Greed drives trade in carbon credits

FREUD’S theory that humans are innately irrational is nowhere as completely fulfilled as in politics; witness the very concept of the EU; the tragic-comic Edinburgh tram deliberations. For extreme irrationality one need look no further than the machinations of the global warming (now climate change) lobby.

Your report of people being removed from African villages to allow tree planting (International, 25 September) sums up the idiocy of their “reasoning” behind the Kyoto accord on global CO2 reduction. The basic idea is superficially sound, as the trees will capture atmospheric CO2, but they will not lower total amounts because of the negating system of trading carbon “credits”. This cynical manoeuvre allows countries still guilty of pollution beyond set limits to buy credits for emissions saved by others – a pure charade. The whole system is driven by the fiercest of all human irrationality; greed. Enormous amounts of money are being made, paid for ultimately by punishing innocent energy consumers through artificially high prices.

It’s surely time for a moratorium to debate not only the acknowledged failure to reduce emissions but the very concept of anthropogenic climate change: our political leaders have never to my knowledge stated reasons for dismissing the considerable scientific opposition to the theory. Have they even considered it, along with the similarly disputed view that CO2 is actually a pollutant?

Robert Dow, Tranent