New Redemption for Driving your SUV/Car?

[BreezyD]

Alright cc.com ... I need your help. I read about this new project, and at first glance, it seems like a great idea. I would love to get feedback from those that are more critically minded than I am on the potential downsides.

 

Is this something you would consider participating in? If not ... why?

 

Thanks!

 

Brianna

 

 

Taken from wired.com ...

 

"SUV Redemption Sticker"

 

In Washington, DC, eco-vandals smear SUV door handles with dog crap. In Santa Cruz, California, protestors tag more than 60 gas-guzzlers with anti-oil graffiti. In Los Angeles, a Caltech grad student is sentenced to eight years in prison for trashing more than 120 SUVs around the city. It's almost enough to make you feel bad for SUV drivers. After all, some of them are green, too - just not as hardcore about it.

 

Now they have TerraPass, a clever eco-capitalism experiment. Launched by a group of Wharton Business School classmates, the startup sells a decal that drivers can slap on their windshields. The sticker price - $79.95 for SUVs, less for greener cars - gets invested in renewable energy projects and credits. The credits are traded through local brokers on the new Chicago Climate Exchange.

 

TerraPass lets consumers participate in an emissions trading system the US established in 1990. (Give credit to economist Ronald Coase, who won a Nobel Prize for the idea in 1991.) Under the system, industrial operations that spew less than their share of emissions can sell a credit to companies that fail to keep gunk out of the air. In effect, the dirtier factories can pay greener operations to do the work of cutting emissions. The approach has taken off worldwide, spawning a billion-dollar market.

 

And it's not just for big-time polluters. Today, farmers cash in on credits by collecting and processing cow dung, which produces globe-cooking methane. Land-owners earn credits by installing wind farms on their blustery fields, which top off the power grid with carbon-free electricity.

 

But until now, the Chicago Climate Exchange was off-limits to all but registered traders, and the transaction cost of buying credits piecemeal from small outfits was too high. TerraPass aggregates the money plunked down by guilty - ahem, environmentally concerned - SUV drivers, allowing them to participate in the market.

 

Burning a gallon of gasoline produces about 20 pounds of CO². So the average SUV - which travels 12,000 miles a year - pumps out about 20,000 pounds of greenhouse gases annually. On today's market, TerraPass can scrub that pollution from the environment for less than 80 bucks.

 

Only a few months old, with a staff just out of grad school and a membership of fewer than 1,000, TerraPass is no match for the world's half a billion cars - the second-biggest source of greenhouse gases. But Ned Ford, a member of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Committee, believes TerraPass could change the way people think about energy and the environment. "Politicians and business leaders have been telling us for the last 20 years that there's this huge painful cost associated with reducing carbon," he says.

 

"If you think about your own personal impact on CO², and you find out you can offset it for a reasonable amount of money, it makes you think differently about the problem. TerraPass is mind opening," he says, "and that's pretty cool."

 

- Douglas McGray

 

Link to Article

 

Link to Terra Pass Website

[Dru]

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/476531/an/0/page/0#476531

 

Is there an echo in here?

[BreezyD]

Ugh, sorry Dru. I didn't do my homework.

 

B

[Geek_the_Greek]

Ok, cross-post, whatever.

 

So if you drive 12000 miles at 18 mil/gallon, that's 666.7 gallons of gas.

The same distance at 30 mil/gallon is 400 gallons, or 2/3 more gas consumption.

What is the significance of $80 a year? Some estimate of the mitigation cost? Do we know that we can actually mitigate against CO2? Is this by planting more trees somewhere else? I would think it would cost more than $80 per vehicle to plant enough trees to offset burning 267 gallons of gas a year. I am skeptical.

 

Also, like the article said, it only really means something if it catches on, in which case we might as well just put a higher tax on gasoline to decrease overall consumption.

 

On second thoughts, this probably does belong in spray...

[robert]

It is funny how many of us get our information from the same sources. I read this too. I have seen a fair number of items on this board right after wired blogged about them. Our geek tendencies don't end when we log out of cc.com I guess.

[Geek_the_Greek]

Pah, speak for yourself. I get my all my info from America's finest news source .

[ryland_moore]

This seems very similar to the wetlands mitigation banking system here in the US. Protect wetlands in one place so that they can be developed in other places. There is no net gain in wetlands, but they are depleted.

 

That being said, it does seem to be a good concept, just that it will be interesting to see if it has any real effect. I mean, big polluters purchasing mitigation credits from those that do not exceed emissions standards does not necessarily make the world a cleaner place and does not necessarily reduce CO2 emissions, nor reduce the effect of global warming. It only allows there to be continued pollution. The point is to reduce CO2 pollution and mitigation projects do not necessarily accomplish this feat.

 

To truly reduce CO2, I feel that the only way is to set standards and goals similar to the Kyoto agreement if not the exact same, and actually make everyone reduce. I am skeptical that this program or others would actually accomplish that feat without fines and restrictions in place to punish those that do not meet these requirements. With the G8 summit occurring, and global warming a hot topic right now, the NY Times released an article on July 3rd showing that Portland has accomplished exactly what President Bush has stated would be too costly for the US economy, by reducing CO2 emissions to below 1990 level.

 

NY Times article below (It was not free so I am posting it here. Sorry for taking up so much space.)

 

A Livable Shade of Green

Nicholas D. Kristof

July 3, 2005

PORTLAND, Ore. When President Bush travels to the Group of 8 summit meeting this week, he'll stiff Tony Blair and other leaders who are appealing for firm action on global warming.

 

"Kyoto would have wrecked our economy," Mr. Bush told a Danish interviewer recently, referring to the accord to curb carbon emissions. Maybe that was a plausible argument a few years ago, but now the city of Portland is proving it flat wrong.

 

Newly released data show that Portland, America's environmental laboratory, has achieved stunning reductions in carbon emissions. It has reduced emissions below the levels of 1990, the benchmark for the Kyoto accord, while booming economically.

 

What's more, officials in Portland insist that the campaign to cut carbon emissions has entailed no significant economic price, and on the contrary has brought the city huge benefits: less tax money spent on energy, more convenient transportation, a greener city, and expertise in energy efficiency that is helping local businesses win contracts worldwide.

 

"People have looked at it the wrong way, as a drain," said Mayor Tom Potter, who himself drives a Prius hybrid. "Actually it's something that attracts people. It's economical; it makes sense in dollars."

 

I've been torn about what to do about global warming. But the evidence is growing that climate change is a real threat: I was bowled over when I visited the Arctic and talked to Eskimos who described sea ice disappearing, permafrost melting and visits by robins, for which they have no word in the local language.

 

In the past, economic models tended to discourage aggressive action on greenhouse gases, because they indicated that the cost of curbing carbon emissions could be extraordinarily high, amounting to perhaps 3 percent of G.N.P.

 

That's where Portland's experience is so crucial. It confirms the suggestions of some economists that we can take initial steps against global warming without economic disruptions. Then in a decade or two, we can decide whether to proceed with other, costlier steps.

 

In 1993, Portland became the first local government in the United States to adopt a strategy to deal with climate change. The latest data, released a few weeks ago, show the results: Greenhouse gas emissions last year in Multnomah County, which includes Portland, dropped below the level of 1990, and per capita emissions were down 13 percent.

 

This was achieved partly by a major increase in public transit, including two light rail lines and a streetcar system. The city has also built 750 miles of bicycle paths, and the number of people commuting by foot or on bicycle has increased 10 percent.

 

Portland offers all city employees either a $25-per-month bus pass or car pool parking. Private businesses are told that if they provide employees with subsidized parking, they should also subsidize bus commutes.

 

The city has also offered financial incentives and technical assistance to anyone constructing a "green building" with built-in energy efficiency.

 

Then there are innumerable little steps, such as encouraging people to weatherize their homes. Portland also replaced the bulbs in the city's traffic lights with light-emitting diodes, which reduce electricity use by 80 percent and save the city almost $500,000 a year.

 

"Portland's efforts refute the thesis that you can't make progress without huge economic harm," says Erik Sten, a city commissioner. "It actually goes all the other way -- to the extent Portland has been successful, the things that we were doing that happened to reduce emissions were the things that made our city livable and hence desirable."

 

Mr. Sten added that Portland's officials were able to curb carbon emissions only because the steps they took were intrinsically popular and cheap, serving other purposes like reducing traffic congestion or saving on electrical costs. "I haven't seen that much willingness even among our environmentalists," he said, "to do huge masochistic things to save the planet."

 

So as he heads to the summit meeting, Mr. Bush should get a briefing on Portland's experience (a full report is at www.sustainableportland.org) and accept that we don't need to surrender to global warming.

 

Perhaps eventually we will face hard trade-offs. But for now Portland shows that we can help our planet without "wrecking" our economy -- indeed, at no significant cost at all. At the Group of 8, that should be a no-brainer.

 

Only when we sign on to the Kyoto agreement will a reduction in CO2 occur and as the NY Times points out, Portland seems to be the only city in the U.S. who is doing this successfully.

[Dru]

Actually, with emissions trading, emissions ARE reduced. You get a quota for how many emissions you are allowed. If you emit more than your quota, you are penalized unless you buy more from someone who then agrees to emit less than their quota to make up yours. It rewards conservation by making the amount you conserve a tradable asset with a price attached.

 

Lets say you buy a coal plant. Then you shut it down and sell its emissions quota, piece by piece, to SUV drivers. You profit. The SUVs didn't have a quota in the first place. Global emissions drop by the amount the coal plant you shut down, would have emitted. In effect the SUV drivers pay to shut down the coal plant.

[chelle]

Perhaps in the big big scheme of things emmissions will be reduced somewhere, but I am with Ryland on this one. I think we need to impose tougher standards on companies that pollute and try to improve air quality for the climate, but also for the overall health of the population.

 

Lung diseases and asthma are increasing at far greater rates than ever. A long-term epidemiology study has shown that people who live in areas with a lot of small particulates (less than 2 microns diameter) from polluting cars, trucks, buses, etc. lose about 2 years of their life expectancy. This is a problem in developed nations and also in developing nations. With the laxity of clean air quality standards under GW more cities and suburbs have poor air quality for more days during the year.

 

Unfortunately this whole air quailty argument is primarily discussed in terms of global climate change and in geologic time scale that people cannot directly relate to. If it were reframed as a public health concern and people understood their quality of life would be improved and their kids wouldn't have trouble breathing, they might actually be motivated to care about the issue and push for changes in legislation and regulation. Coal burning power plants are also a big source of mercury and heavy metal contaminates in our lakes and rivers. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to actually eat seafood more than twice a week?

 

A pollution credit system is a way for big business to avoid fines for non-compliance while they figure out how to make the economics of making large scale investment to reduce emmisions. Unfortunately like any trading market it is becoming it's own animal that people are using to make money. In the end if there is enough supply for companies to avoid making investment in cleaner technology, they will continue to find ways to avoid spending money to reduce pollution.

[Dru]

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to actually eat seafood more than twice a week?

 

Given that the current commercial fisheries are overfishing and that catches are declining precipitously in every lake and ocean in the world - no, it wouldn't. Unless you are thinking of plankton and jellyfish as seafood because this is what our fishing down the food chain leads to.

[cj001f]

Given that the current commercial fisheries are overfishing and that catches are declining precipitously in every lake and ocean in the world - no, it wouldn't. Unless you are thinking of plankton and jellyfish as seafood because this is what our fishing down the food chain leads to.

Of course there is farmed fish

[Dru]

"Mom, can I have some more salmon on my PCBs?"

[cj001f]

" PCBs?"

Circuit Boards don't aid digestion Dru!

[BreezyD]

So back to the consumer angle. Aside from trying to affect legislation to set better standards for companies - do you guys think Terra Pass is a environmentally responsible way to mitigate the impact of the fact that I drive a car?

 

B

[Dru]

" PCBs?"

Circuit Boards don't aid digestion Dru!

 

Summary — PCBs in farmed salmon

Seven of ten farmed salmon purchased at grocery stores in Washington DC, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon were contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at levels that raise health concerns, according to independent laboratory tests commissioned by Environmental Working Group.

 

These first-ever tests of farmed salmon from U.S. grocery stores show that farmed salmon are likely the most PCB-contaminated protein source in the U.S. food supply. On average farmed salmon have 16 times the dioxin-like PCBs found in wild salmon, 4 times the levels in beef, and 3.4 times the dioxin-like PCBs found in other seafood. The levels found in these tests track previous studies of farmed salmon contamination by scientists from Canada, Ireland, and the U.K. In total, these studies support the conclusion that American consumers nationwide are exposed to elevated PCB levels by eating farmed salmon.

 

[ryland_moore]

Dru,

 

I think you are missing the point. Using your example, a coal company over pollutes (ie. exceeds its quota by a factor of 2) while another coal company sees a windfall by selling pollution credits because they produced less pollution (also by a factor of 2). All you have done is maintained the same level of pollution and not reduced anything. You have not gained more pollution, but you have also not reduced pollution from what was originally allowed by the EPA. Using the SUV, there is no quota on them, but you are still not reducing the amount of pollution with more SUVs on the road daily, but you may encourage more SUV driving to occur or to be justified, relating in no net loss of CO2 emissions. The only way this system could really work is to penalize those companies who pollute by setting up a system that works similar to this. For every company that exceeds its pollution quota by a factor of 1, it must purchase 10 factors (used only as an example) worth of pollution credits, so that the net result is a reduction in emissions. The question would remain whether or not there would be enough credits available to meet the needs of the over-polluters.

 

On the other side of the coin, those that reduce their pollution by x number of factors can only sell each factor at face value (ie. no incentives other than the credit payment for reduction in pollution).

 

The govt. has used this method with some slight success for wetlands mitigation, where for every acre of wetland destroyed you must permanently protect four acres, however, there is still a net loss in acres of wetlands overall.

[Dru]

Ryland, although you are correect that in the example with coal plants, the overall emissions level does not decrease because the total emissions still equals the quota level - the second part is that the permitted quota decreases over time. Thus buying quota instead of reducing emissions becomes more and more expensive as time goes on. Which is not the case with wetlands example.

[Cobra_Commander]

I wonder how many grassy ledges are destroyed by SUVs each year. And the number of seething-mad midgets hit by waterbottles from great heights. The humanity!

[cj001f]

" PCBs?"

Circuit Boards don't aid digestion Dru!

 

Summary — PCBs in farmed salmon

Seven of ten farmed salmon purchased at grocery stores in Washington DC, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon were contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at levels that raise health concerns, according to independent laboratory tests commissioned by Environmental Working Group.

 

These first-ever tests of farmed salmon from U.S. grocery stores show that farmed salmon are likely the most PCB-contaminated protein source in the U.S. food supply. On average farmed salmon have 16 times the dioxin-like PCBs found in wild salmon, 4 times the levels in beef, and 3.4 times the dioxin-like PCBs found in other seafood. The levels found in these tests track previous studies of farmed salmon contamination by scientists from Canada, Ireland, and the U.K. In total, these studies support the conclusion that American consumers nationwide are exposed to elevated PCB levels by eating farmed salmon.

 

 

Thanks Dru, I really didn't know what PCB's they were referring to (PCB = Printed Circuit Board in addition to polychlorinated biphenyl)

 

Chilean farmed salmon (and there are a large number of salmon farms) is very low in PCBs.

 

The Terrapass is a more expensive Sierra club sticker (but freemarket approved!) for your SUV. Comeon - emissions trading is a scam for companies like enron, or the brokerage houses. It doesn't do much to decrease emissions, but it puts a hefty comission in a large number of palms.

[Ed_Hobbick]

With the terra-pass acting as a vandalism deterrent, perhaps, given enough time, insurance rates would drop and the resultant savings could then be passed on to the Chicago Climate Exchange.

[Dru]

 

and that's why Europe is all over it and Bush is resisting it, right. those damn greedy Euros profiteering off global warming.

 

as for chilean farmed salmon - suuuure. this from the country that put car antifreeze in wine.

[cj001f]

and that's why Europe is all over it and Bush is resisting it, right. those damn greedy Euros profiteering off global warming.

 

as for chilean farmed salmon - suuuure. this from the country that put car antifreeze in wine.

 

Bush is against any reduction in emissions it's the reduction that benefits the environment, not the trading scheme.

 

As for Chilean salmon - why don't youread the data for the report you cited? Chilean salmon had the lowest concentration of any tested.

[tomtom]

Using your example, a coal company over pollutes (ie. exceeds its quota by a factor of 2) while another coal company sees a windfall by selling pollution credits because they produced less pollution (also by a factor of 2). All you have done is maintained the same level of pollution and not reduced anything.

 

Umm, no.

 

2*quote + 1/2*quote = 2.5*quote, not 2*quote.

 

You've actually increased pollution.

[Dru]

only 2 of the 10 salmon were chilean - not enough to draw a conclusion.

[Dru]

Using your example, a coal company over pollutes (ie. exceeds its quota by a factor of 2) while another coal company sees a windfall by selling pollution credits because they produced less pollution (also by a factor of 2). All you have done is maintained the same level of pollution and not reduced anything.

 

Umm, no.

 

2*quote + 1/2*quote = 2.5*quote, not 2*quote.

 

You've actually increased pollution.

 

lets say both plants have a quota of 1,000,000 tonnes.

 

plant one - produces 2,000,000 tonnes

plant two - produces 500,000 tonnes. sells credit for the other 500,000 tonnes to plant one.

 

Then Plant one is either fined for producing 500,000 tonnes over quota, or has to purchase crediots for another 500,000 tonnes from a third supplier.

 

of course, you could skip emissions trading entirely. just use legislation, and fine plant A. but this does not reward Plant B for reducing its emissions.