Rhinocrisy

Check out TerraPass, an “eco-capitalist” venture. The premise is this:

Every car produces a certain amount of CO₂ annually. However, if we offset that production of CO₂ by reducing our production somewhere else by a commensurate amount, then the net effect of driving is essentially zero. In real-world terms, this can be achieved via the Chicago Climate Exchange, where greenhouse-gas production credits are traded. If we buy up credits and “retire” them, then we are increasing the real-world value of production credits and thus forcing companies to conserve more. TerraPass, the product of a Wharton professor and his students, does exactly this.

The Chicago Climate Exchange seems like a good idea, and it actually has some teeth to it. Although its membership is small, not even a thousand companies, it accounts for 230 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions, which is something like 4-5% of U.S. annual production. Not bad. And its emissions-reduction performance is also reasonable.

And the idea of “retiring” credits also seems relatively sensible. There’s other organizations that do this; the other one on the CCX is Carbonfund.org, which is based on a similar premise to TerraPass; reduce your footprint by giving them money, which they’ll use to retire credits on the Exchange.

But I vastly prefer Carbonfund to TerraPass. Why? Simple: marketing. TerraPass sells itself as a way to reduce the guilt of driving. First, your TerraPass footprint is based entirely on your car’s gas mileage (which, by the way, underestimates your car’s CO₂ footprint, since the energy returned on energy invested for gasoline is at least as bad as crude oil, which is 20:1) instead of a more comprehensive assessment of your total lifestyle. Second, their “product” is a sticker you can put in your car window, or on your bumper, showing what a good citizen you are. Third, all their press indicates that this is what they are offering to people.

Not to be unreasonably vicious about this, but people really should be made to suffer for the crime of driving. I say this simply because they need to be encouraged to stop, or at the very least drive 95% less. The last thing that we need is more ways to stabilize car culture, which is explicitly what TerraPass offers. (See their TerraBlog if you are unconvinced.)

Woah! After 2000 years, the Vatican is apparently softening its view on Judas.

Two things to think about here:

One is the simple theological question, which is a major one for Christianity. It’s remarkable that such important questions should still be open questions after so many years. You’d think God would have made his perfect plan a little less ambiguous.

Anyway, my favorite statement of the problem of Judas comes from Borges, who wrote a little “short story” about it called “Three Versions of Judas”, which are:

• Judas is the tool of Satan. This has backing in the Gospel according to Luke, which says “Satan entered him”, and John, which says the same. Problematic, since it means Satan was doing what God wanted after all.
• Judas was only fulfilling God’s plan; Christ had to die and thus had to be betrayed. This is an oft-favored viewpoint, popular amongst liberal types. See “Jesus Christ Superstar” or “The Last Temptation of Christ”. Problematic, since the Bible clearly has Judas being punished and makes him out as a villain.
• Finally, Borges farcically proposes that since Christ’s suffering was brief, and mankind’s sin is endless, surely it was not enough to redeem us. Therefore the true messiah should be someone who is still suffering in Hell on our behalf, viz., Judas.

It should also be noted that Judas has historically been a standard card played by anti-Semites; in art he has often been portrayed with red hair, stereotypically associated with Jews in medieval Europe. So there’s clearly good political reason to revise the role of Judas. But as I’m fond of saying, political imperative does not necessarily coincide with the truth. The Gospels are without a doubt documents written to be antagonistic to Jews. The early Christians surely had many adversaries within the Jewish community; the majority, even. So it shouldn’t surprise us to see that what’s been handed down through history plays well in generating anti-Semitism. This is more a call to abandon the Gospels than anything else. Attempting to reconcile it with current mores is needlessly futile.

(Via CT)