I have long held the opinion that carbon credit markets as proposed by Congress are more effective for speculators to make money rather than an efficient way to reduce emissions. Now, of all people/organizations to join me, an environmental group has spoken out against the prevailing legislation. As I have watched carbon market trading, their arguments certainly seem to be supported by who is trading in credits. Just when the political machine in the US is gearing up to try to pass carbon credit legislation, along comes a tough argument from an environmental group against it. Perhaps it’s time for other environmental groups to take a closer look at this carbon trading nightmare we are about to embark upon.

What are we, a bunch of grade schoolers? Regardless of your stance on climate change, one thing I think we can all agree on is that cutting emissions that pollute our air is a good thing. If you don’t, then you need to visit a larger city where air pollution is a problem. So, if we all agree on that, then what is the big fight between industrialized countries over carbon reduction targets? This “We’ll do it if you will” attitude is so juvenile. The whole Copenhagen deal is becoming a circus. Instead, why don’t countries just say, “We don’t care if you want to do it, we want to be a leader.” Take the initiative and show others how it can be done and it won’t be long before others follow suit.

First the Europeans were the leaders, now China is getting in on the fun, so where is the US in nuclear energy development? It’s been decades since the last nuclear power plant was constructed in the US. Why does the rest of the civilized world comprehend the benefits of nuclear power and we keep hiding our head in the sand?

The city of San Francisco appears to be doing an exceptional job at diverting material from the landfill. The recent announcement that they are only 3% away from their goal of 75% recycling is pretty noteworthy. I applaud them. I do want to offer some words of caution. I suggest they do some careful analysis of their recycling efforts to ensure that their efforts aren’t doing more environmental damage than good.

Sometimes, in our race to recycle everything possible, we forget that recycling does take energy; energy for initial processing of material, transportation, and energy for final processing into a useable product. Believe me, I am all for recycling, it is part of what we do. The key is responsible recycling. If San Francisco is achieving a net improvement to the environment (as measured by a non-biased, non-partisan person/organization), then the rest of us should certainly see what we can learn from them to improve recycling across the country and offer the plaudits they deserve.

I hope you all have a happy Earth Day and that you do at least one thing today to keep the Earth a little greener. Better yet, start a new habit today that will. At my daughter’s school, they challenged all the kids to keep the TV off for the entire week. Hopefully they are not turning in those TV hours for computer hours – that would simply be a diversion from one use of electricity to another.