Rise of the carbon cops | smh.com.au

Andy Best threw out a challenge to his students to save electricity around the school, promising he would plough any savings into the school's Eco Kids organisation.

"And why don't you be a light monitor at home and ask Mum and Dad for a raise in your pocket money if you save money on power?" the school principal added for good measure.

"The next day a parent stopped me and said, `Last night we were only allowed to have one light on at home because of you,' " Best says. [Via Climate Depot]

Via Benny Peiser:

In China, which was politically excluded from the Kyoto Protocol, coal fired power plants were being constructed at a rate of two a week. The net effect of this is that China was powering its economy at less than 2cents/kWh while the USA was attempting to compete with power costs at least five times greater because of global warming advocacy. It is not a coincidence that when the Chinese overtook the USA in CO2 emissions in 2006, that the economy of China also increased dramatically while the US economy was starting to stagnate because of the limited and costly energy supply.
--Norm Kalmanovitch, CCNet, 7 April 2009

Dutch Government ditches eco ticket tax in efforts to halt declining traffic at Amsterdam Schiphol on GreenAir Online

Mon 30 Mar 2009 – The Dutch Government is to scrap from July 1 its air passenger ticket tax, first dubbed the ‘eco’ tax when it was introduced against major opposition by aviation and local industry last year. The controversial departure tax, which ranges from 11 to 45 euros, is blamed for a steep decline in passenger traffic at the main Dutch airports, particularly at Amsterdam Schiphol. The move was welcomed by airlines, particularly those from the low-cost sector, who called for similar taxes to be abandoned in Italy, Ireland and the UK.

The tax was expected to raise around €300 million ($395m) a year but a commissioned report concluded that it would cost the Dutch economy €1.3 billion ($1.7bn) in lost revenue.