Is offsetting carbon use by buying credits a way for the rich to cheat?

[RestoreGore]

I have been thinking about this for a while, and I would really like some sincere thoughts on this. The big thing now is being carbon neutral, whereby you purchase what are called "offsets" with certain companies or organizations that supposedly forward your offsets to a sustainable charity to balance out your usage. My questions then is this: Is that a way for the rich to cheat on being responsible for their usage, or is offsetting enough?

I ask this because there are many poor in this country and around the world who would never be able to afford to offset any carbon they contribute to the environment. Also, we have no choice in the U.S. now but to buy gas for our cars since the rich control those markets, and we have no choice in many instances but to drive those cars to our jobs. Therefore, in my case I have compensated by luckliy finding a job I can walk to, using mass transit or walking unless I need to travel on a highway, and then conserving gas by not going over the speed limit and checking my tire pressure. But isn't that something the rich should be doing initially too on a grander scale, especially since they contribute to the crisis more than the poor and it is the poor of this world who are feeling the affects of this?

My point is that this is a moral issue, but I think some rich believe they can simply buy their way out of responsibility for putting it up there in the first place, which I don't believe serves the goal we need to attain in order to see this crisis effectively mitigated now. Even now, oil companies are getting on the bandwagon by stating they are "looking into" other enregy sources like biofuel as if that makes up for the fact that they are still contributing to the problem by primarily selling the fossil fuels contributing to the CO2 levels in our atmosphere that will stay up ther now for years. How long do they think they can get away with that?

The main idea of mitigating this crisis is to actually be responsible enough to lessen your impact intitially, is it not? Or is that simply not possible based on human nature? Of course, some would say that the money they donate to plant trees or build a sustainable office building makes up for what they use, and it may in the longterm and I am not stating it isn't a good thing. But since scientists claim we only have ten years before a tipping point and stated that years ago, shouldn't we all whether rich or poor be lessening our initial footprint? I'm just wondering if some may see this as a way to cheat by not changing their own lifestyles, and I do not believe in the longrun that it serves the planet well. There unfortunately aren't enough trees we could plant right now to make up for what is already up in our atmosphere, and it would seem the technologies many are offsetting to are still taking too long to get to market on a wide enough scale to make an impact. I would then think the main message would be, offset to a degree, but don't think you are off the hook for what you put up there. What do you think?

[hobbit709]

1. Three guesses

First two don't count.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. Of course it is.

It is like the Masque of the Red Death.

It happens out there, but not in here.

Look, the rich will always find a way out, that is why they are rich. The carbon credits make them feel good, so they can say they are doing something while the whole thing sinks below them.

[seriousstan]

3. Just another way to open the gap between the haves and have nots.

They preach and pay but we should conserve. They build 20000sf houses and fly private jets and buy bullshit carbon credits but we have to turn the heat down in our houses.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

4. Until we have no heat for our houses

then we can go live with them, right?

[Tyler Durden]

5. Just like idiots that claim they can waste gas because they can afford to.

Like the owners of McMansions with "Great Rooms" and 3 floor open staircases that are profligate energy wasters.

Time we called a spade a spade; that's from card games, by the way.

[Double T]

6. YES!! ABSOLUTELY!!!!

[htuttle]

7. The global "carbon market" tends to reinforce economic differences

At the current time, there is a strong correlation between carbon output and economic development. Economically more-developed countries tend to generate more CO2 per capita than less developed ones.

If the less economically developed countries sell all their carbon quotas to the rich countries, they will prevent economic development in their own countries, since they won't have any carbon quota left to grow into. Of course, if they could come up with ways to develop their economies by using only carbon neutral energies, this wouldn't be a problem, but this is twice as hard for an economically poor country to do than it is for a rich one.

Thus, a global carbon trading system, in addition to the problems you describe, will also tend to make the current economic order more 'permanent' (or at least stagnant). The rich will stay rich and wasteful, the poor will stay poor, CO2 output will not drop appreciably, and we'll all go under the waves together...

[RestoreGore]

8. Which is why when I read the World Bank was a part of carbon trading

I shuddered. I'm also not too keen on the carbon markets because I think they too will bind poorer countries down. Sigh, why can't there ever be a way for all of us in this world to be on the same moral plane? Shame to think that will never be so, even now. I also have the same reservations about carbon sequestration. All well and good you use sequestration to take Co2 out of coal, but you are still using coal and you still need to sequester the carbon somewhere because it isn't like it simply evaportates.

[greenman3610]

12. your assumption is that poorer countries want to

follow our path step by step.

The smart ones are going to try to leapfrog over us
to newer technologies.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. Yes. So let 'em pay for the privilege.

Make the "fee" high enough to offset the damage, though. Also to discourage the practice.

It would also allow us, for once, to levy an appropriate level of tax on these robber-barons without calling it a tax -- the same trick the GOP has been using for 40 years.

--p!

[The2ndWheel]

10. No, the wealthy want to spread the wealth

Whatever we end up doing will allow the wealthy to stay wealthy. It's not as if we're trying to save the habitat. We're doing whatever we can so that the process of wealth concentration that has been in full force for a few thousand years continues. When I say we, I mean the royal(obviously) we. All we want to do is control nature as much as possible, and eventually take it out of the equation completely. There is no other goal.

[Porcupine]

11. Carbon Credits will be percieved as a scam.

Complex subsidy and benefits markets are percieved as "make the rich richer" scams. Historically they have been exactly that. Look at the experience of black farmers with the USDA.

Because black farmers were not able to penetrate the paper walls of the USDA they were forced to compete with subsidized white farmers on an unequal basis. Now there are fewer acres of black-owned farmland than there ever were before as a percentage.

The "deregulated" energy markets were another scam. Green power providers who took the "market" at face value were destroyed by Enron's insider trading of power.

Until a woodlot owner can get paid for burying his slash as charcoal rather than burning it without hiring a consulting firm carbon credits are a scam.

[phantom power]

13. There is a way to *measure* if it's working.

If no new coal or NG generating plants are built, then it's working. If existing coal or NG plants are decomissioned, then it's working. If the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere stabilizes, and then drops, then it's working.

Otherwise, it's not working.

[RestoreGore]

14. Well, according to the amount of coal plants going online in China weekly...

and the fact that CO2 levels are now close to 400ppm, it's not working.

[phantom power]

15. That is why...

I believe the only way to solve this is via a major committment, at the level of nations, to disallow any more new coal or NG generators. There simply needs to be the iron will to say "if we are installing any new power source, it's going to be something other than coal, NG, oil, etc." The recent halting of 8 of those 11 coal plants in TX actually gives me a bit of hope it could happen, but we aren't there yet.

[RestoreGore]

18. I couldn't agree with you more...

And what hahppened in Texas came about from people speaking out.

[murray hill farm]

17. I am fairly carbon neutral, but...

I drive a vw beatle, live in a small house in GA and have no central heat or air...but when I checked one of the sites that will take my money to offset my carbon footprint by planting trees with the money they receive...a good idea, really...but since I am poor...decided to do it myself and took the 200 dollars...or will use up the 200 through the summer to plant my own trees...and have already planted in my yard 2 pear trees and two peach trees....and feel pretty good about it for a multitude of reasons..only one of them being carbon offset. Works for me.

[RestoreGore]

19. I think that's great

I planted two trees in my local park which allows you to do so to commemorate a lost loved one. I think ideas like that are great and also help out the environment. I also support Wangari Maathai's UN initiative to plant a billion trees. Initiatives like those I trust, and they give me hope. We have to replant Niger and other countries that have fallen prey to deforrestation due to our rapacious greed for timber and also due to the affects of climamte change, and we have to give them the tools to deal with it. That's why I believe solar energy in Africa is an imperative. I just hope the moral spirit of all of this will not be lost the more this too becomes "corporatized." So kudos to you for taking it upon yourself to make a difference.

[Shallah Kali]

24. Planting Fruit Trees is a Twofer - co2 seqestration plus food that did not travel

hundreds or thousands of miles to feed you :)

[zalinda]

16. This should go the way most things the wealthy buy first

The wealthy were the first to buy micro-waves, my ex-in-laws had one built in when they built their house in the forties or fifties, still worked too over 50 years later. The wealthy buy the products, price comes down where the next tier of people can buy it and then so on.

What will happen is that more solar and wind plants will be built, because the utility company is getting premium fees for that power. Then more people will be spurred to build more non-fossil fuel methods of generating power because there is good money in it. Americans are not going to turn back the clock and use significantly less energy, they are going to find a way to try to have their cake and eat it too.

zalinda

[RestoreGore]

20. If we can do it without hurting our planet

and ensure that future generations will have a planet that is liveable, strides like solar and wind are good and necessary. However, at this point, we still don't have that on a massive enough scale, so those who continue to emit GHGs with conventional means at the same rate who think they are absolved by sending in a check are really imo still contributing to the problem. But I agree, people on the whole will never fully adapt their lifestyles to conditions because their perceived comfort level is more important. And that is partly because of the propaganda put out that their comfort would actually be compromised by becoming more morally responsible, which is actually false. That's why we need alternate energies that the poor can afford and have access to as well, since many of us don't have the luxury of mailing a check for 100,000 to an organization to plant trees everytime we get on a plane or drive our cars.

[XemaSab]

26. The real lie here is in saying we can conserve energy

without sacrificing personal comfort.

Taking the bus sucks. Walking everywhere in the rain sucks. Not having heat when it's cold or AC when it's hot sucks. Sitting in the dark sucks. It's that simple.

[silverlib]

21. I think buying offsets is good ...

I'm not rich - not even close -

I purchased a terrapass for for my 1999 van - because I can't afford a new hybrid (or any new vehicle) although I could afford the $50 offset.

Buying offsets creates more availability. Of course society needs to encourage slowing down our footprints and thanks to Gore, this is happening. The more solar panels, energy efficient light bulbs, etc. are sold, the lower the price will be for those who cannot afford it.

My moral responsibility involves giving to charitable organizations to feed the poor and house the homeless. The poor do not use up our "energy" like the more affluent. Buying them a solar panel would not keep them from going to bed hungry. Supporting energy price relief to those who cannot afford heat is also important. In paying for offsets, we can help bring the price down so that we can do this in a more earth friendly manner.

Any good thing can be misused. Discouraging buying offsets is just as much a "misuse" of the practice as the rich buying them without taking steps to decrease their footprint. And I honestly don't expect to see many of the Neocons buying offsets or decreasing their footprint on the earth.

I wish I had the talent to express this in a more logical and passionate manner.

[RestoreGore]

22. You explained it just fine

And I did state that I do think it is a good thing, only I wonder about that abuse and its real impact on the planet. Some may think that is all they need do instead of also lessening their initial output, so I don't even know that what is contributed would really balance it out. But I understood your point, as I too give to environmental organizations, but along with lessening of my output initially. And that streams upward to corporations that I am sure would abuse it.

[Shallah Kali]

23. Offsets are a nice start but it is only a start. & what of all the years without Offsets?

if this is to be truly effective- and not merely a salve for their conscience or greenwashing) those with the ability need to go beyond trying to nullify this year's energy usage but as far back as possible.

[RestoreGore]

25. Wow, that sure would be a lot of trees. ;-)

[Shallah Kali]

28. The people of Niger have reforested 7.4 million acres reclaiming land from the desert!

Trees and crops reclaim desert in Niger
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/11/news/niger.php

If these people mostly living at the subsistence level can accomplish this what excuse does the rest of the world have? They did it the hard way with back breaking labor. it took a lot of tree cutting to get to the point we are today. Loosing so much of their carbon sequestration and oxygen creation is only one part of our problem of course but it will not be just one thing to stop, slow or at least reduce the impact of global climate change. Reforestation is only part. I read that the Dixie Chicks did carbon offsets for their touring last year including what was estimated to be from fans travling to watch their performace. Part was to preserve Madagasgar forest with reforesting as necessary I assume. Part was to help the folks previously cutting so many trees to survive with alternatives like solar ovens. I can't find the link now but it was interesting to read about.

[NNadir]

27. I was over at a nuclear website the other day, where I heard it described as

"an indulgence."

An indulgence, if you don't know what it was, was a series of prayers for the forgiveness of your soul that you could, in the Middle Ages, purchase forgiveness for your sins. You could do whatever the hell you pleased all day, rape, pillage, loot, murder, kill, but as long as you could write a check for your sins in the evening, you were OK with the church.

As a practical matter "indulgences" of this type are not audited and mostly Green Mountain Energy type companies are a scam.

If you are wealthy enough to purchase "offsets" than you are certainly wealthy enough to buy a solar power plant for your roof. In this case one would face no ambiguity whatsoever.

I am still an Al Gore supporter, but the simplest approach for him would be to have all of the things he talks about on his roof. He goofed here.

As it happens 40% of Al Gore's electricity is carbon dioxide free, with 29% of Tennessee's electricity coming from nuclear power and 11% coming from hydroelectric. He obviously can afford a solar power system but if he wants to be effective in dealing with climate change he needs to be able to say the word nuclear fairly loudly. Pretty much zero percent of Tennessee's electricity comes from non-hydro renewable energy but anyone who talks the renewable talk and has the money should, well, put his money where his mouth is.

[kestrel91316]

29. Lessen your footprint as much as possible under your individual

circumstances. Then buy offsets to mitigate the damage you are forced, through circumstances, to do.

It's a hell of a lot better than doing nothing, don't you agree?