So long to gas guzzler guilt, thanks to TerraPass, a California company that lets drivers "pay" for the pollution their vehicles generate, then guarantees to reduce it from other sources, such as factories. -- Source: CNN
Do you think this is
Green (good for the environment) Thinking, or is it just a facade? Do greenbacks SUV and other high emissions vehicle owners
might hand over to buy off their guilt during their annual inspections actually do anything to reduce emissions?
My first thought was -- How can a factory actually guarantee that it will release $160 less of the toxic gases it usually does -- to match up to the $160 an area Hummer H2 owner paid to get a "free pass" on emissions for the year? And is $160 really the true environmental cost of each gas-guzzling, emission-producing vehicle's impact?
Then I read the article further and learned this is really nothing new, other than allowing consumers to take part in this "exchange" of credits for the rights to generate and release polluntants. We actually have a "Chicago Climate Exchange," which exists sort of like the New York Stock Exchange it seems. From the article:
Quote:
If you buy a TerraPass, the money will be used to purchase smog allowances on the Chicago Climate Exchange. The Climate Exchange allows polluting companies that produce less than a certain amount of airborne pollutants to sell credits to other companies that then allow them to go over the limit.
The overall limits are reduced over time making it more costly to exceed them. Organizations and companies that buy pollution credits reduce the overall supply of credits and also make it more costly for companies to exceed the limits.
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Is the TerraPass in California a novel idea that should be implemented nationwide, or at least in the nation's most polluted cities (better idea: in the cities with the highest per capita number of SUVs and other high emissions vehicles?) Should we wait and see how it works in California? Or is it greenwashing -- making something that's not helpful to the environment seem as though it is, in part to assuage our collective guilt and keep the EPA "happy"?
Thoughts?
Green Thinking
Linear Mode
