Ping ([info]zestyping) wrote,
@ 2005-12-06 00:16:00
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Current mood: blah
Entry tags:comfort

Things to be happy about, and a question.
Put together the house jukebox on the weekend. Now we can play music off of the network in the dining room, and our kitchen manager can place online food orders from within yelling distance of the kitchen — ten paces to check the pantry, rather than running from one end of the house to the other. (Two people were carrying laptops at dinner last night — one playing music, and the other using their laptop as a tray. Three computers in the dinner line! What is this world coming to?)

Went to poi class today. This is my weekly excuse to do something completely selfish and fun, and i really needed it today.

Received a beautiful handwritten letter with cute drawings of snow and snowmen! I love real mail.

Now the question: Brad Templeton writes that spending money on carbon credits is vastly more effective than on a Prius — something like one or two orders of magnitude. What do you think of his argument? It made me sit back and think a bit. What do you think of pollution credits in general? The idea of paying polluters sounds icky, but the logic seems hard to dispute.


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[info]tedesson
2005-12-06 06:23 pm UTC (link)
We signed up for carbon credits to cover the energy used by our hosting clients this week. I did it for several reasons. First, we don't have any control of the source of the power for our hosting, because we rent space in a facility. So, we couldn't sign up for wind power there, even if we wanted to. Carbon credits act like a proxy, giving us back choice of source.

Secondly, the source we picked for carbon credits uses a majority of renewable source credits from a variety of sources, including solar, wind and biomass. The power companies in this area offer programs for single source, but not multi-source. Again, the credits act like a proxy, allowing us to encourage a variety of projects in the renewable area with our purchasing choice.

I'd have to say that providing hosting is exactly the sort of situation that carbon credits were designed for. We have no control over source of power, so we can't make an investment directly in providing renewable sources for that use. But, we do have the opportunity to use the proxy of carbon credits to encourage investment in renewable sources, instead of our direct purchase action.

Carbon credits give the market feedback that green power is actually needed and wanted through real dollars, not just empty promises. And it creates an opportunity for feedback which makes an end run around all of those supply stream decisions that I don't have control over.

I'd prefer if we could invest directly in renewable sources, but because we can't at the moment, this is a good alternative.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]zestyping
2005-12-08 08:13 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for describing your situation. This makes a lot of sense, and having a specific story really brings it home for me.

Thanks for reading my journal, too!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]rebbyribs
2005-12-06 07:27 pm UTC (link)
Why do you think of doing poi as selfish? True, it's not really benefitting anyone else, but it's fun for you and not depriving anyone else of anything either.

(Reply to this) (Thread)
similar...
[info]barks
2005-12-06 11:20 pm UTC (link)
how come you feel like you need an excuse to be selfish and fun? that's my question. :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: similar...
[info]zestyping
2005-12-08 08:12 pm UTC (link)
Good question. It often seems that i'm not being nearly as useful as i could be.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]zestyping
2005-12-08 08:09 pm UTC (link)
it's not really benefitting anyone else

That's why. It just seems more frivolous than other things i could be doing. Still, i like it.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Carbon Credit
[info]r6
2005-12-06 07:33 pm UTC (link)
I believe carbon credits are a good idea, but I’m not yet convinced that the US has the balls to limit the number of credits. However I know very little about the carbon credits system in the US, so I could be wrong.

(Reply to this)

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