OohPooPahDoo
Gold Member
a) The typical granny isn't raising 6 kidsGrannies with six kids don't have small carbon footprints... They are as bad as a small factory in their carbon footprints.
b) Footprint per capita is generally lower when you have more people living under one roof.
It gets traded further up in the economic food chain.How do you accurately monetize CO2 emissions if you don't bring in farmers and grannies? Afterall it's population GROWTH that drives the whole CO2 curve in 1st place don't it?
The cost of polluting in terms of NOx and SOx (REAL pollution) was largely felt LOCALLY in terms of health risks, acid rain, etc. Quite EASY to monetize it. Nitric acid rain didn't fall far from the source. So you could view the factory location and geo-limit the damage and pretty much assess the cleanup cost. So to speak..
CO2 only has meaning as a pollutant on a GLOBAL scale. Try to wrap your mind around the bill from Vanuatu for a Printed Circuit Board manufacturer in Santa Clara, CA.
PS --- I know the credits markets are by country. But the damage is GLOBAL (or so you say). So how is the value assessed? Will we be liable someday thru the IPCC for actually writing checks to Vanuatu? If so, the credit market better dam well write that check --- Because the UN ain't gonna stick ME with it..
The exact value of the damage doesn't need to be assessed. We just need to know how many credits to issue. The free market determines their price.