Wave Maker

goes one of the great insults hurled at Sir Arthur from above as he seeks entry to a French castle in his quest for the Holy Grail.

So to, it seems, are the "green industries" doing to Al Gore, Cheryl Crow, Laurie David and the rest of the Green Elite, according to this story in the London Financial Times:

A Financial Times investigation has uncovered widespread failings in the new markets for greenhouse gases, suggesting some organisations are paying for emissions reductions that do not take place.

Others are meanwhile making big profits from carbon trading for very small expenditure and in some cases for clean-ups that they would have made anyway.

The growing political salience of environmental politics has sparked a “green gold rush”, which has seen a dramatic expansion in the number of businesses offering both companies and individuals the chance to go “carbon neutral”, offsetting their own energy use by buying carbon credits that cancel out their contribution to global warming.


The FT investigation found:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

Francis Sullivan, environment adviser at HSBC, the UK’s biggest bank that went carbon-neutral in 2005, said he found “serious credibility concerns” in the offsetting market after evaluating it for several months.

“The police, the fraud squad and trading standards need to be looking into this. Otherwise people will lose faith in it,” he said.

Read it and laugh.

Lose faith indeed.

It is not that the concept of being responsible for one's "carbon footprint" is by itself beyond reason. It isn't, to a point.

But I see a "movement" that seeks to impose upon ordinary people living ordinary lives the onus of saving a planet that is not truly endangered by them, promoted by the folks who drink glasses of $100 chablis around the illegal 45' long barbecue pit of Larry and Laurie David.

So in which "general direction" does this fart travel?