Warning: Carbon Footprint Controversy Ahead
 Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

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Guest Blog: L. M. Indy Schneider Be a guest blogger!  Submit your article today!

BetterWorld's website states: "Carbonfree Shipping. Until Willie Nelson's Biodiesel bus does deliveries, we've got no choice but to send your book on normal planes, trains and automobiles. They all deliver your book considerably faster than we could on our bikes, but they belch carbon dioxide into the air the whole time. In case Al Gore hasn't stopped by your house, sat you down, and given you his slideshow yet, we've got some news for you. These carbon dioxide emissions are overheating our planet, causing a 'climate crisis'. Carbon Offsets are a way that we can 'offset' these emissions through the purchase of clean energy credits and reversing deforestation. It is only a few pennies per book, but when thousands of people do it every day it adds up. We looked at our shipments and used Carbonfund.org’s Carbonfree Shipping application to estimate the average offset needed for our packages and we always round up. 100% of the funds charged as Carbon Offsets WILL be used to purchase carbon offsets. Once Better World Books is 100% carbon neutral, we'll start to offset the carbon emissions of our non-profit partners. After that, we'll offset Exxon's emissions. They'll never know what hit 'em. We work with Carbonfund.org to make this possible. If you like it, demand Carbonfree Shipping wherever you shop online."

Dear Better World Books,

I'm a regular customer of some years, and am writing to ask you to remove from your website the erroneous information regarding CO2.  You have been duped.  You think you need to charge people more, just like the eco-conspiracy wants to TAX people more, for CO2 emissions.  The Al Gore slide show you refer to in Carbonfree Shipping is pseudo-scientific baloney.

Below is a statement, issued March 4th 2008 and signed by nearly 100 leading environmental scientists from around the world, testifying to this fact.

For the last several years, whenever I have wanted to buy a book, I have always searched your inventory first, because I think you are doing a good work with your literacy program.  However, I think you are undoing whatever good that program might have done, and doing much greater damage, by perpetuating the misinformation foisted by Al Gore and others bent on using the CO2 scare to TAX America into the poor house.

Until you remove your misguided Carbonfree Shipping demagoguery, I will be required to shop elsewhere.

Sincerely,
L. M. Indy Schneider, L.Ac.

Manhattan Declaration On Climate Change
"Global Warming" Is Not A Global Crisis

We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

Recognizing that the causes and extent of recently observed climatic change are the subject of intense debates in the climate science community and that oft-repeated assertions of a supposed 'consensus' among climate experts are false;

Affirming that attempts by governments to legislate costly regulations on industry and individual citizens to encourage CO2 emission reduction will slow development while having no appreciable impact on the future trajectory of global climate change.  Such policies will markedly diminish future prosperity and so reduce the ability of societies to adapt to inevitable climate change, thereby increasing, not decreasing, human suffering;

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity's real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing nations without affecting climate.

That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any attempted mitigation and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of their peoples.

That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend -

That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided works such as "An Inconvenient Truth."

That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Agreed at New York, 4 March 2008

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