same.
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 3, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Hi avoiceofreason
You would be hard pressed to find anyone that doesn’t want to live in a clean environment. Right now we use fossil fuels because we don’t have anything else on a scale that works. You come up with an energy source that is better and cheaper then the people will flock to that.
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 3, 2007 at 12:36 pm
[…] Please Don’t Tax My Footprint […]
Carbon Footprint? « Wit or Wisdom
March 3, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Hi LC,
As to new energy sources and flocking people, that, as the rage against nuclear power shows, is not necessarily true. Of course, many of the same people threatening us with Global Warming, were in the picket lines blocking clean power which, ironically enough, would have helped prevent their current source of worry. The universe, it would seem, has a sense of humor.
the Grit
the Grit
March 3, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Hi Grit
Great point! You have added still another reason not to believe anything they are saying. In fact, you could even get the impression that environmentalist aren’t really so interested in finding cleaner sources of energy as they would have us believe???
I was referring to normal people when I said they would flock to a better and cheaper energy source. I would love to discover it and prove it to you. 🙂
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 3, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Hi, LC
Re: Please Don’t Tax My Footprint–most excellent.
May I recommend a book to you and your readers? Among many excellent titles that calmly and definitively debunk the lies of the envoronmentalist left this one stands clear. It’s title, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism, somewhat belies the light-hearted yet heavy scolarship that lies within, but it is an excellent book.
It will arm any reader with arguments that will thoroughly shred the rote “logic” of any squeaky-voicel environmentalist hand wringer.
Thank you once again for your posts. It is a pleasure, a reinforcement, and just plain fun to visit your site.
By the way, the “lightbulb police” needn’t stop at Al’s place. His were never on in the first place.
And Generation Investment Management? Examine that for a moment, if you will. That structure, that deceit, have “Bill Clinton” written all over them. Al Gore’s not bright enough to come up with that, but he sat under “The Master” for eight years. Payback for not ratting out the Slickster?
Warmest regards,
ara
arationalaversion
March 4, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Hi ara
Thanks for the book recommendation, anything that may shed light on the truth is welcome.
GIM was established in 2004 and shortly after that Gore began escalating the global warming scare. You may even consider it just a part of his business model to get investors.
You’re right, Gore doesn’t have the intellect for this and has found some good “idea people” or perhaps maybe they found him. In any case the scope and refinement of this is much to clean. It could be Clinton, but I suspect a much lower profile group that wish to remain that way.
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 4, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Hi LC,
There’s no reason to rack your brain, since the solution was proposed back in 1977 by T.A. Heppenheimer in his book, Colonies In Space. It is well within our technological capability to establish industrial facilities in orbit, with the purpose of, using Lunar materials, building and maintaining solar energy collection systems, that could pass the energy to Earth via microwave transmission. At one time, this was seriously considered, and NASA, if memory serves, actually proved the concept with a test satellite. The idea never came to pass for three reasons: the initial investment capital from our Government was spent on social programs, it was feared that the Soviets would see it as a weapon system, and, last but not least, the environmentalists protested it based on the heat pollution and the possibility of the microwaves being a danger if they were miss directed. Considering that this was possible with 70s technology, the potential today is much greater. It’s not likely to happen, but one can still dream.
the Grit
the Grit
March 4, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Hi Grit
I must admit that I’m not familiar with Colonies in Space. But as you state it why am I not surprised that environmentalist are involved in the equation.
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 4, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Grit & LC–
The only “colonies in space” that I might be familiar with are those great, uncharted voids between the ears of the truly and totally open-minded liberals I used to hang out with.
This is too sweet, so I’ll share a coujple of quick notes from the book I suggested above. The first, from professional scare-artist and emotional terrorist Paul Erlich, says that “giving society cheap, abundant energy…would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a physicist, and a number of other things including being an environmentalist, stated the following in The Mother Earth Plowboy Interview (1977): “If you ask me, it’d be a little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it…”
Let’s hear it for vassals and smallpox.
What is it that these, the open-minded and celebrated elite, are so afraid of? It is obviously not “pollution” as we have come to think of it. Clean, cheap energy that would cleanly and cheaply meet the needs of mankind is a problem because it would thus serve the true “pollution” of healthy humanity.
Anathema!
No, the ecoterrorist societies want nothing short of statist globalization, the complete annihilation of all private wealth and property rights, the seizure of private property by government (a stated belief of ACLU founder Roger Baldwin) and selective elimination and/or relocation of massive numbers of humanity.
The commies saw their end coming and began to morph early on. Today they have environmentalism, embracing many virtually identical, basic tenets that are—politically or philosophically, lethal to freedom of any kind.
ara
arationalaversion
March 4, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Hi ara
Back in 1977 the environmentalist had the energy crisis in the works. Jimmy Carter was in the midst of his failures on so many levels and gas prices were skyrocketing.
Although young at the time I remember having to keep the thermostat at a level as not to waste electricity. We did use less and our bill was lower for a while, but the strangest thing happen. The electric company raised its rates to make up for the loss. So now we were paying more for less. So much for saving energy.
The simple fact is liberals, environmentalist, leftist or whatever you want to call them are always going to have a crisis in their hip pocket ready to pull out and scare everyone. It would be nice that when they throw the next scare party, nobody comes.
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 5, 2007 at 12:25 am
LC–
Yes. T’would be nice.
Like in the Eagles Hotel California: “You can always check out, but you can never leave.”
The battle is a tiresome one, but it must be stayed, the enemy destroyed.
arationalaversion
March 5, 2007 at 2:41 am
Hi LC,
It would seem that I am a tiny bit older, since the Carter years hold a recurring role in my nightmares. At that time, I was studding nuclear engineering. After the Three Mile Island incident, my class mates voted 92% in favor of beating him to death. As luck would have it, none of them were willing to cough up the cash to finance the journey.
the Grit
britandgrit
March 5, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Hi Grit
Carter rises above Freddie when you think of nightmares. For some reason I can’t come up with one thing he did right. There has to be at least one, but nope can’t find it.
Let’s see the three mile island thing happened I believe in 1979 so no I couldn’t have helped financially either. But there is an up side. Now we can sit back and watch him embarrass himself as an author. That’s almost as much fun.
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 6, 2007 at 12:21 am
Hi LC,
Dang, now I’m going to toss and turn all night trying to remember what he did right 😉
the Grit
the Grit
March 6, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Hi LC,
I don’t want to put the pressure on you, and I’m not, honestly, but a slightly higher frequency of posts from you would be greatly appreciated.
Jimmy Carter set the nation up for Ronald Reagan. No one will ever top that.
Hank
icanplainlysee
March 7, 2007 at 4:29 am
Hi, LC
This is actually to the Grit and Hank: first, Carter screwed up so bad and created such a total vacuum in this country’s leadership that Ronaldus Magnus, by merely opening the door, blew Carter and his evil legacy to shreds. I remember it was something like 15 minutes into the Reagan presidency that Iran (and Ahmadinnerjacket) released the hostages.
That was for the Grit: Carter lost and left. That’s the one thing he did right, even though it was by accident.
Hank: well said, and I believe you’re right. Reagan, in my view, was the greatest president we’ve had, and by no narrow margin. No one will top him for quite some time to come if ever. He had the unique characteristics of huevos and character.
LC: I like the crowd you draw.
ara
arationalaversion
March 7, 2007 at 4:57 am
Hi Hank
I’m humbled that you would want more post, thanks. I long for the day I can become a full time blogger but for now this job thing steals valuable blogging time and energy. However, I will try to step it up if for no other reason than it’s fun.
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 7, 2007 at 11:57 am
Yeah, these pesky jobs get in the way of more blogging!
Good point way up there about how the taxes will probably be sold as helping education (“Won’t somebody please think of the children” – Helen Lovejoy – The Simpsons). They used that line in Texas to sell the lottery program. They forgot to mention that it was just a shell game. Education didn’t get more $$ (not that it needed it), they just used lottery $$ on education and took the other $$ and spent it on something else.
Neil
March 10, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Hi Neil
You have pointed out something very important in how politicians lie in order to get a lottery into their state. Of course a lottery is just another way of saying a voluntary tax.
If more money for the education budget was achieving good results then fine, but it’s getting worse. There’s always enough time and money to teach kids all about alternative lifestyles, environmentalism or how bad the US is, but never enough for math, science, etc. There’s so much blame to go around, where do we begin?
Lord Crimson
Lord Crimson
March 10, 2007 at 9:32 pm