catty
on 13th May 07, 15:00:33 said:
Is carbon offsetting really worth it? If not, what other options are there?
rooster
on 16th May 07, 12:03:17 replied:
no, carbon offsetting is a complete fraud, perpetuated by Enron
style gangsters and taken up by people who have no interest in
reducing emissions, just to reduce feelings of guilt.
russell
on 16th May 07, 12:05:06 replied:
carbon offsetting is a fraud, the offset companies are frauds
and people who use them are frauds. not one offset company can
honestly claim to make your effect on carbon in the atmosphere
neutral. you may aswell offset your philandering with
www.cheatneutral.com . The options are to
use less energy, build renewable energy plants and plough inert
carbon into the soil.
framo
on 16th May 07, 12:44:58 replied:
Don't see why it's a fraud: if extra sinks balance extra sources
then there's no net accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere, so
there's no extra warming. The dodgy bit, as far as I can tell, is
that there's no great incentive of either the buyer or the seller
to maintain strict accounting: the buyer wants to salve their
conscience as cheaply as possible; the seller wants to make money
while not being seen to get it demostrably wrong. So I think if the
industry is to develop it needs an external auditor to keep
everyone honest.
But then I think the whole personal carbon footprint approach is
a bit odd anyway: given that my lifetime footprint is probably
going to be about a billionth of a degree (at most), how is my
personal carbon footprint relevant to anything? I can see how my
political involvement might matter (by arguing for sensbile
policies and against dumb ones) but I fail to see how my personal
carbon footprint matters much at all.
rooster
on 16th May 07, 13:33:07 replied:
offset companies tend not to use sinks. they tend to reduce the
output of sources (through installing low energy lightbulbs etc)
and this tends to have a rebound effect in that something is
cheaper so people want more of it. as far as planting trees goes,
no-one can gaurantee they will still be there in 50 years. in
addition, your emission is now and your offset is over the course
of a number of decades. this doesn't make you neutral
hp
on 16th May 07, 16:15:09 replied:
i dont see the problem, you put 1 tonne of carbon in the
atmosphere and a tree sucks it out over the next 100. does the
atmosphere really care when the carbon was put in? in 100 years
time surely it's the same.
bighairymonkey
on 16th May 07, 16:18:33 replied:
Offsetting schemes are the equivalent of a rich white alcoholic
buying a liver from a poor foreigner so that the alcoholic can
carry-on drinking. Though ethically wrong, it is not a fraud
Forest offsetting is a fraud - it takes up to 100 years to
offset a single flight - which makes it useless - and is why some
companies have moved out of trees (should'nt they give the previous
customers their money back though?)
More useful though - I thought one company was collectively
buying-up and retiring carbon credits on behalf of individuals to
reduce the glut of carbon credits and to drive up the price of
carbon to drive innovation in technology. Or maybe that was my own
idea that I just gave away?
hp
on 16th May 07, 16:29:45 replied:
when the developing world has developed and we are supporting 15
billion people, who will we all pay to use less so we can use more?
maybe we could pay animals to stop belching or trees to stop
rotting.
bighairymonkey
on 16th May 07, 16:30:25 replied:
If so I too should jump on the bandwagon and become an
Offsetting Baron...I could have a fleet of hydrogen Hummers, a
massive wind-powered yacht, a hooge solar-powered mansion...more
cake than I can imagine I get to eat it all
framo
on 16th May 07, 20:27:33 replied:
"Offsetting schemes are the equivalent of a rich white alcoholic
buying a liver from a poor foreigner so that the alcoholic can
carry-on drinking."
Afraid I can't see why the colour of the alcoholic matters...
anyway, if it can be shown, under carbon fair accounting rules, to
work, I can't see the problem with it. One of the weirdest things
in the offset debate is why people seem so fond of coupling
offsetting to aviation: why not for power generation or gas use?
Personally, I think a far more relevant and effective way to reduce
business travel (most of which is tiresome and unwanted) would be
to invest in ICT technologies like the AccessGrid and
videoconferencing. While face to face meetings may well be
necessary at the start of a project, they're probably much less
necessary as projects develop. Maybe. Anyway, since
videoconferencing looks like an everyone wins kind of thing, I'd
like to see it explored more as one of a basket of technological
fixes.
hp
on 17th May 07, 10:30:21 replied:
"If so I too should jump on the bandwagon and become an
Offsetting Baron...I could have a fleet of hydrogen Hummers..." One
of the problems with offsetting is it's not scaleable. Only a very
small proportion of people can do it. There are only so many
lightbulbs in south african townships that need changing. And most
schemes can't be proved to be additional (wouldn't have happened
anyway). For the lightbulb changing, it turned out the power
company did it anyway and if they didn't then the government
probably would have.
bighairymonkey
on 17th May 07, 14:40:56 replied:
You are right framo - it was a bad attempt at referring to
english colonial attitudes.
I'm assuming that this forum is discussing personal carbon
offsets and not the large-scale international schemes done by
Governments and big business? Indeed the Clean Development
Mechanism etc might work will all the UN framework and
internationally agreed checks in place.
But the supposed science and economics of personal offsetting as
currently on offer is a fraud to make people feel better. Nothing
wrong with feeling good though.
For the big schemes, carbon capture and storage is my preferred
technology for making electricity generation low carbon. It
harvests the carbon at the power station and pumps it back under
the north sea where it came from. Can't do that with travel
emissions though (though could offset travel by investing in carbon
capture at your local power station, or in a wind co-op? That isnt
additionality is it?
Two big oil companies are making full use of video-conferencing,
or at least using it much more, it just takes a bit of money I
guess
Wasn't the Gleneagles G8 offset by low-carbonning one man's
house in a S African township (though it gave him a clean electric
cooker). G8 paid £100,000 to offset I think. So
someone made some vast profits. Though I did read that in the
Guardian.
I think I've rather drifted the discussion away from Catty's
question about offsetting and other available options...
