RUSH: I have been thinking about this global warming business. You know, we here at the EIB Network are pondering the sale of carbon offsets to any of you who are consumed with guilt over the amount of pollution like the amount you exhale. The Supreme Court yesterday actually said that what we all exhale, CO2, is a pollutant, and I’m here to tell you that it is not. CO2 is not a pollutant. There’s no difference in the CO2 that you exhale and what comes out of your SUV or your car or what have you, but it’s now a pollutant, and Algore has popularized this whole concept of carbon offsets, so specifically he will not have to reduce any of his consumption of power or usage of energy. ‘No, no. I’m investing in carbon offsets. I’m investing in a company (which I own, by the way),’ he says, ‘and we go out there and we plant trees, and we invest in carbon neutral businesses and so forth.’ This gave me an idea. We here at the EIB Network are always on the cutting edge of societal evolution and a number of other things, including technology.
For example, I just bought a Blu-ray. I finally broke down. I finally made a choice and I got a Blu-ray DVD, one of these HD DVD players. I had it installed yesterday, went home last night, and ooooooh, baby! My video guys tried to talk me out of it. ‘Don’t do it yet. The format war is not settled,’ and I was reminded that between Betamax and VHS, I chose Betamax, which was Sony, and it went down the tubes. Well, Blu-ray is Sony (laughing), so I’ve duplicated my move. There are more titles on Blu-ray. It has more capacity on the disc. It’s way early on this, but my video guys were saying, ‘Look, it’s too soon to do this, and besides, some of these discs, we’ve looked at them, and there’s just garbage on there,’ and I said, ‘Look, I cannot believe that. These are high definition discs,’ and the video guy said, ‘Look, the standard DVD, you get a really well mastered, standard DVD, and it will stack up against any of these HD DVDs or Blu-rays out there.’
I said, ‘Well, maybe on the tiny little screen you have you won’t be able to notice much difference, but by the time you blow these things up to a large screen,’ like mine’s 16 feet, diagonally, and so I did a comparison. I got Casino Royale on Blu-ray, and I already had Casino Royale on the standard 480 DVD. The Blu-ray is 1080p. I compared the two side by side, and there’s no comparison whatsoever. The Blue-ray, the smaller screen you go, the less the difference you see, but by the time you blow this stuff up on a big screen! So, anyway, just to illustrate here that not only are we on the cutting edge of societal evolution, but also on the cutting edge of technological evolution. This carbon offset business got me to thinking. It’s a brand-new profit center possibility for us here at the EIB Network to play off on so many people’s guilt and the fact they think they’re committing sin out there simply by being alive and destroying the planet, so I came up with an idea. If Algore can not reduce his carbon footprint, if Algore will not have to reduce by an iota the amount of energy he uses, by simply buying carbon offsets, then why can’t we expand the whole theory, the whole concept?
We here at EIB Network are examining the possibility of selling carbon offsets to the entire United States, the entire United States government — and in the process of selling carbon offices to the entire government, the United States will not have to make one change, will not have to reduce any of its pollutants. It will not have to reduce any of its greenhouse gas emissions, will not have to reduce any of its energy use, because we are going to sell carbon offsets to the government for who knows how many billions they will pay, and then people all over the world will plant trees and do other things to allow us, the United States, not to have to reduce any of our greenhouse gases. It’s a perfect way to exempt ourselves forever from Kyoto. If Gore and other individuals — like Governor Schwarzenegger. He’s registered his private jet out there with a company, and he doesn’t have to reduce the amount of time he flies in a jet because some company out there is planting trees every time for every hour he flies, ostensibly.
Well, why can’t we at EIB just do this for the whole country? Just sell carbon offsets for virtually everybody so that nobody in the country has to reduce anything. I mean if it works for one individual, why wouldn’t it work for everybody? Why wouldn’t it work for the country? Why don’t all of us buy carbon offsets? I will sell them to you and to anybody else, and you can continue to make all of the energy use you want, without guilt and without fear. You pay us. It’s going to be a nominal charge because, as you know, the greater the volume, the lower price has to be, sort of like taxes. The more taxpayers, the lower of rates have to be on everybody in order to get more money. So I will not charge exorbitant fees for people, when we sell the carbon offsets, and thereby the whole country will be exempt. (interruption)
What do you mean, Enron? What does the word ‘Enron’ mean anything to me? What are you talking about? What’s Enron got to do…? (interruption) I think this is a brilliant idea. This is a brilliant idea! (laughing) You know something? The whole thing is, I could get out of the radio business. In one day’s worth of sales of carbon offsets for the whole country, I could be playing golf 24/7, thirty-six holes a day. (interruption) I don’t plant the trees! I’m not going to do that. I’m going to let other people. I’ll let Uganda do that. I will let South Africa do that. I’ll let ’em do that in Bosnia, and if there’s some companies in America that we feel are valid to invest in, fine. We’ll let them plant the trees, too. The point is here, folks, that if you or I or Algore or Governor Schwarzenegger or anybody else can go out and simply invest money in the so-called carbon offset program and in the process, not have to reduce your energy usage at all — if it’s good for individuals, why can’t we exempt the entire United States from this imbroglio by having everybody here be able to do this?
Think of the market that exists here. Think of the guilt that we could assuage, and think of the good that we could do for burgeoning Third World countries. There’ll be all this investment money going to them, and all they have to do is plant trees. Just plant trees, or start up a company that says they’re going to invest in pills that will make cows not expel methane when they expel. We’re working on this. I probably should not have made this public, because now I’ve automatically created a bunch of competitors. Snerdley says, ‘You ever heard of Enron?’ Yeah. So what’s that mean? ‘Well, it’s fraud. It’s first-rate fraud.’ I don’t care if it’s fraud. It’s already started. It’s already happening out there. The business has been established. The carbon offset business is burgeoning. (interruption) We have a spot for it? We do? Oh, we do have a spot. Absolutely. Play the spot. Let people hear what we’re talking about. Go ahead, run it, right now.
(EIB Carbon Offsets Spoof Spot)
RUSH: Yeah, but, see, the difference is, that was marketed to individuals. I’m talking about getting hold of the EPA. I’m talking about getting held of NASA. I’m going to get hold of all these government agencies, all these people who believe in this stuff and I’m going to say, ‘Give me your money and go ahead and send as many rockets into space as you want.’ By the way, my friends in big business? You think people wouldn’t pay big money to be able to go around and live their lives guilt-free, knowing that whatever energy use they make, whatever the size of their carbon footprint is, that it will not harm the planet because we are going to take dare of it?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let’s go to the phones. Dexter, Minnesota, Troy, you’re first today, the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Mega dittos, Rush, from southern Minnesota.
RUSH: Yes, sir.
CALLER: Say, I’m suggesting that you sell the carbon offsets to countries like France and Belgium. I think you’d make a killing there. This would be huge.
RUSH: Well, I’ve thought about this, but you gotta have some people buy these offsets is the thing. We can sell the offsets to France and so forth, but some of these places around the world are going to have to reduce or plant trees or do something in order for the United States not to have to reduce its carbon footprint as a whole. I think what we ought to do is go to the signatories of the Kyoto protocol. France is a signatory, the EU, and some of those nations are signatories. Since they believe in it, we’ll go out and sell these carbon offsets and then tell them, ‘Look, you guys, if this is going to work, you guys reduce your carbon footprints or you plant all these trees or whatever.’ Another idea: we could have illegal immigrants plant trees all along the US-Mexican border. We don’t even need to build a fence! Just plant trees. That’s a long border. It’s a big stretch.
We would kill two birds with one stone and have all these new trees soaking up all the supposed pollution that we are putting out. One thing I have to say. I’m having a little fun with this, but this Supreme Court decision yesterday is not insignificant. The Supreme Court (the, quote, unquote, law of the land) has just told the EPA — they haven’t told them they have to so much, but they have cleared the way for the EPA to start regulating CO2, as it treats it, as a pollutant. Now, I don’t want to be absurd here, but if the Democrats win the White House in 2008, the EPA becomes what they want it to become. Hello, Clinton carbon tax! You remember one of the first taxes that the Clinton administration tried to enact in early 1993 was the BTU tax. It was going to add up to a 50¢ per gallon tax on gasoline and other usages that left a so-called carbon footprint. Imagine down the road everybody being taxed for the number of times they exhale. If CO2 is being emitted, whether it’s coming from the human oral cavity or a smokestack or an exhaust pipe, it can be taxed because the Supreme Court has just said it’s a pollutant and the EPA can regulate it.
See, the EPA never before qualified CO2 as a pollutant. Now the they might call it a greenhouse gas, but it does mean it is a
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I have decided to expand the entire carbon offset program that we described an hour ago on this program. If you were not with us, very briefly, what I suggested that we are going to do here (we’re pondering here at EIB) is if Gore or individuals can go out and purchase carbon offsets so as to not have to reduce their energy usage at all, why can’t we do this for the whole country? Why can’t the United States as a nation, led by our great government, buy carbon offsets so we don’t have to reduce any of our energy consumption or usage? And I am going to investigate the process of being the sole agent to sell these offsets to the entire US government and as many citizens as possible. Now, I want to expand on this because the possibilities here are actually limitless. One of the things that we are pondering here is abortion offsets. What have there been? What’s the number of abortions? It’s a million a year, a million abortions a year. What we’re thinking of doing is setting up EIB sperm banks in red states all over the United States.
Whether you have the number of kids you want or not, you simply take a trek to one of the EIB sperm banks located in red states and make a deposit. This will accomplish a number of things. It will compensate, it will offset the abortions that are taking place out there, predominantly in blue states, among liberals, and it will ensure the future of conservatism, and it’s simple to do. You simply show up with a copy of Playboy or something else that excites you. (interruption) Yeah, we might even try drive-in windows on this. There are people who have perfected this in a number of different locales. But the possibilities here are limitless. So abortion offsets. There’s no end to the possibilities here. Calorie offsets for those of you that don’t want to lose weight. Go eat what you want, and we’ll sell calorie offsets to people who are on diets. Do you realize if we do this right, every citizen could live a life totally guilt-free? What a gift! What a gift to the American people, I and the EIB Network could offer and provide — for a nominal fee, of course. (interruption)
Well, cigarette offsets, tobacco offsets, of course. Well, the ideas are limitless, simply limitless.
END TRANSCRIPT
*Note: Links to content outside RushLimbaugh.com usually become inactive over time.