"There is a new service from Expedia, Travelocity and other travel websites: environmental expiation. If you wish, when you buy a plane ticket, they will figure out how much carbon your trip will be adding to the atmosphere and charge you for it. (For Boston to Los Angeles, about 3,000 miles, it comes to around $9.) The money goes to nonprofit groups that either plant trees to absorb the carbon or produce an equal amount of energy in an eco-friendly way (using windmills and such). You are still increasing the carbon in the air, but someone else, thanks to you, is reducing it by an equal amount.
The genius of carbon credits is that it opens up a whole new inventory of things that people can buy and sell. And there is no reason that the principle should be limited to environmentalism.
For example, how about a "bad-parenting surcharge."
Somewhere in the world there is a parent who is slugging his kid every night. For a price, he would refrain for a night, or even two. By paying that parent not to slug his kid twice, you gain the right to slug your kid just once.
It's a win-win-win. You get to slug your kid. This other father gets the money. The other guy's kid is happy--he gets a night off from being slugged."
Read more at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1635840,00.html
1 comment:
Sekhar...does anybody monitor how the money going to the non- profit groups are being used....whether they are being used in the right way to restrict carbon..else it will be a jeopardy right?
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