File 'The Story of Cap and Trade' in the Fiction Section

Wow. I’m an old social justice campaigner from way back. And I like someone who challenges authority and conventional wisdom. But badly done propaganda is badly done propaganda. It’s a shame that the Story of Stuff’s Annie Leonard did not do her homework when she decided to take on cap and trade in her new video, The Story of Cap and Trade.

As I watched this clever little diatribe, I tried to take note of every error and misleading statement in preparation for this blog. But thankfully I was rescued from having to write a thousand word rebuttal after coming across two cogent articles from Grist: Cataloguing The Errors by Eric de Place and Annie Leonard Misses the Mark by David Roberts.

We need to debate the details of cap and trade policy. We need a population that is literate in the issue of carbon policies and strategies. If the polemical Ms. Leonard gets the ball rolling with this errant missile, then I will take my hat off to her. In the meantime, please take everything you hear with a grain of salt. In a video full of misrepresentation and half-truths, she did get one thing right ... ‘the devil *is* in the details’.

Carbon Hunters Documentary was a Fair Primer on Carbon Credits

I watched with trepidation and more than a little anxiety about how my chosen vocation would be portrayed in a documentary aimed at the general public. There is a tendency among critics and journalists take potshots at carbon ‘traders’. In fact, there is a lot that is wrong with the industry. It’s an easy target. There are cowboys out there who will mislead and rip people off. This is a new industry that is rife with corruption and con artists trying to part honest folk from their dollars. Of course, those are the fringe players, but they exist nonetheless and they manage to tar the rest of us with their bad behavior.

But the Carbon Hunters was fair. I think it explained the mechanism of carbon trading fairly well. It covered a fairly complex topic and captured the difference between micro-credits, small offset projects, and larger certified units. It also drew a nice chronological narrative from the mechanisms beginnings with footage from Maurice Strong, one of the architects of the Clean Development Mechanism.

If you missed it the first time, the documentary will be replayed tonight on CBC Newsworld at 10pm Eastern. If you’re interested in learning about carbon credits and carbon trading it’s worth checking out.