Markets: The stakes of carbon trading are losing their sizzle

NEW YORK -- Global carbon dioxide emissions offsetting markets are fast losing their luster in the minds of investors, both in the United States and abroad.

As governments around the world delay climate change legislation, offset project developers and traders on Wall Street and beyond say that they are rethinking their earlier enthusiasm for carbon markets. Money on hand is now being diverted, instead, to traditional clean energy plays as market players are taking a pause, waiting for signs that greenhouse gas offset credit trading will either rebound or slowly fade into nothing.

Senate Climate Bill Authors Court Industry Group to Pre-empt Ad War - NYTimes.com

"The appearance is the senators have kissed so many polluter rings that a residue of soot [shouldn't that say "transparent life-giving carbon dioxide"] has been left on the lips," Frank O'Donnell, head of the advocacy group Clean Air Watch, wrote in an e-mail. "The senators appear to want to GET A BILL no matter how many corporate giveaways are involved."

Climate change's Hail Mary - Mar. 17, 2010

Trusting science on climate change

The tax isn't expected to be huge -- starting at something under 10 cents a gallon for gasoline and moving up to maybe 20 cents a gallon after 10 years, said Kevin Book, Managing Director of research at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington D.C.-based research firm.

And the tax isn't expected to discourage people from driving [why not, if we really believe that carbon dioxide might kill us all?], said Book, as it's too gradual and small to have much of an impact. But revenue from it would likely be spent on other, cleaner transportation projects like mass transit or subsidies for hybrid cars.

Changing the Climate on Climate Change [Mackinac Center]

Payne told McDiarmid he objected to environmental movement's purposely "poisoning of the well with language."

Payne pointed to the Associated Press handbook that calls the opponents of the Iraq War "war critics," yet calls people who argue against global warming "skeptics" and "deniers." Payne said the term "deniers" was purposely "loaded" because it was linked to the Holocaust.

Payne also took on his own profession, saying the mainstream media's coverage of environmental issues "has reached a level of corruption."

He pointed to the the Tennessee Center for Policy Research's 2007 report about Al Gore paying nearly $30,000 for his combined electricity and natural gas bills in 2006. Payne said the Tennessean newspaper knew that Gore lived in a mansion, but that it was the public policy think tank that broke the story.

"They don't want people to know about it," Payne said about the media.

"It's not that our profession doesn't know," Payne said. "It's corruption."

He said the media has been a major driver of the green movement.

Epoch Times - Green Jobs a Matter of Faith, Not Fact

What are we to make of all of this? It is simple—we are being asked to place a bet but with a high level of risk that it may have the opposite impact to that intended (again, see Spain). The bet will involve a massive new tax, cap and trade regime, and lifestyle changes in the hope that a large number of new green jobs will be created. Don’t you think we should demand better evidence that it will work? All of the evidence suggests that it is not a simple equation—green policies don’t equal green jobs. It is time for a real debate.