Go Green (Voluntarily)

Coercion and bureaucracy need not apply

If something is a good idea the politicians want to go along for the ride. Already people are voluntarily going green, stores are selling trendy shopping bags, plastic water bottles are everywhere. For those of us living in NYC we can check a box on our ConEdison bill which states we want alternative energy as our source. If this is what people want this is what the market will provide.

Too, corporations can play along with the Voluntary Carbon Standard which is a way for business to offset carbon emissions and get consumer kudos (read larger social demand for their products) for doing so.

There is no point really for some government-created regulatory scheme that will just create a decline in the US manufactoring base relative to the already more quickly growing India and China. We might was well just take the around $2,000 per year per family the cap-and-trade scheme would cost and give it to the governments of China and India, who control the currencies of their populations and thus decrease the standards of living of their people by subsidizing exports. Its a scam to say that cap-and-trade is needed when it is already being done, voluntarily. To put this brake on US productivity as some do-gooder political expediency will just mean the dollar's further decline, we have enough unsustainable government programs and debt, enough is enough.