The T-Files

Tony Sarrecchia

Much as been said about carbon footprints, credits, and offsets. But what, if anything, does it all mean? Well, your carbon footprint is what your existence on the planet contributes to the CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere and therefore ‘global warming’. The theory goes like this: If you live the life of a contributing member of society, your existence is more of a blight on the planet than that of your Neanderthal ancestor. Your odds of being eaten by a Pterodactyl are considerably lower than your Neanderthal past–a reasonable trade off most thinking people would agree. Of course, by thinking people, I don’t mean the Enviro-Nazis granola eaters who believe humans are a pox upon the planet. Since most of us are not willing to leave the planet, or move from our homes to a cave, the Enviro-Nazis and their Gulfstream jet owning guru have developed carbon offset schemes to enrich themselves while lightening our wallets.

The basic premise of the carbon offset scheme is much like the cuss jar concept. My friend, who used to smoke like the Marlboro Man and swear like the old man on A Christmas Story, had a baby. Suddenly, she felt as if the world should be nicer just because her little nipper had arrived. She decided that there wouldn’t be any smoking or cussing in her house. To enforce her new found righteousness, she put out a swear jar: each cuss word cost 50 cent. Supposedly she would save the money for her little spawn’s college fund. On my first visit I tossed a twenty dollar bill into the jar and said I was fudging covered for the week (”only I didn’t say fudge,I said the word, the big one…”). Now, grant it, my behavior was boorish, but at least the $20 was going to a good cause; and, since I paid for it, I felt free to let loose with the f-bomb as often as possible. Carbon offsets work the same way: They allow corporations and individuals to continue to emit carbon at any rate they choose because they can always buy more credits.

As an observation, care to guess who benefits from the carbon offset schemes? Ten carbon credits for you if you guessed Al Gore. That’s right, the Enviro-guru who flies around the country in his Gulfstream jet, and wants you to live the life of the Amish, sits on the board of a carbon offset company. When Gore buys his carbon credits, he buys them from himself.

The reality of it is that much like the cuss jar didn’t reduce the amount of cussing in the house, carbon offsets don’t reduce the carbons in the air. Offsets do, however, make people feel like they are ‘do something’ and that’s what is really important right? Feeling like you are solving the problem is more important that understanding if there is a problem. The theory is that the money collected by the offset organizations is reinvested or redistributed to fund renewable energy projects. However, due to a lack of auditing methods and oversight, actually tracing where the funds are going is difficult.

Why would individuals play along in this modern day ‘indulgence’ scheme? Mostly guilt. There is also confusion between the affect humans have on green house gasses and global warming, versus the natural evolution of the planet.
Frankly, the evidence that humans are causing global warming just isn’t that strong. What would make me speak such a heresy? Well, there are a number of scientific studies that support the heresy. Additionally; there is a $500,000 unclaimed prize waiting for “the first person to prove, in a scientific manner, that humans are causing harmful global warming” at http://www.junkscience.com.

Surely if there were scientifically verifiable evidence about global warming someone would have claimed the prize and donated the money to some environmental cause.
Am I denying global warming? No. Globes warm. They also cool. That’s what globes do–it’s a cyclical process that no amount of indulgences or cuss jars can affect.

A shameful self promotion: Like what you’ve been reading here? Hate it? Do you just want to give me an earful about how I don’t know anything? Starting next Tuesday night, you can join me at www.ksuradio.com from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. I’ll be hosting The T-Files, a call-in show where we can talk about this column, politics, liberty, or current events.
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Talking on Anderson Cooper 360 the other night, Obama said the following:

“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We’ve got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,” (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/01/obama-defends-natural-disaster-experience/).

Except Sarah Palin is a governor, not a mayor. So let’s run those numbers again:

Obama’s monthly budget is closer to $22 million. The budget of Alaska, about $1 billion a month. Total number of employees on Obama’s team? 2500. Total number of Alaska state employees? 15 thousand.
(http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/whose-budget-is-bigger/?ref=opinion)
You might want to reframe that argument, Senator.

Personally, I would suggest that Obama stop comparing himself to the other team’s sidekick; it makes him look petty. Leave Palin to Biden and stay focused on McCain.

Barack Obama’s quote about Sarah Palin shows he is a classy guy (From Time):

“I have heard some of the news on this and so let me be as clear as possible. I have said before and I will repeat again, I think people’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics, it has no relevance to governor Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. And so I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18. And how family deals with issues and teenage children that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that is off limits.”

Tony Sarrecchia

First off, congratulations to me: As subscribers to my blog (http://www.currentevents1.today.com) know, I selected Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running mate on Tuesday, 3 days before the announcement. While the other pundits weretouting Mitt Romney, Tom Ridge and Joe Lieberman (?)—Drudge didn’t even include her name in his on-line poll–some of us were thinking more strategically. I imagine I will soon be rolling in consulting and advising offers.

Secondly, congratulations to Senator McCain for his wise and bold choice. Sarah Palin is a potent compliment to McCain: She has experience, personality, and youth. Palin has the Chief Executive experience that Senator Obama does not; she is a Washington outsider, which Joe Biden is not; and she has never plagiarized, which Biden has (twice, actually) (“Biden Withdraws Bid for President In Wake of Furor”). What does it say about someone who picks a known intellectual thief to be his second in command? Weren’t there any other qualified Democrats who didn’t try to crib their life story from a British Labor Leader? (Biden’s Debate Finale: An Echo From Abroad)

Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton—which is a good thing. In a Newsweek interview, Palin said that Hillary’s ‘whining’ about the treatment she (Clinton) received during the Democratic Primaries does not help women in politics. Palin also does not carry any of the Clinton baggage—specifically, the old steamer trunk named Bill; neither does she share Clinton’s love for larger and invasive government. Since becoming Governor, Palin has cut pork barrel spending by her fellow Alaskan Republicans, including the funding for the “Bridge to Nowhere”– a $398 million bridge to connect one of Alaska’s outer islands. “”We will continue to look for options (…) to allow better access to the island,”…”The concentration is not going to be on a $400 million bridge.”” (‘Bridge to nowhere’ abandoned ).

Palin also supports drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge as a solution to our current dependency on foreign oil. She told Weekly Standard writer Stephen F. Hayes (To Drill, or Not to Drill) ““One of the pieces of a solution is allowing exploration on that little 2,000 acre plot of land out of the 20 million acres up there in the coastal plain.” The 2,000 acres that Palin refers to is the area that a drilling site would require–”smaller than the size of LAX,” as she puts it. “With new technology and directional drilling and other measures that can be taken today to minimize even that footprint. We know that this can be done safely and this can be managed well.””

However, Sarah Palin is hardly in the pockets of Big Oil. Less than a year after taking office, Palin told the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission that the petroleum profits tax wasn’t ‘working as promised’ (Palin oil tax gets cold shoulder), and levied higher taxes on the industry. The result? This year every resident of Alaska will receive a $1200 check from the oil industry.

How did Team Obama welcome Palin into the race? The first Obama campaign statement: “Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.” Pot meet kettle. As far as I can tell, Obama lacks any foreign policy unless we count his recent rock-star like world tour (t-shirts soon to be available). Hillary Clinton said Obama’s foreign policy experience was a little more than a speech he gave. Joe Biden said, in reference to Obama’s experience “I think he can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.” (Biden on Obama)

Palin is Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska National Guard. Obama is an absentee senator. Palin led an ethics committee and forced members of her own party to resign. Obama sat on a board with his friend and known terrorist William Ayers. When Palin was mayor, she reduced her salary and cut resident property taxes by 60 percent. Obama was never a mayor, but he did buy a house next to major campaign donor and indicted slum lord Tony Rezko (8 things you need to know about Obama and Rezko.)

The ironic thing about that statement is that neither Obama or Biden have any Chief Executive experience at any level of government. I know some Obama fans will say, that the statement came from Obama’s campaign, not the Senator. Obama and Biden did make a very gracious statement to Palin a couple of hours later. Of course, the implication then is that either Obama cannot control his team or Obama does not know what his team is doing. Either way, it brings Obama’s leadership skills into question.

As I said in my prophetic blog post: “Conservatives [will] love her because she attends church regularly, is pro-life, and is a lifetime member of the NRA. Centrist Republicans and Democrats will appreciate that, while she doesn’t support same-sex marriage, she is concerned with gay and lesbian discrimination and signed a same-sex benefits act into law (something the previous administration refused to do). Women who feel jilted by the Democrat party, and Obama’s [business as usual] VP choice, should see her as the Republican answer to Hillary: a tough-minded woman ready to lead.” (McCain-Palin, A Winning Ticket)

I am still not sold on McCain as president; his selection of Palin for veep makes this election not only historic, but the most exciting elections in my lifetime.