Carbonocracy versus Capitalism
Matthew Warren‘s article in The Australian, Capitalism clears the air, is full of enthusiasm about how big business, market forces, and carbon emission credits [i.e. anti-market forces] will tackle global warming more efficiently, effectively, and innovatively than any government could.
In fact carbon “trading” represents a deep undermining of the free market – which is the whole point of it of course. It’s an attempt to tame (i.e. destroy) the free market.
The threat of climate change has been around for more than a decade; however, clouded by complex and uncertain science, it is only in the past few years, even months, that the inherent risks to business have been sheeted home.
At an intellectual level there is the risk of an unacceptably warm planet by the end of the century. But even more pressing is the growing risk of a high price on carbon emissions and the impact that may have on their competitiveness, even survival. Self-interest is a powerful motivator for change.
Whodetermines this “high price on carbon emissions”? It’s not the interaction of buyers and sellers, producers and consumers. It’s government, led by technocrats.
The world’s biggest corporations are currently falling over themselves to get in on this.
What we are seeing is the rise of the new Carbonocracy.
Those who are learning to play the Carbon Game, and profit by it. The Carbonocracy will be a global community of gutless, subservient corporations.
Carbon emissions”trading” and carbon credits are completely incompatible with Capitalism, free markets, and freedom.
The Business Council of Australia (BCA) is leading the charge on Green Dhimmitude. They just can’t get enough of it!
Make the scheme long-term (at least 30 years) to increase greenhouse gas emissions reduction and investor certainty;
Set both annual and long-term emissions reduction targets;
Include a first phase which involves the establishment of information collection and measurement and verification mechanisms for businesses and the secondary market;
Include as many greenhouse gases as possible;
Maximise the number of sectors that are included in the scheme. If it is not possible to include a particular sector, introduce policies which ensure commensurate emissions reductions in that sector;
Allow maximum offsets (national and international) to meet abatement targets;
Establish a ‘Reserve Bank-like’ permit issue authority;
Issue free permits to compensate enterprises for the economic loss from the change in the ‘rules of the game’;
Offset the competitiveness impact of the scheme on ‘trade-exposed’ industries for as long as necessary, providing transitional arrangements through the permit issue process;
Cap the price of permits and consider other relevant ‘safety valve’ mechanisms;
Ensure the scheme facilitates an active secondary market to provide a rising but reasonably stable forward permit price curve; and
Ensure effective governance structures that enable confidence in the market.
And they love being Green so much, they want to share it with the world.
While Australia is developing a national response, the BCA believes Australia can and should, through its international relationships and networks, push for the development of a far-reaching global market response.
I have put my comment here. 
The picture is important in explaining my comment.
Basically it is that the sun is the boss of climate but other factors are influencing it too. People a little bit, cars more, cows even more and so many other factors that I can’t name them all.
As a worst case scenario the earths temperature can be raised 10 degrees by a lava flow the size of North America lasting thousands of years. I don’t think that we can produce that much energy much less waste it as heat. (Ref. The Permian Extinction)
Hi Prodos
Quite aside from the damage it will do to all of us, one of the things that upsets me is the ‘free-market’ gloss that cap-and-trade enthusiasts put on it. Their reason is this sort of scheme was proposed by Milton Friedman. But Friedman raised this kind of thing not as something that ought to be done, but as a less bad replacement for the direct regulation of pollution emissions.
Greetings Walter,
Thanks for the link.
I’ll check your article when I get to the USA and get online again in a couple of days. We’re heading off in a few hours.
Stephen Dawson wrote:
… this sort of scheme was proposed by Milton Friedman
Interesting! I’ll look into this!