Australia has feral camel problem. Not being marsupials, they are of course, not indigenous to the continent. Australia also has a bad case of global warming hysteria within the political leadership class. (To get elected, PM Julia Gillard promised not to enact a cap and trade law, and then openly broke her promise, which I suspect was the plan all along. Politicians!)
So, one idea the government is promoting is to offer a carbon credit bounty for killing camels. From the story:
THE Federal Government is considering awarding carbon credits for getting rid of feral camels under an initiative to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Although the Carbon Farming Initiative has yet to pass parliament, three proposals are undergoing formal assessment, including one to “manage” Australia’s feral camel population...Tim Moore, the managing director of Adelaide-based Northwest Carbon who proposed the camel cull idea, said more than 1.2 million camels are roaming Australia’s rangelands, covering Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia and NSW. Already considered a pest produce an average methane equivalent of one tonne of carbon dioxide a year, making them one of Australia’s big emitters...Under his proposal, camels would be shot from helicopters or four-wheel drives, or mustered and then sent to an abattoir for either human or pet consumption...He estimates that given their lifespan, every animal culled would save around 14 or 15 tonnes in abatement.
I can see culling the camels. They harm indigenous ecological systems and are pests. But killing one million camels in the Outback isn’t going to impact climate a mite. It’s just a way to justify taxing industry and allowing them to keep belching carbon off the deaths of the camels. But that’s the global warming hysteria rolls.
