This is just crazy.  From Britain’s Daily Mail:

Every adult should be forced to use a ‘carbon ration card’ when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.

The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain’s CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

Anyone who exceeds their entitlement would have to buy top-up credits from individuals who haven’t used up their allowance. The amount paid would be driven by market forces and the deal done through a specialist company.

As usual, the Cato Institute has some sage analysis of yet another harebrained government idea.

Britain’s parliamentary proposal to require all adults to carry a ‘carbon ration card’ would result in the absolute destruction of personal privacy with no detectable impact on global climate. The proposed card would track virtually all personal movements and purchases (including food), reporting them to the government. The cost of the loss of privacy is outweighed by absolutely no climatic benefit. The United Kingdom is a minor emitter of carbon dioxide, accounting for a tiny fraction compared to the emissions of China, now the world’s largest source of carbon dioxide, where there is certainly no attempt to reduce personal use of energy.

Further, for such a program to be effective, the cost of energy would have to be so high that the British economy would grind to a halt. Stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide requires 60-80% reductions in emissions worldwide. Here in the United States, $4.00 per gallon gasoline is cutting use by a few percent. What price is required for an 80% reduction, and is this worth surrendering virtually all of one’s privacy to the government?

• Global warming predictions were overestimated. I’m just shocked.
• John Edwards is carbon neutral!
• A global warmitarian loses faith
• Global warmitarians creating de facto slavery
• Hypocrisy abounds

This entry was posted by Brian on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 9:39 am and is filed under Civil Liberties, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.