The politics of Carbon credits has reached a stage where  protectionism, lobbying, unscientific policy framework and new trade lobbies in international trade are witnessed.

The evidence of this is visible in Germany trying to  soften its patent and intellectual property legislations to favour China. There is a clear evidence of growing lobby power for fuel crops in India replacing food crops which in turn may affect food self sufficiency in the country.

The European Union is trying to ensure that Russia does not arm twist EU in terms of oil supplies. At $110 per barrel - the situation is looking grim and the anticipated fall in oil prices to $60-70 levels looks more distant and unrealistic. The oil producers lobby is ensuring there is no Carbon footprint tag to its exports of Oil.

The official version of these lobbyists always sound same - saving the precious Earth from global warming and climate change.

Can we see through these white lies and be aware of the facts?

I have posted a question in Linked In to know what people are doing to adopt to green lifestyle.

The link is below:
http://www.linkedin.com/answers/international/treaties-agreements-organizations/INT_TRT/191813-13281444

Hope to see responses.

I closed the question after I got around 5 answers from various people. The perspectives are same. There are many across the world who are aware of their social responsibility and do simple things which pays them better. It is true that Green Lifestyle costs nothing but pays you back in return.

Today there are federal states in US which incentivise green buildings and reduce energy consumption.

However, one response I received from  was  Jeffrey Schwartz who said -

" I don't buy into global warming, at least not man-made global warming. The earth goes through natural warming and cooling cycles. And, while there is much outcry about global warming right now, we're in one of the coldest winters on record. It could be said we're in a global cooling cycle that is just beginning.

Lest we not forget that in the 1970s, we were being scared into believing that an impending Ice Age was coming, and that the entire earth would be covered in ice and millions of people would die. I remember watching the news as a kid and being very, very frightened.

I also have a problem with True Believers of the Church of Global Warming who attribute EVERYTHING to global warming. If it is too hot, it is global warming. If it is too cold, well, that's global warming, too. If it is too dry, it is global warming, but if it is too wet, that's also global warming. An underpopulation of fish species is global warming, but the overpopulation of fish is also global warming. A loss of glaciers is global warming, but the growth of glaciers is also global warming. "

Over exaggerated reporting of events and unscientifically linking them to global warming does more harm than good.

A country where power is predominantly generated by highly polluting coal based thermal plants,the government has done very little in terms of identifying Geothermal potential in India. Dr. Chandrashekaram of Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai had presented a paper in year 2000 about the geothermal potential belts in India and no work of major significance has taken place after that. In the current energy demand supply mismatch, not exploring economical non polluting sources of energy raises a question mark on resolve and political will of the governments in India. 

In the website - http://www.indiasolar.com/geothermal.htm the following paragraph explains the apathy of government very succintly.

"Mr Avinash Brahmbhatt, Managing Director of Avin Energy Systems Ltd, seems to be the only person who has made  efforts to exploit geothermal energy to generate power in the State of Gujarat in Western India.  He claims to have made a study of the geothermal  resources of the region, identified most likely spots and prepared a detailed project report. However, for some reason or the other Government (State and Central) do not seem excited or even interested in helping (directly or indirectly) to get the project moving. In fact  only private investors have, so far,  shown concrete  interest in promoting this geothermal power project. If in the near or distant future, geothermal power generating projects do come up all over India, it will not be due to any encouragement  by Government."

Will the government do anything in future let us wait and watch.
 

It is one month since the Kyoto Protocol regime has started and even now US is debating whether to ratify the protocol or not. The green warriors like Ross Gelbspan have gone ahead and started a citizen charter campaign to make majority of Americans sign for ratification of the protocol and thereby achieve what the Clinton and Bush administrations and US senates have not been able to decide. More details of the charter can be had here http://www.grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/02/16/gelbspan/

Back home in India the politicians are more worried about a general election and state elections in 10 states rather than do someting concrete about climate change. The irony is when Dr. Rajendra Pachauri got a Noble Prize as a part of the IPCC team, every politician, media - print,broadcast and online temporarily debated the effects of climate change. Finance minister for the first time uttered the words climate change in the budget speech. The common man in India is neither aware nor has the wherewithal to challenge government inaction.

Can citizens in India do something?

  

hi srinivas.

this post is in response to your recent question at LinkedIn. i have included your original question below.

dan levine
www.linkedin.com/in/danlevineonline

generally speaking, if sugar (from sugar cane), as opposed to other crops (such as corn), is going to be used for ethanol production, the price of sugar will rise. this could, in turn, make the price of foods that require sugar also rise. this can have additional impacts such as the amount of land that farmers will dedicate for sugar, as opposed to other crops, for human and animal consumption. there are a number of challenges to consider, but again, generally speaking, if sugar prices go up, more farmers will want to grow it.

another interesting twist is that often times, the price that farmers or refineries are paid for their sugar crops must be subsidized by the government, i.e., farmers are getting paid to grow sugar that they might not otherwise grow.

i am not an advocate that we need more "sugar" (or other highly refined foods) in the world, but it will be interesting to see if ethanol demand will affect sugar demand to the point where farmers can fetch a price that no longer has to be subsidized. if the market driven price (including demand for ethanol production) does not exceed the subsidized price, production of suger may NOT increase.

all that being said, ethanol does not appear to be the best source of energy in the long haul. you can learn a lot about that here http://www.alternativeenergy.com/

Links:
http://www.alternativeenergy.com/

Question Details:
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Is there a correlation between sugar production and ethanol production? Does it mean higher use of ethanol reduces sugar production?