Child Burned Alive in Effort to Help Rich People Buy Carbon Offsets

An eight-year-old-child reportedly was burned alive to, in the words of the New York Times article (alternative link here) that exposed this, “protect the environment and help fight global warming.”

The Times adds: “The case twists around an emerging multibillion-dollar market trading carbon-credits under the Kyoto Protocol, which contains mechanisms for outsourcing environmental protection to developing nations. The company involved, New Forests Company, grows forests in African countries with the purpose of selling credits from the carbon-dioxide its trees soak up to polluters abroad…”

Remember this story the next time a rich celebrity environmental activist who uses vast amounts of energy claims to be “offsetting” his energy use by paying someone to plant trees in the third world.

Celebrities associated with the purchase of so-called “carbon offsets” include activist Al Gore, actress Cameron Diaz, actor Brad Pitt, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and rock groups the Rolling Stones and Coldplay, among others. U.S. taxpayers annually send billions to the United Nations, which was complicit in the program leading to the child’s death.

Our federal government also directly promotes the purchase of carbon offsets. See, for example, this section of the Department of Energy’s “Energy Star” web page, which encourages houses of worship to consider diverting some of their parishioners’ contributions to the purchase of carbon offsets:

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Read the entire horrible story on the New York Times website (alternative link here).

Hat tip: Watts Up With That?.

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The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.