Who has the complete spill on CARBON CREDITS ?

Carbon credits are nonsense.

They are nothing more than a feel-good measure enacted by "socially conscious" people and groups in order to alleviate the guilt they feel from their contributions to the pollution of the environment.

If you produce "X" amount of carbon by driving,using electricity,heating your home,etc...you're suppossed to be able to offset,or reduce, your "carbon footprint" (read "pollution") by buying a certain amount of carbon credits.The money then goes to programs that plant trees,clean up polluted areas,research cleaner fuels,etc...all these things are nice,but they don't really do anything to remove the carbon you've produced!

The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is to quit producing carbon! Turn your thermostat down.Get those new-fangled light bulbs.Drive less if you can,or carpool.Buy solar panels for your home.All that other happy hippie stuff! Just don't give your money to these people.

The funny thing about all this.....the most notable champion of this cause (Al Gore) uses more electricity in a month to power his home than the average American uses in a year.That's a fact.Google it if you don't believe me.

The 100% market design of the carbon policy is a goofy american invention. It allows any emitting company to whine and get free allowances for which they pay nothing and then past the cost of something they received for free to customers leading to windfall profits.

This goofy american design has been chosen to accomodate them but they finally decided to step out the Kyoto Protocol at the last minute, prefearing to blame the chinese who are just beginning their industrialization instead of fairly acknowledging their own impact.

Instead the US has developped the AP6 who even according to McCain is "only an act on public relations". The AP6 doesn´t put

any targets and in the participating nations, only China set an intensity target for itself, taking the lead over the US.

"The contribution under the AP6 is purely voluntary and so should it be with my own tax contribution to the state !!!!"

Beside that, the US has also developped and wasted money in token solutions like hydrogen which is not a source of energy but an expensive carrier. Since it can still be produced from oil, this has been the focus of the Bush administration.

A carbon tax, which collects money that is reused in the economy is better since it taxes CO2 on a fair even rate, avoiding distortion in competition. It is furthermore easier to collect since counting oil imports and coal extraction is easy. The collected money can then be used to buy carbon credits on a fair basis on a properly managed market