Can someone explain to me why buying carbon offsets

[pnwmom]

isn't just a way to 'have your cake and eat it, too"?

If you're serious about being carbon neutral, should you be able to buy your way out of it?

[RB TexLa]

1. And whoever answers, I'd like to know what "carbon offsets" are

[NYCGirl]

6. Link:

http://www.carbonfund.org/site/

[pnwmom]

15. Thanks for the info, NYCGirl.

[pnwmom]

7. Thanks. I figured I was the only one who didn't know.

:)

[Skidmore]

2. Good question.

I don't get it either. To me it is like paying a fine for speeding and continuing to speed.

[n2doc]

3. It is just another $$$$ scheme

You are right, we need to look at overall CO2 production and move towards C neutral tech. What carbon offsets do is to provide an out for major polluters ("hey, we don't have to do anything, we can just buy some offsets from some other country"). A strong policy would be to not give the major polluters an out, require them to find ways to reduce their CO2 outputs. But we can't do that, it might cost someone a job. Even if we might make 10 more in coming up with alternatives.

[gilpo]

22. Wrong.

Look at their bona fides http://carbonfund.org/site/pages/about_us/category/The%20Carbonfund.org%20Team/.

This is not a scam, they truly believe in what they are doing and they are making real progress toward funding projects that offset their donors footprint. I went to college with Eric Carlson, was good friends with him, he definitely believes in what they are doing.

[NYCGirl]

4. It's what one does when one has reduced offsets as much as they can, but

still have to do things like fly. I'm sure it'd be difficult to get around the world solely by bicycle — carbon offsets help.

[mainegreen]

5. Basically your paying someone else to reduce their output.

It results (theoretically) in a net reduction in CO2 output. It doesn't matter who does the actual cut, as long as the cut occurs.

[jwirr]

41. I think it also ends when there are not sellers and it is your turn to

reduce carbon. It is an incentive program for reduction.

[slackmaster]

8. Pollution credits are a way of phasing in cleaner practices

A good example is how they have been used to get metal smelting industries (e.g. copper, zinc, lead) to reduce sulfur emissions.

A smelter costs a huge amount of money to build from scratch. It must operate for many years for the builder to recover the setup cost. A new law suddenly (unexpectedly) reducing the allowable sulfur emissions would require the plant to either shut down, or suddenly invest a new, large chunk of cash in scrubbers. That causes major economic problems, some mix of greatly increased cost of the commodity they produce, or they put a bunch of people out of work.

Newer plants that were built in anticipation of the emissions requirements should already meet it, so they are ahead of the curve - By operating below the new standard, they have credits to sell, helping to offset what they spent on the newer, more modern, presumably more expensive plant.

By allowing the operator of the old plant to buy sulfur credits at a much lower cost than scrubbers, the plant can continue operating without sudden changes in metal prices or loss of jobs. Eventually the plant reaches the end of its life, and gets replaced by something more modern with the sulfur removal built in from the ground up.

[The2ndWheel]

9. Not only have and eat the cake

But throw it up, repackage it, and sell it at 12x the value.

[yellowcanine]

10. Carbon offsets mean that one pays more than necessary for burning fuel. The extra money goes

to someone who will do something to sequester the carbon that was released into the atmosphere by the activity. For example, someone takes a plane trip. They pay the airlines for the ticket and send some predetermined amount to an organization that plants trees which will take up the carbon. I don't see that it is a way of having your cake and eating it too. Taking the trip and NOT buying the carbon offset would be, though. The main point here is to make the cost of our actions more closely resemble the environmental impact of our actions. Not only that, presumably if we pay more we will think harder about whether this trip is really necessary.

[pnwmom]

12. But if you're wealthy enough, the cost won't matter.

It will just be a way to assuage your guilt . . . right?

[NYCGirl]

14. And a way to help get alternative energy projects off the ground.

So what's wrong with that?

[pnwmom]

17. Nothing, except that any "sacrifice" won't be spread evenly if the

very rich can simply spend their way out of it -- and yet still pat themselves on the back for being environmentalists.

Sigh. I know that's nothing new.

[NYCGirl]

18. But we have to do something while the hoped for changeover is taking place.

We can't stop carbon emissions completely all at once.

[yellowcanine]

20. But what you forget is that the wealthy have a lower threshold for discomfort than the less well

off. Even if the pinch is small, it is going to be felt. After all the wealthy didn't get to be wealthy by ignoring how much things cost. They feel it, even though it is at a different level.

[yellowcanine]

16. Could be but so what? Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still doing the right thing.

To NOT do the right thing just because your motives may not be completely pure (when are they anyway?) is a form of rationalization. Nothing wrong with a little guilt. Guilt can be a great motivator to do the right thing when all else fails.

[pnwmom]

19. Why is it the right thing for the wealthy to tell other people

they should be conserving energy -- when all the wealthy person has to do is buy offset credits?

[yellowcanine]

23. It isn't. But then that isn't my perception of what is happening. It's not the wealthy telling

us to conserve energy. It is people who care about the earth. Carbon offsets are just a way of getting the wealthy to pay attention and be part of the solution. Besides, it is a mistake to make this a wealthy/everybody else dichotomy. Everyone needs to find ways of conserving energy. We can all buy more efficient appliances, drive more efficient cars, use more public transport, etc. Buying carbon offsets isn't just for the wealthy anyway. A person taking a plane ride is a person taking a plane ride, whether they are sitting in first class or in coach. People who can afford to pay more should be encouraged to pay more, yes. And when they do, they should be encouraged further, not criticized for doing it to assuage their guilt. As long as we have the attitude that energy conservation is for the other person, we are not going to be a part of the solution.

[sandnsea]

32. Fast forward 30 years

Everybody is mandated to live a carbon neutral life, or pay the difference. If you can't pay for the plane ticket or vacation gasoline AND the carbon credits, you don't get to go anywhere. Or you can't run your air conditioner. Or have an extra TV. But the rich people can live any way they want as long as they can afford to write the extra check.

[yellowcanine]

35. Throwing up our hands because of potential problems isn't a solution.

There is no reason why people couldn't be given a reasonable allotment of carbon and it is only when they go over that they need to pay the piper. And likewise there could be a cap on how much carbon one uses regardless of how rich they are.

[sandnsea]

42. Who said to throw up ones hands?

I'm simply saying that writing a check should not give any individual the right to say they are green. There's no way to put a cap on how much carbon one uses either, unless you plan to lock people up. I think it's much better to focus on lifestyle changes than carbon credits is all.

[yellowcanine]

47. No reason it has to be one or the other. It is all part of the mix. Caps are difficult but not

impossible. I am not averse locking up carbon scofflaws. If someone were to deliberately and repeatedly disobey the Clean Water Act or the Clean Air Act we would lock them up. How is it different?

[sandnsea]

48. Name someone

Who has been locked up for violating an EPA law??

Curiously, do you support flat tax, or progressive tax?

[yellowcanine]

53. James Hong. 36 months for multiple violations of CWA.

http://www.hunton.com/files/tbl_s47Details/FileUpload265/401/criminal_negligence_CWA.pdf

I am generally opposed to flat taxes, except in the case of sales taxes with groceries, clothing, prescription medications and textbooks excluded. Even then, I would be in favor of applying a sales tax to grocery or clothing items deemed as "luxuries", such as fur coats, designer clothes, lobster, caviar, etc. I don't see the relevance to this discussion, unless you are going to argue that a carbon tax is akin to a sales tax, which I suppose it is.

[sandnsea]

54. It is akin to a sales tax, exactly

It would be a true burden to low income people, a minor inconvenience to the wealthy who actually might not notice at all since they don't do their own bookkeeping anyway.

Interesting, I guess some people do deserve to go to jail for blatantly violating environmental laws, but it really doesn't happen very often.

[Poll_Blind]

11. First and foremost the carbon market is a rigged game:

FYI, all my information on this is was gleaned in research I did during the European carbon market's collapse last year. However, who wouldn't expect U.S. companies to do the same?

  The carbon market, in it's current state, is a joke a sham...and an insult. Companies were asked to estimate their carbon output to determine how many credits should be "created". The carbon market would mean something except the companies in question grossly inflated their carbon production numbers. When it came time to pass the credits around, most had more than they needed. However, some buying and trading by speculators drove the price up a bit. However, it became apparent sometime last year when the first (IIRC) annual report on carbon consumption in Europe came out, that something went fantastically right...or very, very wrong.

  All the companies had done amazingly well on their carbon output...so well that analysts and speculators (who had been burned by buying carbon emission credits at a falsely-inflated price) looked into the matter and found that the companies had been gaming the system from the outset to cause the market to collapse and provide them with exceedingly cheap and plentiful carbon emission credits.

  So to address your question, it is a way to "have your cake and eat it too". However, it's designed to be an expensive, painful way to do so. Unforuntately, the corporations themselves have artificially inflated the amount of carbon they report they produced (initially) so (with the affore-mentioned collapse of the carbon market last year) it's a very cheap way to "have your cake and eat it too."

  I like the idea of a carbon market. On paper, and if it were better set-up, it would have basically made it cheaper for companies to work on reducing their emissions rather than purchasing carbon emission credits. However, the way it is now, it's a joke.

  Just another way companies use to fuck us over, keep polluting and destroying the planet so they can turn an easier buck, euro, yen, what-have-you.

PB

[pnwmom]

13. I suspected there was a downside. Thanks, PB. n/t

[yellowcanine]

24. You are confusing several issues here. There are voluntary programs where

individuals choose to offset the carbon they release into the atmosphere. See the link given in one of the first posts. Then there are more formal carbon trading programs that utilities are being asked to engage in by the European Union. It is a mistake to paint it all with a broad brush. Simply throwing up your hands and saying, "It's a joke." does not do anything to solve the problem. We ALL leave a carbon footprint. We ALL need to do something about it.

[Poll_Blind]

50. Sorry, you're right. Though I made a point of saying I supported the...

...concept, I should have been more specific.

PB

[wtmusic]

25. It's not the idea but the implementation

There has to be some kind of monitoring. It will require an expensive infrastructure, hence, a commitment.

No shortcuts.

[Poll_Blind]

51. Exactly, the idea exists defenseless in a vacuum. For it to be succesful...

...it requires that the companies participating (initially to determine their annual "footprint" and during the program) to play an honest game. The idea, itself, is defenseless. What (from my understanding) is required are more checks and balances and an agressive oversight of the program.

PB

[ProfessorGAC]

21. I Don't Like It Either

I think it's a grandstanding play that serves to actually look better than it actually is.

It's not a solution the average worker could employ, so to me, it's apropos of nothing.
The Professor

[yellowcanine]

27. With an effective carbon trading program, the "average worker" would get

carbon credits when he replaced a refrigerator with a more efficient one. Or replaced a non hybrid car with a hybrid car. Or took mass transit instead of driving his car to work. Farmers could get carbon credits for employing cropping techniques that raise the amount of carbon in their soils. Or burned soy diesel in their tractors instead of regular diesel. It is not true that the average worker could not benefit.

[ProfessorGAC]

34. Don't Buy It

I don't think that's true. People without signficant extra discretionary cash are not going to buy a new fridge or a new hybrid car just because they'll get carbon credits. THEY DON'T HAVE THE EXCESS CASH! The carbon credits are, therefore, irrelevant.

I live in small town. There IS NO MASS TRANSIT. So, that's useless to me and to about 75 million other people in this country. And i'll bet you the vast majority of those people are average workers, because big time executives and pols don't live in small towns 50 miles from a metro area. I'm just middle class guy, myself. A good salary, but i'm no millionaire.

Farmers already use carbon saturation methods. I live in the fringes of farm country. I know LOTS of farmers. (The lady next door has a boyfriend who farms a 200 acre family farm.) And, my friend works for USDA and knows more about farming than you or i will ever know. What you're describing is already part of the qualifying plan for subsidies. Now, they'll get double credit. I think not.

And, as someone who helped a firm get BQ9000 certification for their biodiesel operation (300 million pounds per year), soy diesel DOES NOT REDUCE the carbon emissions. It raises them, as it's a more saturated hydrocarbon mix and since it's linear, the overall bond energy per unit mass is lower. So, to get the same amount of energy output, you actually burn a little more. Biodiesel is not intended to be less impactful on the environment. It's intended to pursue renewable energy from short turnaround sources. (Yearly, instead of every 30 million years.) So, you're mixing apples and oranges.

This is not a plan that benefits the average worker. Your case is a bit gauzy in its defense.
The Professor

[yellowcanine]

40. It is net carbon we are worried about. Yes you burn more carbon with

biodiesel but some of that carbon is offset by soybean plants taking up carbon. Not only that, but some of the carbon is still preserved in soy meal which can be fed to animals. When you burn fossil fuels, none of the carbon is offset (unless you want to consider geological time, which really isn't useful).

On carbon credits for soil sequestration. No I am not talking about having a conservation plan to qualify for subsidies. I am talking about receiving carbon credits for actually demonstrating that you increased the amount of carbon in your soil. It is fairly easy to demonstrate. Carbon is highly correlated with soil organic matter and we can measure soil organic matter. Farmers who practice conservation tillage and other techniques can raise their soil organic matter. Getting a payment for the carbon from a utility would be one more source of income. It could work.

When the old fridge/furnace/car dies, you replace it with a more efficient model. You get a refundable tax credit financed from a carbon trading fund. I use "mass transit" in a generic sense. It can include car pools, van pools, whatever. Besides, one should not be constrained by "what is" but rather look at "what could be". There are many situations where subsidized commuter trains/buses could work in more rural areas. The subsidy is paid from the carbon fund as well. Also we subsidize highways for cars, there is no reason why we should not subsidize mass transit in rural areas except a lack of imagination.

Yes it is complicated and there are pitfalls but that is no reason not to try. We have too much to lose.

[ProfessorGAC]

46. Here's The Thing

I don't believe any of the things you discuss will amount to any signficant change. Sorry.

As to mass transit, that's fairy tale stuff. It's not a matter of "what could be". In reality, the funding mechanism is non-existent and there is no gov't will to raise the taxes needed. You're not willing to privatize all that, are you? I didn't think so.

I think this carbon credit thing is a solution in search of a problem it can actually effectively fix. And, i don't agree there is no reason not to try. It is a common malady among people that feel that in complex problems we must try something. In fact, it is highly likely, sometimes even more likely, that the something is worse than nothing.

For instance, if the incentives get high enough, it will promote cheating the system. Then you'd be fooled into believing that we're doing something when, in fact, we're accomplishing nada. Now, we're not affecting a thing, but we think we're making it better. That ends up putting blinders on those who are actively interested in doing the right thing. How can that help?

I'm all for finding ways to reduce carbon combustion technology. But, i don't think this idea amounts to anything more than a "nice to talk about".
The Professor

[yellowcanine]

49. Don't assume what I am willing to try or not try. Actually I think it could be privatized, with

government or paragovernment oversight. Someone has to prevent cheating. Excuse me but "mass transit is fairy tale stuff"? Tell that to the millions of commuters in cities, suburban and yes rural areas that use it every day all over the world, including the U.S. The fact that we haven't figured out how to make it work in the U.S. very well is not because it is a fairy tale, it is because of a lack of political will and imagination.

The use of carbon combustion technology will be reduced one way or another. It is only a question of whether we will control its reduction or we will allow events to control its reduction. I prefer the former.

[haymark]

26. Only carbon neutral energy should be permitted

Let's go nuclear, like much of Europe. It takes years to set up a nuke facility so let's get started. Maybe tax-breaks on the capital invested in the facilities to speed things along.

[yellowcanine]

30. Nukes are not carbon neutral. It takes energy to mine uranium, transport it, process it, and then

deal with the waste on the other end - and keep the whole process secure from terrorists. Also it is not a renewable form of energy. Uranium supplies are finite.

[haymark]

55. We're doomed

No energy source is carbon neutral. Even windmills require energy to manufacture, assemble on site, maintain and then shred the local bird population.

[MonkeyFunk]

28. I don't drive a hummer or fly

private jets.

Can I get paid by some rich carbon-hog?

[yellowcanine]

31. Everyone leaves some kind of carbon foot print. Some more than others, that's all.

You don't deserve to "get paid" unless you do something to reduce the amount of fossil carbon you use or do something to sequester carbon (like planting a tree).

[MonkeyFunk]

33. ok

I had PLANNED to drive a Hummer and fly private jets, but in the interests of ecology, I have changed my mind.

Where do I pick up my check?

[sandnsea]

29. It's slightly better than nothing

But I don't think it should replace maximum green efforts. If we're serious about global warming, then our candidates need to get serious about leading on personal lifestyle changes.

[MonkeyFunk]

36. It reminds me of the Civil War era...

where people could avidly support the war, but pay somebody else to go fight it for them.

[Dunedain]

37. Hey there Martin Luther

What's this talk about indulgences. ;)

[gilpo]

43. Hi Dunedain

:hi:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. It doesn't do a damn thing

It's a scheme that allows the hogs to continue being hoggish and assuaging their guilt by having someone else sacrifice.

[yellowcanine]

44. Actually if you look at the link in post # 6 you will see that is not what it is at all.

It is a scheme which encourages people to be part of the solution. Everyone, not just the wealthy, the "hogs" or the "evil corporations" are part of the problem.

[gilpo]

45. Can you think of a better way to pool resources?

So like minded people coming together to fund green energy and reforestation is a scheme? Wow!

[kestrel91316]

39. Because it's FAR preferable to the alternative, which as you know is NOT

buying them.

By your logic, because we exhale CO2, there is no benefit to trying to use less fossil fuels.

Once again we see somebody saying that because a way of mitigating damage does not solve 100% of the GW problem, there's no reason to try it at all.........

:argh:

[HamdenRice]

52. A primer in pollution control -- here's how it works

Before you can understand carbon credits, first you need to understand the basic mechanism behind most pollution controls. It' easiest to understand in terms of water pollution.

Water pollution control does not try to end pollution; it tries to reduce pollution load to a level that a water body can endure and remain a sustainable resource for various uses like industry and recreation.

So imagine a pond or river surrounded by factories that are dumping sewage, so that the river is dying -- let's say 100,000 tons of sewage per year.

The EPA's first step is to figure out how much sewage can this river stand and still be healthy? That's a straight-forward scientific question. Let's say the answer comes back, 50,000 tons.

The EPA then does something that most people find counter-intuitive: It issues "permits" to pollute. Since everyone contributed to the 100,000 tons and the river can tolerate 50,000 tons, each polluter is given a permit to dump 1/2 as much as they were before. Now the river only gets 50,000 tons of permitted pollution per year and the river begins to recover. Every polluter is "locked in" or "grandfathered in" with his or her permit.

If another factory wants to start up, it must get a new permit from the EPA, but in this example, there is no more capacity. So the new factory could go to another permitted factory and purchase some of its right to pollute permit. That would be a tradeable right to pollute.

Now suppose a factory that has a permit to dump 5,000 tons develops a technology to dump only 1,000 tons. It has no incentive to adopt this technology unless it can be rewarded because the new technology is expensive. But if it can sell 4,000 tons worth of its permit to someone -- the new factory, or an old factory having trouble finding pollution reducing technology -- it will sell a part of its permit and adopt the technology.

That's why ultimately, even though the system seems like it "permits" pollution, it eventually encourages technological innovation to reduce pollution and keeps it within manageable levels.

The government can also put pressure on all the permitted polluters by reducing the total load. It might revise its total load from 50,000 to 40,000 mandating a 20% reduction in pollution of each permitted polluter, hence cleaning up the river even more.

Once you understand how water pollution permits work, you can begin to grasp carbon trading, which is a vaster, more difficult and complex system, because while water pollution refers to an easily monitored single body of water and finite group of polluters, the carbon system refers to the whole world. (Because water bodies are limited, it's always easier to control water pollution; air pollution and carbon pollution don't confine themselves to a single "body" of air.)

That would require scientists deciding, what is the total amount of carbone emissions the world can tolerate -- or at least a viable "target" for this decade. Then each country is allocated a carbon allocation (like a permit).

If Brazil decides, for example, to replant millions of acres of rain forest, which reduces carbon load, it could then expand its own industrial carbon emmissions or it could sell its new carbon capacity credits to the fat, lazy Americans who would then be able to drive more SUVs. Either way, Brazil gets rewarded for reducing its carbon load.

As you can see the system has a lot of complexity that water pollution doesn't have. It requires an estimate of the permissible global carbon "load;" it requires carbon to be allocated to countries, and then national governments to allocate carbon to users like industries and consumers; and it requires all levels of permits (carbon credits) to be tradeable.

If one country (like the US) does not sign on to the carbon system, it doesn't work. It would be like a water polluter on the river saying, the EPA can't force me to buy a permit, and I'm going to dump as much sewage in the river as I want. The other permit holders will realize that their permits are worthless, if one guy can ignore the system.

That's why international treaties are so necessary to address global warming.