Carbon credits? Talk about a ponzi scheme.

Um ... isn't this just a way to let companies keep polluting while feeling good about themselves? This doesn't strike me as a "real" carbon credit or cap-and-trade scheme. (Why in God's name are they bothering to buy them, anyway?)

Love the Kermit picture.

Zurr.. "incentivize the consumer"

.. "PayPal account"

.. Do they have a bulls#!& trading system as well? Because I just found a huge reserve of it, and I want to be incentivized.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Or, this could be a way for individuals to be encouraged to make positive environmental changes in their homes. This plan could also help people offset or pay for expenses like changing lightbulbs, buying energy star-compliant appliances, or sealing their home with better insulation to prevent heating/cooling waste.

But hey, you and I Love Jersey are right. It's all a scam by Big-Green. You should probably keep driving your gas-guzzler and leaving the AC on with the windows open.

So, I should crank my AC down to 65 for a year, then sign up so my "reduction" is really large?

That's my problem with this-it offers no benefit to those who were already conserving energy.

@lincolnparadox: Nobody (except probably ILNJ) is saying this is a "scam by Big-Green."

These are two dudes looking to make a buck by piggybacking on cap and trade.

Welcome to the economic idiocy of cap n trade.

The idea so bad it will make me vote Republican if I have to.

With this system I can use my woodburning stove more, and lower my thermostat, and make money on carbon credits for reducing my gas utility bill. The irony is that wood burns a lot dirtier than natural gas.

This sounds just totally backwards.

@lincolnparadox: Assume much? I drive a little, 9-year-old compact (because gains in emissions are offset by losses from manufacturing until the car is about 10 years old, on average), grow my own organic veggies, have a rain garden, strategic landscaping to lower my energy needs, am replacing my lawn with native plantings, have almost all low-flow fixtures and all energy-star appliances, and only jackasses run the AC with the windows open.

I object to "green" programs that do little, if anything, to help, and leave people who participate feeling cheated and disillusioned with the green movement. I don't see who is buying these "carbon credits" or for what reason or why they'd bother; as it's a voluntary program with no audits participants can easily lie; and so forth. I'd need a lot of questions answered before I'd see this as anything but greenwashing (at best) or a scam (at worst).

@I Love New Jersey: Yes, but I'll play with their idiotic feel-good plastic "carbons offests" if it makes me real cash.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Burn

@lincolnparadox: What is the point of reducing pollution if someone else is just going to pollute for you?

Carbon credits are just a justification for Al Gore to fly his private jet and operate his (now slightly less) energy efficient house.

Why has no one pointed out that Al Gore was one of the people strong-arming representatives into voting for cap-and-tax, and he stands to benefit financially by sitting on the boards and owning stock in carbon credit companies? People slammed President Bush for oil connections, but have given buddy Al a free pass on his billion-dollar moneymaking scheme.

@Coles_Law: Yup.

@arstal: We need a viable fiscally conservative third party really really badly.

Signed,

A registered Republican

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): While this concept is a great way for families to be more conscious about their personal carbon footprint, I share your skepticism for unaudited figures. While the site emphasizes the readings are from your power bill (and with meters already installed, it's costs zero to set this up), families can happily type in whatever figures they want (no documentation or notarizing needed).
And structurally, there aren't any incentives to be honest: the more someone lies, the more everyone makes, with no penalties.

Cap-and-Trade works (although the current levels are way too low and I hate the idea that the worst polluters get grandfathered in, but with faith-based deniers still manning the ramparts, it'll be as good as we can expect), but only if it's rigorous. I'm still annoyed that the scofflaw coal plants that skated during the past administration got a pass - talk about perverse incentives...
Like you say, a poorly implemented program is as bad as none at all - discredit the whole notion.

@arstal: That's like saying the concept of auctions is flawed because eBay blows chunks.

Carbon credits. What a scam. Carbon neutrality is just as bad of a scam.

Consumerist should remove this entry because it is just so dishonest.

I am not going to comment on the post itself. Instead it seems that many of you have the wrong idea about cap-and-trade. I taught it to my students in Econ 101, so here it goes.

First the cap: This means that a number is chosen for the total allowable amount of a specific pollutant. This number can be anything, but typically would start at or below the current level of pollution. Over time this cap would be moved lower to encourage greater reductions in the emissions of the pollutant.

Now the trade: This is the mechanism that MINIMIZES the cost of reducing the pollution. If we want to reduce carbon by 1M tons (or something) by allowing trade we allow the companies with the lowest cost of pollution abatement to be the ones that actually do the abating! Suppose the following:
1) We want reduce pollution by 2 tons
2) It costs me $10/ton to reduce my pollution and it costs you $20.

If we just required both of us to reduce our pollution by 1, the total cost would be $30. Now if we introduce tradable permits, I could reduce my pollution by 2 (and thus get 1 credit) and then sell it to you for anything between $10 and $20. Same level of abatement, lower overall cost.

This is how it works in theory, and often how it works in practice...Just take a look at how successful the SO2 and NOx trading programs have been in reducing acid rain.

@Garfunkle: Where is the part about how it raises the costs of products and is basically another tax.

@Travishamockery: Sure, all you have to do is get the parties already in power to change the whole electoral system to make it possible for more than 2 parties to compete.

Good luck with that.

@I Love New Jersey: I was really trying to address people that had a fundamental misunderstanding of cap-and-trade.

It is true that reducing emissions costs money, but with this system it costs the least possible. I also feel that the premise of your question fails to acknowledge the very real costs of pollution.

We have to make a choice. Do we want to reduce pollution or not? If we do, this is one of the most efficient ways of doing it. Simply stating that it costs money is not a valid criticism, since I can say doing nothing costs my children a clean(er) environment (not all costs can be enumerated in dollars). We have balance the costs against the benefits, and go from there. Nothing is free, but we certainly can try to make the cost as low as possible.

@Garfunkle: meant to say not everything can *easily* enumerated in dollar terms.

@Travishamockery: Did you wipe the spittle off your screen after that? It'll set in if you don't, you know.
Look up Cap & Trade. You'll find it's less simplistic than your limited grasp of the concept suggests.

@Travishamockery: Nah. You'll just have to latch onto yet another GOP candidate that mouths empty words - and only words - about Patriotism, Individualism, Fiscal Responsibility, et. al. Then, like Charlie Brown running at a football, you'll happily get in line.
...Cuz the other guy is a Socialist Fascist, donchyaknow?

@Garfunkle: Thanks for the post. It needs to be said.
Cap & Trade is a great way to harness market forces to capture the externalities of producing and using power. Although, like you said, it all comes down to the details. I'm quite irked that those coal plants who skated the past ten years in evading EPA regs didn't get their permits choked back to what they should have been. But overall, the mechanism will hopefully compel them to comply regardless, even if later than they should have.
Regards the Joisey guy: remember the frosh sitting in back of class who'd mainly nap except for when he'd blurt out the Fed was a Trilateral Commission plot? The one who, no matter how patiently you disabused him of his misperceptions, the next class he'd rouse himself from sleep and ask the same damn question?
Joisey is that guy.

@razremytuxbuddy: Yes, but the CO2 released by woodburning is actually BETTER for the environment than that released by "natural gas", which currently comes largely from fossil fuels.

Here is why: CO2 cycles through the planets ecosystem normally. Plants take it in and make sugars to grow. When they die and decay, or are burned, that carbon is returned to the atmosphere. Circle of life.

Fossil fuels contain carbon from living things as well, only they come from ancient sources, such as old forests, or ancient bogs, or layers of dead diatoms in ancient seas. When those living things died, though, their carbon wasnt returned to the atmosphere. It was locked in, under sediment or water, and became trapped in the earths crust for millions of years.

So now, when we burn those fossil fuels, we are putting carbon back into the atmospheric cycle that hasnt BEEN in the atmosphere for millions of years, and the system becomes unbalanced. Suddenly there is way too much carbon in the air, plants cant take it all in, so it contributes to green house effects, yadda yadda yadda.

Of course, the catch 22 is, if we burn modern trees instead of ancient trees, then there are less trees to take in the excess of CO2 we already have.

So what is the answer? USE. LESS. ENERGY. Which is what this website is trying to encourage people to do. I don't necessarily agree that this method will WORK, but i applaud the effort.

@Trai_Dep: Seconded, that was a great explanation.

I want to know how cap & trade advocates hope to enforce compliance among utilities that have successfully flouted existing regulations for years. We say we have emissions standards, and our local power company weasels out of them or ignores them and pays the fines. If we say we have cap & trade, what compels our local power company to buy sufficient carbon credits, and what prevents our weak state government from giving them a pass if they claim they couldn't find enough?

I just have a hard time believing that fines will encourage compliance in an industry that has historically been able to avoid them and/or found them less costly than actually implementing the changes the fines were meant to force.

don't be so quick to bash on this. i too was skeptical and doubted the whole service, but i just checked it out. here are a couple comments:

1. this has nothing to do with carbon neutrality and companies offsetting their own production. Right now, individuals can check a box on their plane ticket and pay 75 dollars to plant trees or wind farms in the boondocks to offset their emissions. This is flat out absurd- and people are doing it. My Emissions Exchange gives consumers the motivation to conserve- rather than simply pay off their emissions. Companies aren't paying to offset their own emissions; rather, they are paying to motivate individuals to conserve and for their own marketing purposes. My Emissions Exchange credits seem ADDITIONAL to me. It is not cap n trade, it is not offsets. I dont know where some of the previous comments are coming from. The idea of "personal carbon credits" is new and like all new concepts will be met with some resistance. To the person who said it wont benifit people who have already been green, you have to be a little less myopic. Tackling global warming calls for a massive conservation effort; therefore, we need to get the masses to conserve. People that have been greening their homes for the last 3 years are not in the masses. The best way to reach the masses: MONEY.

2. I thought about how their system could be scammed. I thought for a while, and kept thinking. But there really is no way to scam them. If you jack up your energy usage for a full year, you have to pay for those costs upfront. It will takes years and years to make up for that with savings and earnings. The fact that MyEex keeps your one year baseline and verifies the ACTUAL bill makes scamming pretty hard. if you figure out a way, let me know tho-- as i could use the cash.

3. We need something like this. Offsets send the completely wrong message. Not only are people paying to emit; they are only neutralizing their emissions. In order to tackle global warming, we need conservation not neutralization. We need conservation of the masses, and that's what I think My Emissions Exchange is after.

I agree with previous posters- its really easy to jump and bash on a new idea like this. But check it out. Maybe you will surprised as i was. Ive been around the industry for many many years and this is one of the first alternatives that may have some footing.

@kexline: This is perhaps the biggest difficulty with cap and trade systems for CO2. With SO and NOx there were very few producers, and so they were relatively easy to monitor. It also raises the question of how we allocate the permits to begin with... which is a problem I don't want to even think about.
@Trai_Dep: I hate that guy. He is usually the one that needs an extension.

The basic flaw here is that people actually believe that CO2 is a problem. It's not. Humans account for about 3% of the total amount of CO2 emitted in to the atmosphere. Our CO2 emissions are like the proverbial fart in a windstorm compared to Mother Nature. If you're really concerned with CO2, ban or cap volcanoes and forest fires -- then go plant a tree.