Making Emissions Personal

It's an affront on free enterprise and liberty and it's by design.

How on earth would they go about imposing "personal emissions reduction targets" on individuals... they'd have to measure all the emissions of individuals, how else could you say whether you met the target or not... really.

they'll be monitoring your farts, next

I hope this carbon thing goes away soon, governments are spending far to much of our tax dollars on bad science.

Problem being the next distraction will cost even more.

On the lighter side a few years ago Canada had on a one ton challenge, I called the government office to inquire how many tires I would have to burn to achieve my quota. You could hear the horror on the other end of the line, poor lady shudders and sputtered for quite a while before she passed me on to someone else to explain how it worked. I had a really hard time not laughing at them.

What if I can zero out my co2 with technology that I own and therefore have no "cap" on my energy use, and by extension, my wealth? Will they try to impose a tax on my zero co2 technology, just to make it fair to rich and poor? After all, I would be able to have the lights on, run incandescent lite bulbs, run a big screen TV 24/7, run the airconditioner to 68 F in summer, ETC...

A similar question is: If I can run my car on solar based hydrogen/electricity and don't need to go to the gasoline station, how do they get the road tax? Now, if a person owns a natural gas car, they are charged a road tax each year for an amount equal to 4-6k miles of driving, so the need for installing a GPS tracking device is not warranted. After all, you could just be taxed based on the odometer reading, and not need a GPS, provided the odometer were tamper proof. (Can foil over a GPS receiver make it not work...just asking?)

Envy as a governmental policy is the mark of a "failed state" as it were....

And do I get credit for the trees on my property? How about all the trees in national forests? Do they go towards reducing each citizen's quota on a per capita basis?

Besides, any day now, the commissars will be monitoring your personal emissions. You know that methane is one of the nasty greenhouse gases.

A personal affront...

I'm sure they will try to get the "smart grid" up and running here in the US as soon as possible. Once they have justification relative to how much power we each consume in our individual households they will have the control to limit our electricity usage. And while this will have no logical bearing on our actual individual carbon usage, logic has never been needed for political decision making.

A parallel example to this has already been implemented in many US communities. Some places I've lived set a sewer usage fee(tax) based on incoming water consumption. While on the surface this seems fair, if you water lawns, gardens, etc, a significant portion of your water may never actually go down the public drain. But you still pay as if it had.

FWIW

Hooker

The preview says that the idea was proposed be Heleen de Coninck of the Princeton Environmental Institute at the Copenhagen Climate Conference.

Please bear with me for a little analogy. A while back I worked for a large company that was acquired by Tyco International whose CEO was Dennis Kozlowski. He treated the corporate coffers as his personal piggy bank, misappropriating hundreds of millions of corporate funds to enhance his lifestyle. His actions hurt the business, its shareholders and employees.

Many of us, especially those of us living in the United States, do whatever we want spending our personal resources without considering that we too might be using the planet's resources as our own personal piggy banks rather than in the best spirit of sharing with our planet cohabiters or caring about what we are leaving as a legacy to our children, grand children and future generations. Likewise, most of us either care not or maybe just have never thought about the amount of waste or other pollution generated either directly by ourselves or indirectly by those from whom we purchase.

The EPA already offers a means by which each of us could take a look at our household emissions and explore ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, energy usage and waste disposal costs.

Realistically, personal greenhouse gas emissions monitoring isn't going to happen anytime soon. The best way to keep regulators out of our lives is for us to manage personal consumptive and polluting habits responsibly ourselves. Awareness is the first step in changing ones' habits.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator.html

One scientist/environmentalist decided to take a look on a personal level what his energy usage was and was shocked. The result was rated as the "Best Idea of 2008" by business week.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/12/1210_best_worst_innovation/36.htm

http://www.wattzon.com/

The analogy falls down because it wasn't his money. My money goes to purchase materials, products and services priced on a relatively free market. As long as the purchase is legal, how I spend my money is my business and only my business.

Everybody in this world uses the planet's resources. Best spirit of sharing? The market takes care of that quite nicely. Communes and other feel good arrangements fail miserably every time.

The best way to keep regulators out of our lives is not to elect them to public office in the first place. Thomas Jefferson without a doubt has been rolling over vigorously in his grave. We have fast become the nanny nation.

Since energy is money, reducing expenses is how we reduce our "impact". I don't need some silly Wattzon thing to tell me that.

Guest,

I am confused here.

Once we reach the "tipping point," where it is cheaper to buy solar and wind generation with all the capacitance require to bridge low solar and wind periods (24/7 service) for the home, the notion of efficiency also changes. Why? Because you have a fixed cost.

It is just like a car. Once you pay for the car, insurance, etc. if you don't use it, your cost per mile goes up because of fixed costs. If your car were a solar car or was coupled to your house that was solar (just saying) where fuel was "free" on the margin (use it or loose it), would you care how much you drive? NO!

If your current use can be met at a lower cost with solar/wind than the utility charges, and you have enough to go off the grid, then you have much more energy than you need by perhaps 3-5 times. At that (tipping) point, efficiency does not matter, other than if you want to sell it back on the grid for income, just to have it taxed at some insane rate....

But what would you get for your electricity? Not much.

Look..., the future of energy is that it will be cheap, perhaps 2-4 cents per kw-hr, not 40 cents that PGE (California) charges on the margin. When every house can provide power to the grid via solar, we will have a boom that will bust. This is basic economics.

That tipping point is $600/kw. We are not far from that from what I hear and know about. The market will drive out carbon because carbon, without any taxes, will be more expensive. Why don't people use coal in their houses? Because it costs a lot to feed it into the furnace and to maintain it, not to mention the hassle factor. NG is a zero maintainance product, even with a fuel cost of 3-4 times coal.

The key is to combine your living space with power generation. Putting solar or wind collectors out in the deserts or on mountain does not combine power with housing and will, in the end, go bankrupt, IMHO.