Pious Frauds
The fraudulently pious in the Middle Ages bought indulgences from a corrupt church. The indulgences were "sin offsets" that forgave bad behavior up front, thereby supposedly avoiding going to hell - or purgatory - upon the sinner's death. The indulgences were, of course, complete frauds generated strictly to make money for the church.
Move the clock forward a few centuries. Now, the First Church of the Presumptuous Assumption of Global Warming® is proudly selling the wonders of "carbon offsets" as ways for energy-guzzling, strip-mining barons to reduce their "carbon footprint" and lead a "carbon neutral" lifestyle.
And the carbon offsets are about as real as the medieval church's indulgences. (Maybe they used the same printer.)
The burgeoning regulated market for carbon credits is expected to more than double in size to about $68.2bn by 2010, with the unregulated voluntary sector rising to $4bn in the same period.
The FT investigation found:
â– Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.
â– Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.
â– Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.
â– A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.
â– Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.
Francis Sullivan, environment adviser at HSBC, the UK’s biggest bank that went carbon-neutral in 2005, said he found “serious credibility concerns” in the offsetting market after evaluating it for several months.
“The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking into this. Otherwise people will lose faith in it,” he said.
These concerns led the bank to ignore the market and fund its own carbon reduction projects directly.
Funny how tolerant the left is about fraud when the right cause is involved, isn't it?
UPDATE: Other good reading: The Volokh Conspiracy, Secular Blasphemy, Hot Air, Samizdata.net, Althouse, Don Surber, Sister Toldjah,
Environment | Gaius Thursday, 26 April , 2007
