As we all know, society has recently been looking for new ways to save the planet.

A new idea is carbon credits.  It's easy to convince a person to put solar panels on their house - especially if it means that they will save money, and possibly even gain some back from the hydro company. However it's not so easy to convince large corporations to spend money on cleaning up their pollution, and it's effect on the environment.  New laws are limiting the amount of waste factories are allowed to produce, but if they purchase carbon credits, they balance out their effect.

What are carbon credits? They are somewhat like stocks.  Although no physical product exists, credits can be traded and sold just like most other commodities.  Credits are measured in metric tons of carbon removed from the environment.  This can be achieved with new technologies for example; systems that burn off methane gas from landfills and convert that into usable energy, or can be as simple as a well-wooded property.  The only requirement is that it does more than prevent further damage, but actually is cleans up previous damage.

Ok, so what they do is they send a representative from the Carbon Credit trading agency to evaluate your impact on removing carbon - which ever way it is that you do it.  Once they know how much carbon is being removed, you will be awarded so many credits.  Now you can use these credits to subtract from your own companies carbon footprint, or you can sell it to another company to subtract from their footprint.  For example: Oil companies will often purchase land, preserve it, and collect carbon credits in order to lessen the liability for all of the pollution they cause.  This puts a damper on pollution taxes and makes their company look good.  That's why you hear about companies bragging "here at said company, we're working towards a greener future, that's why we've planted 1000 trees this year" and along those lines. No CEO planted any trees... they simply bought the carbon credit from someone who planted the trees.

This sounds all fine and dandy, but I have a few concerns. Does it all balance out?  Does this actually reduce pollution, or are they just capitalizing on existing efforts?  Will it catch on, or will we still have to press for more pollution regulation on a government level in order to force action?  Should companies be allowed to rely on the efforts of others opposed to taking action themselves?

Of course... when you're talking business, there's always a dark side.  Companies will always look to find cheaper ways to produce these credits in order to save money. So how do they do it?  How else? They make underpaid employees from destitute countries suffer.  The machines used to make their jobs efficient and not as physically demanding are being eliminated or replaced with manually operated equipment that have no impact on the environment.  Most of these employees have no idea what a carbon credit is, just that their jobs just got a hell of a lot more demanding and difficult.  I just don't see how the efforts of another country is diminishing our own impact anyway... it doesn't make sense.   Not to mention the fact that even more American and Canadian money is being put into foreign economies, where it will most likely stay.

We don't get Chinese smog in Toronto... we get pollution causing smog in Toronto - from Toronto.   For our own benefit, carbon credit purchases should only be allowed to be purchased in the corresponding countries in which they are polluting.  As most of us know, the impact of pollution impacts locals first, and more so than the rest of the world (not to say that pollution doesn't effect everyone).  We should tackle the problems where they stand, and not from afar.

Do you think Carbon Credits are a good idea, or should factories be awarded with tax money for their own efforts to reduce their own pollution and clean up their own mess?  What if BP could buy carbon credits in order to deflect liability for the oil spill?  I dunno... this whole thing brings a bad taste.