Hot off the press from uk.d-i-y's favourite sources (UEA and El Reg)
Banning incandescent bulbs, taking the train instead of flying, any other change that reduces emissions by the traditional heavy CO2 industries covered by the emissions trading schemes (power generation and air travel) by the magic of accountant hand-waving ends up being tradeable to those not covered by the trading schemes.
So every green saving anyone claims is a complete fallacy, it merely gives someone else a licence to burn a corresponding amount to make up for it ...
As always; follow the money trail. Did you seriously think the money men and their bloodhound-like abilities wouldn't see a way to monetize this? From day one, it's been waiting, just like milk quotas and carbon credits. Wouldn't suprise me at all if there's been a palm or two greased, and quite substantially, at that.
Better than some blogs, in that to begin with he does at least try to summarise the paper in layman's language. However, he can't resist letting his own biased opinions show ...
"The discussion paper, naturally enough, has angered some of the famously hardline green scientists to be found on the UEA campus. UEA is home to the Climate Research Unit, one of the high temples of global warming alarmism and famous as the centre of the "Climategate" affair. UEA also hosts the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which some social scientists have suggested could become the nerve centre of an Isaac Asimov "Psychohistory" style push to manipulate voters into endorsing urgent climate action."
... but he gives no evidence for this allegation, only an entirely non-controversial quote from another UEA academic re-inforcing the idea that we should each take personal responsibility for our own emissions.
The trouble with all such economic schemes such as the EU ETS is that they are incomplete, and, even if the scheme is entirely consistent internally (a difficult enough thing to achieve), there will always be anomalies at the boundaries with the rest of the economy. Probably the biggest current problem with it is that it doesn't cover road travel.
What is needed is to redefine the entire world economy on economic and environmental cost of energy principles, but that is only really possible with the world's co-operation, and thus is not likely to happen soon. Meanwhile, such anomalies as described in the paper will continue, and will confuse the hell out of the average punter.
Your own summary is less even-handed than the original article, let alone the original paper.
For one thing, the latter specifically discusses altruism in its Introduction, and gives it credit for achieving more than is predicted.
But I think also that you, and possibly the paper's author, are losing sight of the fact that the scheme's caps on emissions necessitate reducing emissions overall, and reductions by consumers, altruistic and voluntary or otherwise, help meet these target reductions.
You can only get people to behave thus at the margins. They will do things to reduce consumption [1] where it has no effect on their own lifestyle.
[1] And even then only if they remember. I've lost count of the number of people I've seen, who profess to "care", who blatantly waste resources. When I was in the States, a memo came round about the drought and would we all work to reduce water consumption. That very day, I saw a "caring" colleague brushing his teeth after lunch, water tap full on and splashing onto the floor, during the *whole**period* of his brushing exercise.
My wife spent some time on Santorini when she was a student. She stopped at a B&B high up over the harbour. The owner cautioned her and two American girls that water is a scarce resource and they must minimise water use and be careful about closing taps after use. He also warned that nature is cruel and if they used all the water in the tank there would be no more water until the next tanker ship arrived in the harbour.
Two septics ranted on that since they were from Arizona they understood water conservation.
By the third day they had used all of the water, taking several showers a day and endlessly forgetting to shut off taps. When all that came out of the taps was a dribble of rusty water they took their bed rolls and went off to another island.
But your remarks are merely anecdotal, whereas in the Introduction he is quoting actual studies of the subject which have input into his work.
I'm sure we can all think of people such as the person you quote, but, if we were to enquire enough, I dare say we would find other people going beyond the pale to help.
Consider litter. We see some litter, or fly-tipping, and we curse humanity in general, whereas we are actually seeing perhaps just one person's 'failing', not the general populations' 'strength' in using approved methods of disposing of waste. Further, unless we actually see them doing it, we may not realise that some individuals may be going around clearing up stuff that is not of their own dropping.
I'm thinking of starting a class action on behalf of those people who have not had their share of compo, due to being intelligent enough to never be mis-sold anything.
We demand compo for missing out on the compo that everone else is getting.
Judging by the number of showers taken by many women I've met, this country still has an active and thriving coal mining industry, and it's entirely staffed by women. I once had one female tenant who had so many showers a day she drained the header tank!
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