Bad news for all

Well, proving some skeptics right is inevitable, I guess. Claims that Global Warming is nothing but the new land grab for this century are apparently bearing fruit... well, if not bearing fruit, they're definitely flowering, anyhow.

THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Despite the rank and massive failure of both the Cancun and Copenhagen Global Warming conferences to produce effective resolutions in slowing carbon-based pollution, the stakeholders have put the first serious chink in the armor of international shipping. About half of the states represented being socialism-flavored, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a new international tax on bunker fuels was proposed.

The massive redistribution of wealth from developed to developing countries proposed is absolutely jarring. Mexico, among the most corrupt and shameworthy governments in this hemisphere, stands to benefit mightily. Considering that their jefe, El Presidente, is being hailed as the hero of the Cancun summit (for proposing a 0.00004% reduction in Mexico's carbon emissions, *funded by other nations of course*) .

So it is with perhaps a jaundiced eye that I watch this new proposal, to place a tax on bunker fuel, as the means of dealing with carbon-based emissions from shipping.

Why, oh, why, in the name of the seven mad gods of the sea, was it not proposed to make global the requirement that ships burn low-sulfur fuel oils? As it stands, we've got a patchwork of regulated areas that are a pain in the balls to comply with and monitor, especially when ships are on tramp runs. Some places require that ships burn low-sulphur intermediate fuel oils and diesel-analogues, and other nations have no beef with dirty fuels... yet the atmostphere does not conform to national boundaries. If the goal was to effect a change in global emissions, this would have been done. Rather, a whole new level of administration will become necessary, and this will create wonderful opportunities for graft and inefficiency. The smart money is on the tax, of course. It creates jobs, and, since, sadly, outside of the US, Germany, France, the UK and Japan, corruption is considered part of the cost of doing business, a whole new administration, dedicated to collecting and spending a tax, would be a massive boon to whoever lands the office location.

Anyhow, I'm disgusted. By skipping over the most effective solutions in favor of redistribution of wealth, the true colors are shown here.