By Katy Grimes

Stop the presses! A really good Republican bill just passed the Assembly 63-0. What? How?

AB 527 by Assemblywoman Beth Gaines, R-Rocklin, would repeal the existing exemption of the Western Climate Initiative, Inc., and its appointees, from the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act when performing their duties.

Thus far, WCI, Inc. an arm of the California Air Resources Board registered in Delaware, has been operating in secrecy.

Immediately after its passage, a very happy Gains explained more about her bill to me.

“First, the bill prohibits the Air Resources Board from making a payment to WCI, Inc., the out of state company charged with implementing California’s cap-and-trade, unless the Air Resources Board certifies that WCI, Inc. complies with the provisions of the California Open Meetings Act and Public Records Act insuring that all meetings and actions are subject to public scrutiny.”

“Secondly, it makes WCI, Inc. subject to audit by the California State Auditor. In the event of an audit, ARB may not make any payments to WCI, Inc. unless WCI, Inc. complies with the audit.”

What is the WCI, Inc.?

According to their website, WCI, Inc. was created to develop a compliance tracking system that tracks both allowances and offsets for the CARB’s can and trade program. WCI, Inc. will also administer allowance auctions; and conduct market monitoring of allowance auctions and offset certificate trading.

According to Gaines, existing law imposes conditions on the Western Climate Initiative, Inc., which is a nongovernmental entity created to assist the state board in the implementation of the act.

The Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, requires that all meetings of a state body be open and public. But the law creating the WCI, Inc. exempted the corporation, and its appointees from the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act.

Gaines’ bill would repeal that exemption.

Interestingly,  WCI, Inc. was coincidentally registered in Delaware.

A little CARB History

In November 2011, the California Air Resources Board  formed WCI, Inc., a non-profit corporation, formed to provide administrative and technical services to support the implementation of state and provincial greenhouse gas emissions trading programs.

According to their website, WCI, Inc. will develop a compliance tracking system that tracks both allowances and offsets; administer allowance auctions; and conduct market monitoring of allowance auctions and offset certificate trading.

The Board of Directors is made up of public officials from Quebec and British Columbia, and public officials from the State of California.

California officials include:

Matt Rodriguez, Secretary for Environmental Protection, Mary Nichols, Chairman of the California Air Resources Board, Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkelely, and Kip Lipper, senior staff member to California State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, and D-Sacramento, often called the “41st senator,”  and referred to as the godfather of California’s environmental bills.

No environmental legislation passes, or gets killed in the Legislature, without Lipper’s approval.

“Lipper is officially classified as an “environmental consultant” to the state Senate.  Any environmental bill that has come out of the Legislature in the last decade has only done so because Lipper allowed it, or because he made it happen,” I wrote in CEQA reforms blow smog over state. “When a bill becomes ‘Lipperized,’ it is altered into a far different bill than the original. Or the bill will die in a committee upon Lipper’s orders.”

And Lipper is now on the WCI, Inc. Board of Directors.

According to bill analysis:

Existing law sets out the authority and duties of the California State Auditor in conducting audits and surveys of specified entities. Existing law authorizes and provides access to the California State Auditor and his or her authorized representatives to examine and reproduce various records of any agency of the state. This bill would require a contract between the state and the Western Climate Initiative, Incorporated, to be subject to audit by the California State Auditor.

Bringing in the State Auditor is a great idea. The Air Resources Board could use a dose of this transparency as well.

“The Air Resources Board, with the authority of AB 32, The Global Warming Solutions Act, has already started down the path of abuse of power,” Gaines said recently on her Assembly website. “I have always been opposed the high cost and ambiguity of AB 32, but now that it is being fully implemented my primary goal is to expose the outrageous cost to job creators in this state.”

By Katy Grimes

A group of employers and taxpayers have sent a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown asking that he halt cap and trade “and policies to achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions.” Cap and trade is the state’s fledgling system of trading carbon credits to reduce greenhouse gases under AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

The AB 32 Implementation Group is a coalition of employers and taxpayer groups forced into compliance with AB 32. But their plea has been ignored by the California Air Resources Board and its director, Mary Nichols, over concerns that AB 32 implementation could bankrupt businesses and harm the state’s own finances.

The group now is asking Brown and CARB to make state policy more cost-effective, better administered and responsive to public concerns. Under AB 32, the governor has the authority to suspend the legislation’s implementation for one year.

But if you read between the lines of the carefully worded letter, it is clear that these employers and taxpayer organizations really fear that CARB has no idea what it is doing as it forges ahead with cap and trade in the brave new world of curbing global warming emissions.

The letter reads:

“The AB 32 Implementation Group would like to highlight that over the past five years, and in particular in the last year, business and industry have submitted numerous public comments on the overall policy aspects of linking with other jurisdictions and on the details of the program to link Quebec in particular, yet we do not see any movement to make linking more cost-effective and more administratively effective (see industry comments on holding limits for example). It is imperative that CARB come down from its ‘full speed ahead’ vision and move to make the reasonable, rational changes to make the linking regulation more cost-effective and more administratively workable.”

That makes sense. Especially since the AB 32 Implementation Group consistently says, “We support climate change policy for California that is coordinated with other western states and ultimately the federal government.”

Higher costs

Numerous studies have shown that California’s cap-and-trade auctions will lead to significantly higher energy costs. California already suffers under high energy costs — piling on even higher costs likely will spur more businesses to leave state.

As the letter hints, an oddity of cap and trade is that Nichols and CARB have fixated on linking with Quebec, the Canadian province.

The letter pointed out: “Linkage with Quebec without first assuring that the market functions properly and that market manipulation protections actually work poses new and unnecessary risks and complications.” No other Canadian province or American state is involved.

The AB 32 Implementation Group explained California’s cap-and-trade program is six times as large as Quebec’s, but Quebec’s carbon price is more than twice as high as California’s. According to the letter, “Linking with Quebec will only make the cost of offsets higher as Quebec industry will have twice the incentive to go after the limited number of offsets, thereby increasing the cost of offsets.”

But AB 32 unequivocally instructs CARB to implement AB 32 in the most cost-effective, technologically feasible manner.

Global market

CARB has withheld some of the carbon emission allowances, thereby forcing California businesses to compete for carbon allowances in a global market.

This proved what many have been saying all along about AB 32 and Nichols: She wants to play in an international arena, and AB 32 implementation gets her there.

It also goes a long way in explaining why CARB registered its new corporation, Western Climate Initiative Inc., in Delaware, not California, as I was the first to report here on CalWatchdog.com. Doing so exempts CARB from closer scrutiny back home in the sun.

Meanwhile, California businesses are pleading for relief from the governor.

By Katy Grimes

The California Air Resources Board just named the American Carbon Registry and the Climate Action Reserve as California’s two new “carbon overseers” for the state’s cap-and-trade program. The “carbon overseers” phrase commonly is used for them at CARB hearings.

Being named as the “offset project registries” allows these groups to oversee and scrutinize projects aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. They also could benefit financially because becoming a carbon overseer will allows them to expand their operation significantly.

The registries’ role is to vet the clean energy projects, CARB spokesman Dave Clegern said in a press release.

And if that is not daunting enough, CARB has also hired a team of 60 inspectors to oversee projects.

Climate Action Reserve is the largest offsets registry in North America, with nearly 500 offset projects in four U.S. states and Mexico, and has certified more than 24 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emission reductions. But according to an environmental consultant who asked to remain anonymous, Climate Action Reserve is an organization largely grown as a result of the passage and implementation of AB 32. Climate Action Reserve was steadily and quietly built up since 2006 to pounce on cap-and-trade implementation, according to the environmental consultant.

At a hearing in May about AB 32 implementation, Gary Gero of Climate Action Reserve called for even more radical caps and environmental policies including forest protocols, livestock protocols and ozone protocols.  Gero said the group is looking to be “the largest liquid North American carbon market.”

It appears their wish is about to come true.

Adding to California’s regulatory burden

The cap-and-trade regulation includes an arbitrary but enforceable greenhouse gas emission “cap” on businesses, whose level will be dropped every year. CARB will distribute allowances, also known as carbon permits or carbon credits, equal to the emission allowed under the cap. Businesses are required to purchase these permits or credits in order to continue doing business in California.

But businesses which exceed this emission cap will end up paying hefty penalties to the state.

CARB describes cap-and-trade acts as an “economy-wide backstop,” built on the promise to work with other greenhouse gas emission markets and trade allowances. However, CARB sets all of the carbon allowances. It’s like being both the banker and real estate broker in the game of Monopoly.

Businesses in the state have tried to get CARB to explain how cap-and-trade will impact them as they suddenly are being forced to implement the new regulatory programs. But CARB merely plays down any impacts, and has insisted that the impacts will be minimal.

Whom will CA trade with?

California’s cap-and-trade program was supposed to be an integral part of a larger system called the Western Climate Initiative, made up of many states.

But last year, New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Montana and Utah all pulled out of the Western Climate Initiative, leaving only California and three Canadian provinces. Despite the U.S. exodus, California formally launched its own cap-and-trade system on Jan. 1, 2012, with a very ambitious target of carbon emissions reductions of 80 percent by 2050.

California’s only remaining official partner in the Western Climate Initiative is the Canadian province of Quebec. The province is working to launch its own scheme in 2013, and recently formally announced plans to link with California for carbon trading.

Serious flaws in trading

If California’s carbon trading partners offer more carbon allowances to their businesses and industries than California does, it will hurt our competitive advantage, just as higher in-state taxes already hurt California businesses competing against businesses in other states.

And it is very important to note that the California-Quebec relationship is not trading apples-to-apples. Quebec gets 97 percent of its energy from hydroelectric sources. Conversely, California is trying to reduce traditional electricity production, including hydroelectric power, and instead replace it with as much “renewable” energy as possible from wind and solar, algae and ethanol.

But the renewable energy sources are unreliable, and very expensive. Ironically, California will have to maintain a full backup system of coal-powered electricity because of the unreliable alternative energy.

Energy experts have been saying in recent months that California’s energy demand is too much for the alternative energy and lower usage standards.

Additionally, Quebec, population 8 million, has only 80 regulated industries under its cap-and-trade program; California, population 38 million, regulates more than 300 industries.

 What is CARB selling?

Businesses, legislators and the public have repeatedly asked CARB several important questions:

* What are California’s businesses actually being asked to buy with the mandatory purchases of carbon credits?

* What about the economic consequences of forcing California businesses to buy nothing? And are these consequences intended or not?

* What does CARB really want? What are they trying to accomplish? If the goal really is to lower carbon emissions in California then clean hydroelectric power and natural gas will do it.

Members of the California Air Resources Board refuse to answer these questions, and instead continue stubbornly to push for cap-and-trade.

By Katy Grimes

After several years of complying with the goals of AB 32, California’s business community is really worried. With the California Air Resources Board on the verge of launching a cap-and-trade program, California’s economy sits precariously perched on the edge of a craggy, dangerous  cliff.

“Even if the program were perfectly designed and ready to implement, the higher costs would pose a great challenge to regulated industries that compete in global markets,” explained Shelly Sullivan, Executive Director for the AB 32 Implementation Group. “Members of the AB 32 Implementation Group are extremely concerned that the cap-and-trade regulation is poorly designed, with serious flaws that should be immediately fixed.”

When California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, AB 32, was passed in 2006, it was sold to the public as a necessary step to reduce dangerous carbon emissions. California politicians gloated over being the first state to enact such an aggressive policy.

The state’s unemployment rate was very low at the time at only 4.8 percent. Today it stands at 10.6 percent, and in some economically depressed parts of the state, more than 30 percent.

While most California residents seem to have heard about AB 32, the law and its many restrictive, expensive mandates are still a mystery for many, and state officials appear to like it that way.

AB 32 and fraudulent data

AB 32 required the California Air Resources Board to develop new regulations and create “market mechanisms” to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels, by 2020.

AB 32 was based on supposed to be based on real climate science that proved that unless dangerous greenhouse gas emissions levels were reduced, the earth’s atmosphere would diminish and we’d all die.

But at the crux of the issue is altered data and science. The data originally produced by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientists in the 1990’s were altered by government bureaucrats in order to create a crisis, as well as a demand.

The “Climategate” scandal leaked disturbing e-mails and information from the environmental science community. The emails showed that once-reputable scientists and universities had doctored their statistics and withheld actual scientific evidence, and then silenced dissenting opinion about global warming. Critics say that this was done for political gain, but the California Air Resources Board continues to use this fraudulent “science.”

Another scandal involved the lead agent at CARB, who wrote the damning decision severely restricting diesel emissions. He was exposed as having a phony Ph.D. However, the CARB staff and Director Mary Nichols covered up the scandal until well after adopting the stringent diesel regulations. Hien Tran did not lose his job at CARB, and still works for the state.

During the 2010 ballot initiative campaign of Proposition 23, which would have suspended AB 32 until the state’s unemployment fell below 5.5 percent, it was revealed that CARB has more than 1,175 employees, with an average salary of $85,000 a year or higher.  Despite California’s economic free fall into recession, CARB has even added hundreds of new employees.

Companion to SB 375

A companion bill to AB 32, SB 375 by Sen. Fran Pavely, D-Aguora Hills, was passed in 2008. The Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act required regional growth scenarios for land use and transportation improvements that took into account state-mandated goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The stated intent of SB 375 was to control urban sprawl by confining new development to corridors located adjacent to transit hubs and roads.

The actual intent is to get people out of their cars and comfortable suburban-style homes and neighborhoods, and force them into urban, city apartment complexes, close to bus and light rail services. Think Copenhagen, not Laguna Beach, San Diego or the beautiful and sprawling San Joaquin Valley.

Regional planning agencies in California have already adopted plans requiring nearly all new housing to be built at significantly higher density levels. A majority of the new housing built in San Francisco and San Jose would be “multifamily,” and concentrated along major thoroughfares.

“Green jobs” fallacy

Sanjay Varshnay, dean of the business college at CSU Sacramento, conducted a study on the costs of AB 32 to consumers and businesses, and found that costs could exceed $100 billion to businesses. Varshnay also explained that the “hidden costs” including higher energy prices, housing, food and transportation, will cost to the average family about $4,000 annually.

Varshnay’s study warned of heavy job losses due to AB 32 implementation. “We conclude that when California’s climate change program, AB 32, is fully implemented, the average annual loss in gross state output from small businesses alone would be $182.6 billion, approximately a 10% loss in total gross state output,” Varshnay wrote. “This will translate into nearly 1.1 million lost jobs in California. Lost labor income is estimated to be $76.8 billion, with nearly $5.8 billion lost in indirect taxes. This decline in revenues will have a severe impact on future state budgets.”

A smear campaign on Varshnay and his study was launched by well-known Democratic operatives, and widely reported in the news media as fact.

Supporters of AB 32 continue to claim that it will create a windfall of new “green jobs.” Early on, they pointed to Spain as a model, but lately they’ve been silent on how much greener the grass is in Spain because Spain’s green jobs program was an unmitigated disaster. For every one “green job” Spain created, 2.1 private sector jobs were cut. And each new “green job” in Spain cost $700,000.

It sounds as if Spain had CARB running their green jobs program.

Cap-and-trade, or tax-and-raid?

While AB 32 provides the governor the ability to suspend the emissions caps for up to one year in the case of an emergency or significant economic harm, Gov. Jerry Brown has instead championed the law despite the obvious economic damage being done to the state.

AB 32 also gave the California Air Resources Board the power to:

* Adopt a regulation requiring the mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions;

* Convene an “Environmental Justice Advisory Committee” to advise the Board in developing the Scoping Plan and any other pertinent matter in implementing AB 32;

* Appoint an Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee to provide recommendations for technologies, research and greenhouse gas emission reduction measures.

In December 2010, CARB created a cap-and-trade program to auction off carbon allowances to California businesses, forcing these businesses to pay billions of dollars just for the privilege of continuing to do business in California.

The “cap” in cap-and-trade is the legal limit on the quantity of greenhouse gases a region or business can emit each year, and “trade” means that companies can swap or trade emission permits among themselves.

Prior to California developing a cap-and-trade program, one of the most important environmental programs tied to the United Nations Agenda 21, was the U.S. cap-and-trade legislation.

But when the cap-and-trade legislation failed to pass in the U.S. Senate, the Environmental Protection Agency instead took it upon itself to regulate greenhouse gases, ignoring Congress.

CARB has acted in much the same way, operating autonomously and seemingly without any regulation by the Governor or Legislature.

However, what’s missing from nearly every discussion with CARB is that the key greenhouse gas emission reduction tool of the program is the declining cap, not the auction. The auction is unnecessary.

This is what’s known as a tax on business.

The state’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office recently wrote, “An allowance auction is not necessary to meet the AB 32 goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions statewide to 1990 levels by 2020.”

When CARB first adopted a cap-and-trade program in 2010, it bragged about being the first program of its kind on this scale in the United States. However, there is already one such group in the northeastern United States, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which operates similarly.

So, CARB created the Western Climate Initiative, ostensibly “to link its cap and trade system to other states and provinces, such as Quebec.”

But so far, the cap-and-trade program has been a total bust, primarily because CARB is working under a design-a-you-go plan. But don’t count CARB out just yet. They haven’t extracted their pound of economic flesh from the business community yet.

With a manufacturing sector that generates more than $200 billion every year, and employs more than 2 million Californians, according to the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, California businesses cannot afford this unnecessary auction designed to exact social and environmental justice from the business community.

California businesses went along with the AB 32 party for a few years because they thought they had to. But as the November cap-and-trade auction draws near, and with Director Mary Nichols having tirades at every CARB board meeting, it has become abundantly clear that this is no non-partisan compromise; it is partisan revenge on California business.

By Katy Grimes

While the rest of the country shuns carbon trading schemes, California politicians continue to embrace the concept, and are forging ahead with a Cap and Trade carbon trading system. But eight states have dropped out of California’s Western Climate Initiative, leaving many scratching their heads in wonderment, as only California and Quebec are left alone to solve the world’s global warming and climate change issues.

But instead of being a real innovator and helping businesses sincerely lower emissions, California looks as if it is desperately clinging onto the notion that we can lead the rest of the world in controlling climate change, and behaving as a Nation State.

Why Quebec?

Cap and Trade was first concocted by the United Nations as a way to financially benefit from selling carbon offset credits. Vice-President Al Gore was already part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which helped seal the deal in the 1990’s through the Clinton administration’s involvement in the Kyoto Protocol, which mandated that nations reduce or offset carbon emissions.

This scheme must have been irresistible to the California Legislature, which passed AB 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, in 2006. The original plan was to create a giant climate change coalition with other states and provinces from which carbon trading and taxing would emanate. But one by one, states have dropped out, citing the difficult economy and cost to manage such a program.

But not California.

“Linking with Québec is a significant advance in California’s efforts to fight climate change and steer our economy toward a clean energy future,” said CARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols. “Linking provides more options to California businesses and lays the groundwork for other partners to join with us. This sends a strong message to two national governments that now is the time to support innovation, energy efficiency and the development of clean technologies.”

But Quebec is not even a trading partner with California.

Counting the chickens before they are hatched

As part of his 2012-13 state budget, Gov. Jerry Brown made a gigantic assumption that the state will see $1 billion in cap-and-trade revenue. The state Legislative Analyst’s Office warned that this is a dangerous budget gimmick and an unstable calculation.

The California Air Resources Board passed cap-and-trade regulations in 2011 as part of its effort to implement AB 32. The air resources agency was granted authority by AB 32 to develop “market mechanisms” to reduce emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

To achieve this, CARB developed its Cap and Trade program, and named 300 industries as the polluters, which will be required to buy carbon credits from the state in order to continue doing business in California.

When more closely examined, Cap and Trade appears to be a wealth redistribution program, by imposing a carbon tax on mostly private businesses, as well as utilities. Economists have warned that it will send businesses in California packing for other states.

While CARB continues to insist that Cap and Trade programs have been a smashing success, programs in Europe and the Northeast have failed, resulting in business closures and downsizes, and fewer tax revenues. Spain nearly went bankrupt with its green energy programs, by killing more jobs than it created. Many warn that Cap and Trade has failed every time it has been implemented, especially in the European Union and Japan.

But CARB will have to rely on companies to honestly report their emissions, which undoubtedly will lead to gaming the system, and cheating.

At a recent Assembly hearing on Cap and Trade, Assemblyman Brian Jones tried to put CARB’s role into perspective. But his objections were met with steely resistance from Assembly Democrats.  “It is my perception since I’ve been elected and serving here for 14 months that CARB is a rogue agency” Jones said. “I want to reaffirm and state emphatically that CARB’s authority derives from this Legislature. It doesn’t derive on its own.”

“Your commissioners are not elected by the public or the voters of this state. We are elected by the voters of this state,” Jones continued. “And this Legislature has given over to CARB some authority that I believe CARB has run away with, and I am only hopeful that my colleagues in this committee and the rest of this Legislature will also come to the same conclusion that I’ve come to and soon realize that the authority of CARB comes from this Legislature, and we will start to rein that in and protect the voters and the public interest in this state.”

Global warming and political influence

In February, China ordered its airlines to ignore the 2008 European Union law which imposed a carbon emission tax on all flights traveling to and from the EU.

Moving in opposite directions, China continues to build coal plants, while California continues to enforce strict regulations to limit traditional forms of energy production, and encourage solar, wind along with other environmentally friendly alternatives.

Recent political history helps us understand how Cap and Trade works, and the political influence derived from its programs.

The now-defunct Chicago Climate Exchange, was founded by Chicago Board of Trade chief economist Richard Sandor, former Goldman Sachs & Co. CEO Hank Paulson, and former Vice President Al Gore, and started trading in 2003. The CCX received start-up funding from the Joyce Foundation in 2000 and 2001, during which time then-Senator Barack Obama sat on the board of directors.

The CCX had more than 400 members, which included corporate giants, auto manufacturers, universities, large utilities, and even Amtrack.

The CCX was estimated to make $10 trillion a year, and explains why California politicians continue to pledge support for California’s carbon trading program. But the CCX was closed down because the voluntary participation of its members waned as other carbon registries entered the market. The Climate Action Reserve and American Carbon Registry continue to operate.

Cap and Trade revenue hearing

CARB’s Board of Directors held a hearing last week to discuss the anticipated revenues from upcoming Cap and Trade auctions, and how they planned to spend the windfall monies.

“We are looking for synergy and consensus,” CARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols said at the hearing. Nichols said that in the transportation sector, efforts to capture the synergies have been successful, “which will help to make our state more competitive.”

Nichols reported that CARB does not know how much money will come in from carbon trading auctions, but the CARB Board estimates “several billion dollars each year.”

CARB invited two panels to participate in the hearing, made up of mostly environmentalist stakeholders, with the exception of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, the lone voice for business.

Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, R-Dana Point, expressed her concerns at the hearing about how the Cap and Trade program will work, and whether the program will actually result in lower greenhouse gas emissions, as mandated by AB 32. Harkey suggested that it may just be a scheme to allow vast sums of money to change hands, with investors eventually getting rich off of market speculation, and with no improvement in the reduction of emissions.

Harkey warned that CARB was entering the sophisticated financial world of derivative markets and hedge derivatives, where investors get involved in betting, trading and profiting on the value of carbon credit shares. She warned that such sophisticated financial dealings should be managed by specialists, and not a state agency tasked with a mission of cleaner air.

Ignoring all warnings

Two years ago, the Christian Science Monitor published a joint investigation with the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, which found that existing carbon trading schemes were just another way to make money. “Carbon offsets are nothing more than the environmental equivalent of financial derivatives: complex, unregulated, unchecked and – in many cases – not worth their price,” the investigation reported.

“They are buying into projects that are never completed, or paying for ones that would have been done anyhow,” the investigation found. “Their purchases are feeding middlemen and promoters seeking profits from green schemes that range from selling protection for existing trees to the promise of planting new ones that never thrive. In some cases, the offsets have consequences that their purchasers never foresaw, such as erecting windmills that force poor people off their farms.”

Instead of heeding the many warnings, California is moving ahead at rapid speed to implement the first Cap and Trade auction in November.

As with most schemes, the catch is in the amount of empathy and guilt the con artist can elicit. Buying carbon offsets may ease eco-guilt, but experts have concluded that it will do absolutely nothing to lower the world’s carbon emissions, particularly as California goes it alone.