Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
allows the holder to release the equivalent of 1 ton of carbon dioxide.
Companies that hold their emissions below their cap can sell their remain-
ing pollution allowance on an open carbon market to those struggling to
keep their emissions under the cap. This ensures that the industry stays
within the overall emission limit, which is planned to decline over time.
But until the planned decline occurs, cap-and-trade will not reduce emis-
sions. The cap-and-trade system in force in the European Union caused
the traditionally low cost of coal generation to exceed that of natural gas
for much of 2008 and 2009, a trend that has continued into 2010.
A method for reducing carbon emissions that is highly publicized by
some celebrities is called buying offsets, trumpeted by wealthy Americans
as an effort to display their environmental colors by becoming “carbon
neutral,” the New Oxford American Dictionary 's Word of the Year in
2006. 46 Those with lots of money can appear superior to ordinary folks
who are unable to use this technique.
The concept is simple. You keep track of the number of miles you
have driven, airline miles fl own, or coal used to generate your electricity,
and use an online carbon calculator to determine how much carbon
dioxide you have generated. If you were responsible for 10 tons of
carbon dioxide, you would pay a carbon offset company for 10 tons of
carbon dioxide offsets. The company (or nonprofi t organization) would
then invest your money in a project meant to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. Because climate change is a nonlocalized problem, it does not
matter where the emissions are reduced. Air circulates. Some critics have
likened offsetting to buying pardons from the Catholic church in six-
teenth-century Europe.
Nature's way is best for controlling the gases responsible for climate
change. Short of cutting emissions, the world needs better management
of forests, more careful agricultural practices, and the restoration of
peatlands that could soak up signifi cant amounts of carbon dioxide.
Millions of dollars are being invested in research aimed at capturing and
burying carbon dioxide emissions from power stations, but investing in
ecosystems could achieve cheaper results. It would also have the added
effects of preserving biodiversity, improving water supplies, and boosting
livelihoods. Cutting deforestation by half by midcentury and maintaining
that rate would save the equivalent of fi ve years of carbon emissions at
today's level. Agriculture has the largest potential for storing carbon if
farmers use better techniques, such as avoiding turning over the soil and
using natural rather than chemical fertilizers.
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