Laura,
I always find it interesting that carbon dioxide is considered pollution (the pollution generated by an SUV or a factory) when it is a well-documented fact (references available on request) that carbon dioxide is pretty durn important in the grand scheme of life on this planet. You know, plants utilize carbon dioxide and release oxygen, then we breathe the oxygen and generate carbon dioxide. It's a neat little cycle wouldn't you say? Anyway, there have been countless studies (again, references available on request) that show that plants do quite well with excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In fact, they do much better, are more drought resistant, utilize water more efficiently, produce more biomass, and are generally healthier in atmospheres with more than double the present day concentration of carbon dioxide. With that said, why is carbon dioxide considered a bad actor?

In the more distant past, say the Cretaceous, carbon dioxide concentrations were in the range of 600 to 2,400 ppmv (request the sources, if necessary). I'm quite confident that life on the planet did quite well during this period except during periods of intense volcanic and meteor activity. So, what's the big deal?

Laura,
One of my big problems with crabon credits is an economic one. Major League Baseball has had a similar scheme in place for years, but intead of carbon credits, they have a salary cap. You break the salary cap, you pay a luxury tax at the end of the season. The Yankees bust through thier cap every year by the 10s of millions. Yes, the pay the luxury tax -but they treat it as just another expense while they continue to stock up on high priced talent.

If the goal is to reduce carbon emissions, a carbon tax would just become another business expense (one among many) that would get passed on to the consumer (like gas taxes).

And like the person above elluded to, how much CO2
is enough? 400ppm?300pm?280ppm (the estimate of CO2 in 1850)? Since CO2 isn't poisonous, it would take an act of Congress to regulate it. What's special interest get thier hands on it, who knows what the outcome will be.

Hydrogen Energy

I recommend for everyone who can't believe that hydrogen energy makes sense and has a future the book from Jeremy Rifkin: The H2-Revolution.
Also take a look to http://www.hydrogenics.com
Hydrogen produced by http://www.hydrogenics.com/onsite/pdf/HySTAT-P%20fact%20sheet_screen.pdf
and if you are not blind or have no education you understand, that hydrogen generation is the best and shortest way to use on the other side non agricultural desert areas, roofs, windows (i. e. with http://www.xsunx.com solar panels). You get most of the electric energy directly converted to hydrogen. You can store it and convert it back when ever you need it - burning with internal combustion engines (ICE), normal engines or with fuel cells. Always less emission producing, the best for our destroyed nature. And that until the end of the planet, that comes once a day, when the sun loss the power.
How much emission is produced by ethanol or bio diesel before you can use it with your car? In the best case, a study makes clear, half of the produced ethanol, bio diesel
finds the way into the tank of cars, trucks... The other half is wasted by producing it, and pollutes the air.
How expensive must corn and all the other agricultural products get before the world knows sure that we need all possible solutions to produce renewable energy - not only ONE.
Take a look at the price increase of corn for futures at www.cbot.com as result of all the ethanol producing plants! Crazy. Think you pay less at the pump but have to pay much for expensive food at the supermarket. Healthy for all the fat us peoples that can't sit inside of a car?
the hungry peoples of the 3rd world would stay much hungrier than today, sounds good, Make sense? No further war necessary? Forget it, please.
Hydrogen is the best solution for areas with high sun power, non agricultural areas (desert) or large buildings in hot areas with a lot of solar power potential. Please take a look to solar-thermal plants that can mass produce hydrogen you can see at http://www.solarmillenium.de/
Think or dream all the hot non agricultural country's on that planet like Africa, India, Australia, Asia produce hydrogen that is in the future used like oil today. A lot of energy can be cheap transported with small tanks on ships.
Remember that gas is also explosive and that the world uses it for more than 100 years. Nuclear energy is also dangerous.
A high bureau building (as example in Dallas, you remember J.R. Ewing?) can produce with the help of solar film on the windows the hydrogen for the peoples cars that work their, they use it emission free inside of city's and outside. The sun produce it, the solar film at the windows direct the hot sun power into electric energy and later to hydrogen. The rooms stay cool, need less energy to climate. Think about!!!!! Please excuse my English, it's not my mother language
best wishes

Evaluating Hydrogen fuel is the best for the world

Hello, I must add a point to my blog.
USA's need to produce bio-fuels a lot of the self produced commodities that have been exported the last years into the world and that have been used as food for the world's poor & rich peoples.
What happens if the bio-fuel industry buys all the future contracts at the market to have no lack of such commodities is clear: futures prices and price for food increase dramatically, exports decrease, the poor peoples can't longer buy the expensive food and stay hungry. SOCIAL CONFLICTS & CRISIS all over the world, especially at poor country's and region would create big trouble - terrorist, dictators and socialist, communists... will have much hungry citizens on that planet on side to reach stupid targets. A great financial damage to prevent & secure the civilization will cost much more money than the evaluation of a hydrogen infrastructure that can be possible also in desert hot areas like Africa, Australia, Iran, Iraq, India, and China. People living in that country's have a chance for work! Workless peoples are the potential of terrorism and stupid politics. The hydrogen industry gives a chance to the whole world, not only to a part of. Sounds good - it's a no brainer. California & Arnold Schwarzenegger is the best example how it should do and that it is possible. Clean air, loud less traffic, light vehicles, less transmission losses, less hunger, less social conflicts and a good feeling about planet earth. And most of all, the US based hydrogen industry that earns the dollars that the USA spend the last years to China, Japan and other country's the USA imports goods for consume. USA hydrogen industry has the knowledge & many years of experience to build a stable hydrogen infrastructure on that planet. Let's do it!

Best wishes

I thought you might be interested in this new report that is available online

The Carbon Neutral Myth � Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins is available online at:
www.tni.org

"Carbon offsets are the modern day indulgences, sold to an increasingly carbon conscious public to absolve their climate sins. Scratch the surface, however, and a disturbing picture emerges, where creative accountancy and elaborate shell games cover up the impossibility of verifying genuine climate change benefits, and where communities in the South often have little choice as offset projects are inflicted on them.

This report argues that offsets place disproportionate emphasis on individual lifestyles and carbon footprints, distracting attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken to tackle climate change. Promoting more effective and empowering approaches involves moving away from the marketing gimmicks, celebrity endorsements, technological quick fixes, and the North/South exploitation that the carbon offsets industry embodies."

viadyello,

Interesting concept, but you better be sure your hydrogen generator is plugged into a wind turbine or solar cells or you're just adding to the problem. I hope you also realize that it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than it produces by combustion. Not an efficient system.

Also, by using hydrogen, you produce dihydrogen monoxide, one of the most dangerous compounds known to man. You must also remember that dihydrogen monoxide is the most potent greenhouse gas and is the main actor in global warming/greenhouse effect.

I think someone said on the Clean Air, Cool Planet website, that you can offset 1000 tons of CO2 by planting an acre of trees. If that is correct, then Canadians have 21 acres of forest per person. We can party till we drop and not worry about ever exceeding our carbon footprint of around 25 tons per year.

Carbon offsetting is a scam that a lot of folks have been duped into. Do the math as to how many acres of plants and forests there are on this planet that offset carbon. It rings of paying protection money to the mob so you can go about your business and be left alone and feel like you did the right thing, or else.

This reminds me of the garbage scare of the 80's which started up incredible amounts of trash disposal businesses. Again, if you did the math, the total area of garbage generated every year in North America if placed in a pile, would be the equivalent of the size and thickness of a silver dollar on a football field.

Yea, we were just swimming in the stuff according to the alarmists and who do you think reaped the benefits. Toronto would not burn their garbage so they paid Buffalo $110.00 per ton to take it away. Buffalo incinerated it across the border and Toronto got half the smoke for free. Don't walk around with tunnel vision, only looking at one side of the coin. Do the math.