Carbon Communism
It’s a deceptively simple idea. Everyone would be allocated an identical annual carbon allowance, stored as points on an electronic swipe-card. Points would be deducted for every purchase of non-renewable energy. People who did not use their full allocation, such as people who do not own a car, would be able to sell their surplus carbon points into a central bank. High energy users could then buy them - motorists who used their allocation would still be able to buy petrol, with the carbon points drawn from the bank and the cost added to their fuel bills. To reduce total UK emissions, the overall number of points would shrink each year.
Tech Central calls this “This Year’s Dumbest Political Idea....” More analysis along these lines here.
The Chimp seems interested in it, though. And hey - maybe we could just skip the “electronic swipe-card” and go straight to the microchip.
No plastic to dispose of.
UPDATE: This writer misses the whole “identical carbon allowance” thing, but has another ethical problem with carbon rationing by way of a national identity register.
I am totally opposed to ID cards and am involved in the campaign. However, I am also deeply concerned about climate change and cannot see any solution to it, other than carbon rationing, that is both effective and equitable. The survival of human existence is clearly an issue besides which even the disasters likely to arise from ID cards will pale into insignificance.
Fascinating statement. “anon” seems to fear that people will be more afraid of climate change than of giving up their individual and economic freedoms. Evangelicals generally see the reign of anti-christ as an economically-dominated one, but what if carbon credits become the currency of the day? Is the climate “crisis” (real or imagined) driving us inexorably in this direction?
OK, all you Actonites out there: What’s the Christian response? How would you address anon’s concerns?
UPDATE: Ok, how about a CO2 credit lottery? That makes just as much sense.
Comments
#1 2006-12-02 16:19 (Reply)
From an idealistic perspective, unless you subscribe to inequality, every individual on this planet is entitled to his or her fair share of its natural resources, not distorted by location, birth or nationality.
Trying to get people in the developed world to reduce their individual energy consumption to a sustainable level whilst constraining the appetite of the rest of the world’s population is the next challenge