on Dec 11th, 2006
Carbon credit cards and all that
The mainstream news is reporting that the UK Government, through Environment Secretary David Milliband, are considering personal carbon rationing. The BBC story reports “An annual allowance would be allocated, with [a carbon credit] card being swiped on various items such as travel, energy or food. … people who used less than their allowance could sell any surplus to those who wanted more.”
This kind of carbon rationing scheme was set out in detail by Mayer Hillman in his 2004 book How to Save the Planet - he calls carbon rationing ‘a gift horse’ which will improve our quality of life. The Green Party was the first to adopt carbon rationing as official policy (under the title ‘tradable quotas’). But the Green Party has signed up to the Contract and Converge framework - personal carbon quotas are just one possible element in putting C&C into practice.
Do our elected representatives have the political will to bring in effective climate change emissions controls? (Can they acknowledge past mistakes, and give credit where due?)
Am I the only one a little bit scared of all these ‘cards’ being muted? What with the identity card, the black box on the car, the carbon card, debit and credit cards, satelite tracking, cameras on every street, data collection systems like the nhs data spine, dvlc computerised records. Proposed integration of data bases amongst all governmental, local authority, police departments etc.
And the excuse is always why worry if you’ve done nothing wrong. Tell that to survivors of apartheid.