Mar 10, 2010

Is Gore intent on becoming first carbon billionaire?

An op-ed in the Boston Globe at the link below is titled, Gore still hot on his doomsday rhetoric.

The case for global-warming alarmism is melting faster than those mythical disappearing Himalayan glaciers, but Al Gore isn’t backing down.

In a long op-ed piece for The New York Times the other day, Al Gore (pictured) cranked up the doomsday rhetoric.

Human beings, he warned, “face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.”

His 1,900-word essay made no mention of his financial interest in promoting such measures - Gore has invested heavily in carbon-offset markets, electric vehicles, and other ventures that would profit handsomely from legislation curbing the use of fossil fuels, and is reportedly poised to become “the world’s first carbon billionaire.”

Others on the political left are also on the doomsday global warming bandwagon with a cap and trade bill just waiting to roll out as soon as ObamaCare gets passed.

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What is cap and trade?

Under a cap and trade system, a government authority first sets a cap, deciding how much pollution in total will be allowed. Next, companies are issued credits, essentially licenses to pollute, based on how large they are, what industries they work in, and so forth.

If a company comes in below its cap, it has extra credits, which it may trade with other companies.
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Under cap and trade, higher polluting companies must buy carbon offsets. The cost of carbon offsets (the same as buying a license to pollute) must be passed on to the consumer.

If the Obama administration gets their cap and trade passed it could cost families $1,761 a year according to a report here.

The Boston globe report is here.