I couldn't help but notice in the news that the Bay Area Air Quality Management District passed a Carbon Tax on Wednesday.
www.triplepundit.com/pages/bay-area-passes-carbon-tax-fir-003161.php

This sounds great in theory- 4.4 cents per ton of carbon emitted isn't big enough for most businesses to carry serious issue, but the major polluters will have to start figuring this tax into their budgets. Simply becoming a consideration in business is a big start, in my opinion.

I would like to know how this tax is going to be measured. Apparently, Boulder, CO was the first city in the US to apply a carbon tax- www.bouldercarbontax.org. Their tax is based on the amount of electricity consumed by a business. What happens though if a business buys its energy from a wind provider? How is this ta... Read more

Recently, I attended a lunchtime fundraiser for an American watchdog organization. Matter Network published my {{blog post|http://www.matternetwork.com/2008/5/carbon-credits-credit-where-its.cfm}} on the topic, and since then I've thought about it a little more.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, carbon offsets are sold globally using the Clean Development Mechanism- a group called International Rivers, based in Berkeley, CA says that this leads to the sale of fake carbon credits.  The system is different to cap-and-trade, instead allowing developers in LDCs to sell carbon credits based on "carbon not produced" by hydroelectric dams, etc. It's all done in an effort to make sustainable energy affordable to LDCs, but can lead to huge profits by developers of such projects and no real decrease in the amount of carbon emitted globally. The credit... Read more