The Great Carbon Con: Can Offsetting Really Help To Save The Planet?
It all started with Sting, this fad for owning one’s very own patch of tropical rainforest, though it is probably unfair to blame him entirely for creating the boom industry that buying up forests piecemeal has become.
It is 20 years since the musician first set foot in Brazil and pledged to fight the cause of the Yanomami Indians, setting up the Rainforest Foundation to protect forests and their indigenous inhabitants.
Today, protecting forests has acquired a more international purpose. Climate change, rather than assuring the livelihoods of local people, has become the issue. Celebrities and politicians, and many others just in search of a quick buck, are falling over each other to advocate plant-a-tree conservationism as a salve to global warming.
Sienna Miller, Tony Blair, Josh Hartnett, Desmond Tutu and Prince Charles all endorse Global Cool, an initiative that encourages individuals to reduce their carbon emissions by, among other things, buying a “tonne of cool”. David Cameron has proudly owned up to offsetting any flights he takes by making a donation to Climate Care, which calculates the cost of the carbon your flight has pumped out and does good stuff, like planting trees, to right the wrong. Sir David Attenborough is a patron of the World Land Trust, which is currently offering to “save a whole acre in perpetuity”, for just £50. However, critics say that there can be no ultimate guarantee of the future of any piece of land.
The wealthy financier Johan Eliasch, who advises Gordon Brown on deforestation and green energy, provoked the ire of the Brazilian government with his purchase, in 2006, of 400,000 acres of Amazon rainforest. “The Amazon is not for sale,” said the Brazilian President, Lula da Silva. Eliasch then joined forces with Frank Field MP, and launched a grand tree-buying plan called Cool Earth late last year.
Cool Earth stresses that it “leases” rather than buys land, to keep it safe from eager logging companies. Its website explains that saving one acre of endangered rainforest keeps 260 tonnes of carbon safely “locked up” within the forest itself, unable to escape and pollute the atmosphere.
Whoever owns the land or the trees, this method of “capturing” or “locking” carbon into forests is not going to have the knock-on effect of saving the planet. Cool Earth does not claim explicitly to be in the offsetting game, but the carbon that it claims can be “locked up” in one acre of forest would offset 30 round-trips to Rio de Janeiro, say. For the environmental groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, this forestry offsetting craze is acting as a smokescreen, and detracting from real solutions to escalating emissions.
“Taking a dodgy accounting proposition, which is that you can somehow identify the amount of carbon that any given new bit of forest picks up out of the atmosphere and sequesters, and make that correspond somehow to emissions elsewhere,” is how Greenpeace sees carbon offsetting, according to its senior climate adviser Charlie Kronick. “It can’t be done. The methodology is poor, and the logic isn’t very good either. Once the carbon you’ve put in from fossil fuels is up there, nothing is going to make it go away.”
Friends of the Earth’s Marie Reynolds points out that not only is offsetting no substitute for real emissions cuts, but there is no guarantee, when you plant a tree, what the future of that tree will be. Robin Oakley, Greenpeace’s climate and energy campaigner, agrees: “The issue with offsetting is that, fundamentally, it doesn’t undo the damage done by carbon pollution. The vast number of players in the offsetting market are not reducing emissions in any accountable or measurable way.”
In some cases, local people, far from benefiting, suffer when huge new plantations spring up. Survival International campaigner David Hill says: “Numerous reports show how indigenous peoples have suffered as a result of carbon projects: invasion of their land, evictions, the destruction of villages and crops, reduced access to or destruction of traditional resources, and violent conflict.”
Offsetting is popular because it makes people feel much better about taking long-haul flights or driving gas-guzzling vehicles. “They are being misled,” says Oakley. “Most carbon offsetting companies are making a killing.” Climate Care, the company David Cameron pays his green-guilt tax to, has recently been bought by the investment bank J P Morgan. In the credit-crunch climate, any new acquisitions are thought through very carefully, and only the most watertight pass muster. This move suggests that carbon offsetting is currently considered one of the most risk-free industries around.
Very few not-for-profit offsetting companies exist. Myclimate is one, and only uses “Gold Standard” offsets, a strict set of criteria for measuring where the money is going, drawn up by a number of international campaigning organisations. Since last year’s conference in Bali to discuss how to take climate-change proposals past the Kyoto Protocol agreement, the Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has been working on a certification system to keep carbon cowboys out of the market. Redd - reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation - is the UN’s proposed trading mechanism, which aims to pay countries not to cut down their forests.
“Turning the forest into just another commodity is not going to protect the climate or the lives of the people who live there,” says Kronick. Surprisingly, perhaps, Greenpeace is in favour of extracting value from forests in other ways, such as the deal that was recently hammered out between Guyana and Canopy Capital, a group of British financiers to protect the Iwokrama Forest last week. The Independent first reported a plea from the Guyanan President, Bharrat Jagdeo, last November, to structure exactly this type of deal for all of Guyana’s forests.
Michael Woods, a partner in the law firm Stephenson Harwood and head of its environment department, oversaw the deal. “It focuses on eco-systems services and the value a forest provides,” he explains. “Rainfall is the best example. Without the trees, the eco-system will not produce the rainfall that then benefits other parts of South America, even as far as the American Midwest. It’s a global utility service on which agriculture relies, and its value should be recognised.”
However, this sort of protectoral behaviour, especially when overseen by foreign advisers, provokes worried disapproval from many green corners, giving rise to cries of neo- or eco-colonialism. “If there’s going to be financial compensation for eco-systems services, which recognises that they provide a service other than locking up carbon, it should be for the people who live in those forests,” says Kronick. “How do they get a share of the proceeds? How do you preserve national sovereignty, so that under the banner of climate change it doesn’t become a kind of eco-colonialism?”
“This is not about buying land or trees,” says Andrew Mitchell, a director of Canopy Capital and an experienced conservationist. “It is about trying to put a new value on forests for countries such as Guyana that are not destroying their forests. We need a new economic paradigm that values them, so that there’s more of an incentive to leave them standing than cutting them down.”
This sort of deal is in its infancy. It is described by climate-change specialists as “avoided deforestation”, and similar projects should be rolled out in the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol. Other countries are already envious of Guyana’s pioneering deal. Indonesia, Brazil, Papua New Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo would all benefit massively from similar arrangements.
Despite the potential quagmires over forest ownership, Greenpeace is in favour, because safe-guarding a forest, as well as ensuring the livelihoods of its inhabitants, has a real effect on climate change. “It is like sticking a cork in an industrial process,” says Kronick. “It is taking one of the sources of climate change - deforestation accounts for up to 30 per cent of total carbon emissions in the atmosphere - and removing it.
“It must be a part of whatever solutions we come up with for climate change. Protecting forests is one of the smartest things that we can do.”
Alternatives to offsetting
The people who live in forests are the first to be hit by their destruction. Survival International and the Forest Peoples Programme help indigenous communities to protect their rights to manage and control their own habitat. www.survival-international.org www.forestpeoples.org
Rather than “buying your cool” (carbon emissions) back from suspect sources, Global Cool has suggestions for reducing emissions in real terms: turn the heating down; switch appliances off at the mains; use an energy supplier that invests in renewables
www.globalcool.org
Don’t forget that conserving forests (as long as they’re not ring-fenced and the local people pushed out) is a good thing, and lots of organisations who have jumped on the offsetting bandwagon started out in straightforward conservation. The Woodland Trust estimates that, for a £2.75 monthly membership fee, it can “protect and care for” half an acre of native woodland. They won’t sell you areas of woodland, but you can have spaces dedicated to a loved one. As there is no major problem with deforestation in the UK, this saves ancient woodland, but it won’t stop climate change.
www.woodland-trust.org.uk
You could still pay for offsets, but check you are giving your money to a not-for-profit organisation that is selling Gold Standard carbon offsets, such as myclimate. Don’t expect your money to save trees; most of the Gold Standard projects involve switching communities from fossil fuel to other types of power.
www.myclimate.org
© 2008 The Independent/UK
Harumph. Waste less. All these initiatives have potential to be helpful, but of course the profit motivated MBA vultures will always descend on any idea and find a way to get people to spend more, consume more, waste more, and somehow feel good about it.
Is trading in your old Civic for a Hybrid SUV green?
All of these “offsetting” initiatives, and more, should be undertaken immediately, not just waiting for someone’s consumption to set them off. All money currently set aside for oil, coal, and gas exploration should be used for this instead. Ha! As if.
Big_Money wrote: Is trading in your old Civic for a Hybrid SUV green?
I suspect BM knows more than his innocuous question poses. I also suspect he/she knows the answer.
Answer: It is NOT green to trade in your old junker. Keeping your old car running makes far more ecological sense than junking it and replacing it with something new. Most of the pollution and ecological impact generated by a car during its lifetime occurs during its manufacture. Thus, most of the ecological impact (and harm) has already been done by your old junker. Ceasing the manufacturing of new vehicles prevents future ecological damage.
Yes, I know, a simplistic argument that may be better articulated by others, but it does hold water.
It is also a philosophy much hated by industry who want you to buy new stuff.
You’ve all heard the story about my great-great-great-grandfather’s axe that has been in the family for 5 generations; it has had 2 new heads and 3 new handles. I believe that this approach of keeping the old running is better for us all than replacing the whole axe whenever a new colored handle is marketed.
There are corporations doing lots of carbon emission that wish to buff their images, and there are corporations seeking to sell them a way to do that. Corporations selling things to each other is all they know how to do (other than “image ads”, of course, to brag about their earth-consciousness.)
Cap and trade is a start, even if it does offer opportunity for form over substance. But perhaps we should concentrate on trying to globally limit the sale of legal “offsets” to only those sold by the non-profits. (Sort of like we learned to regulate what is sold as “insurance” policies.)
Tax all energy on the basis of its carbon emissions and other polutants. End all income tax on incomes below $100,000. Make up the difference with energy taxes.
“Most of the pollution and ecological impact generated by a car during its lifetime occurs during its manufacture.”
That’s an exxageration, but manufacturing of new cars is certainly a big enough energy user that keeping an old Civic or Corolla running is certainly better than buying a new vehicle that gets no better fuel economy. The fuel economy of older, manual transmission Civics was as good as a Prius at less than half the price in constant dollars. The probelm is, good fuel economy cars are in very short supply right now. Used Corollas with over 100K miles are selling nearly their brand new price.
But at the 20 year point, parts for most cars do get hard to find - even in junkyards.
Greg R,
I’m with you. Plus. The energy offsetting credits is much like allowing wealthy criminals to buy out their stiff jail sentences. Mmmmmm, seems we are doing that ,too.
offsetting credits — is that like the Bushwater thugs impregnating survivors to offset their slaughter of civilians?
Carbon trading will legitimate pollution by placing emission control in the purview of the “free market” and beyond the reach of government. Within the market, the incentive is to make money and the way to make money with carbon rights is to sell them, of course. In short order all carbon credits will be owned by the polluting industries themselves. Governments will outsource their watchdog efforts to private companies that will also be owned by the polluters themselves. Market trading has proven itself already to be a recipe for absolute planetary desecration.
People let corporations and other organizations (banks, armies, policital parties, private parties, institutions of every stripe) grow into monsters and then run around trying to fix all the monsters’ destruction, trying to erect barriers against them, trying to reign them as they chew into the government, chew into the environment, and chew into people’s minds and manipulate them into consumption slaves. People act like they need these monsters, that they want them just to behave better. This is all bullkaka. We don’t need the monsters, we’re better off without them, and we better stop trying to make them behave and instead we better destroy them. The benefit of an industrial/commercial entity to the society peaks at a relatively small size and deteriorates rapidly as the entity increases in size/power. Limit the size of these entities and educate the people to be responsible citizens and they will take care of the biosphere and the society through their market and civic demands. Choose any other route and you’re feeding people/planet to the monsters, enabling the monsters’ destruction. The way to handle large scale projects oin a sustainable way was developed over two hundred years ago in the Enlightenment period when the excesses of the British East India Company were evident. The concensus was to allow banks, standing armies, corporations or any large enterprises only temporary lifespans to complete very specific tasks. Smash the monsters now, limit the size of permanent entities to something very small, and enlighten/empower the people.
This sounds like papal indulgences to me. Didn’t Martin Luther launch the Protestant revolution to protest this kind of thing?
We no longer have the Church at Wittenburg upon which to nail up 95 Thesis, but we do have the Internet. Where can I sign up?
zoya wrote:
Didn’t Martin Luther launch the Protestant revolution to protest this kind of thing?
That was the usual reason, along with Henry VIII’s bloody divorce problems.
But in reality, Protestantism largely arose to find a way around the Catholic Church’s prohibitions on usury, and the Church’s emphasis on conduct toward others and charitable actions, rather than private “faith” as the basis of salvation. These were were incompatable with the ascent of capitalism, which was arising from the mercantilism of the late renaissance era.
This is not very different than the current clash of capitalist “modernity” with Islamic societies today.
So, if the early capitalists didn’t have Martin Luther, they would have had to invent him. It how dialectical materialism works.
But back to the topic - the only sure way to prevent catastrophic levels of AGW are to keep the carbon in the ground, or to demonstrate that carbon capture/storage really works and doesn’t have adverse long term impacts of it’s own. AGW will probably kill off most forests anyway.
I used to really like his music, but Sting long ago sold himself out to the corporate neoliberal Davos clique.
If indigenous people are locked out of their birthright lands by rich folk spending their money to buy or start tree plantations, it isn’t right. Their “carbon footprints” are less than insignificant compared to that of modern “civilization”.
Blocking large scale deforestation by farmers and corporations is vital (for for protection of rare species, also!). China pays good money for soy, and Brazilian farmers are plenty willing to put more acreage into cultivation. We won’t see much reforestation in the US. Grain crops and lumber are too valuable.
I think the real problem is scale. A few feel-good money making offset projects won’t make a drop in the bucket compared to the fossil fuel we burn.
Cap-and-Trade is simply “bullshit-and-burn” by another name.
Carbon “offsets” on the other hand is “burn-then-bullshit.”
Can’t you people see the difference?
In cap-and-trade we get to burn coal here because somebody else gives up their burning of coal over there. Then they get to burn coal over there because we promise that we aren’t burning coal here. Since nobody bothers to check the statistics that show total global coal production going up we get to keep burning the coal.
Conversely with carbon “offsets” we declare that it doesn’t matter that we are burning coal here because we paid somebody over there to plant 275,000 Giant Sequoias on his 3 hectare plot. Those tree can then offset the entire carbon emissions of Duke Energy for a week as soon as they grow up in 2,000 years.
It really is very simple.
The whole global warming catastrophist movement is recently being controverted by some pretty cool people who think outside the box. Michael Crichton is one of them. There are others. Does global warming really present the most urgent crisis for caring people to care about? There are other, perhaps more urgent, catastrophes to be talking about.
One of them is genetic re-engineering. Another is the impending total collapse of the US economy.
Check out www.sillyConValley.net for more on global warming.
USAn wrote: But at the 20 year point, parts for most cars do get hard to find - even in junkyards.
Not if you buy a “cult” car, like a Honda Civic. Civics are driving the youth of this nation around, and will be fondly remembered as their “first car” or hotrod. Today there is a huge industry in maintaining and resurrecting older cars such as the Civic, and these 20-40 year old cars and selling for way more than their original purchase price. As it turns out, parts are cheaper and easier to purchase for old cars than new cars. And to make things even better, there are fewer parts on older cars!
The secret is to maintain the old car and not let it decay to the point where it costs a huge amount to restore it to road-worthy condition.
JavaRunner wrote: The whole global warming catastrophist movement is recently being controverted by some pretty cool people who think outside the box. Michael Crichton is one of them.
Crichton is one of the trend sceptics. Have a look at:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74
I do agree with you though; climate change is not our immediate priority because it will take several generations to effect a huge impact. A nuclear exchange with China is much more likely within the next 30 years. Sooner if the neocons maintain their bid for global supremacy.
As Donald Boudreaux said in Sep 2007: Ignoring climate change isn’t a sign of scientific illiteracy or of ideologically induced stupidity..
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
The GHG levels here and now will be effecting all of the next several generations, and they are getting worse every year. Humanity will survive the collapse of the US economy, bombing Iran, probably even a nuclear exchange with China. Serious global warming trumps all that. It could be the end of us all, and we need to act now.
So what does that make someone who ignores global warming if not illiterate or brainwashed, Dr. Boudreaux? It makes him a selfish, callous, arrogant, and a poor excuse for a human being that cares nothing about posterity. Not the least bit cool.
WTF,
You mist live in either a warm climate or one so cold they don’t bother with road salt.
Here in Pennsylvania there are about as many early to mid 1980’s Civics on the road as there are restored Model A’s. It is very novel to see an old civic.
Global warming and capitalism as WE know it can not exist.
Are we willing to work 12 hour work weeks in or close to home, downsize housing, stop vacation traveling, stop buying crap to feel good? are you willing to live off of 1/10th of what you make now? grow a garden? can you find happiness in the things they did 200 years ago?
We don’t have till 2050 to reduce GHG’s, now is it, any takers?
If you cut down a forest, preserve the wood, let a new forest grow and repeat, you will be removing more carbon from the atmosphere than if you leave the forest alone. if you use the wood for construction there will be more benefit. If we collect dead wood from the forests and prevent its decay, we will reduce carbon in the atmosphere. A big old tree is beautiful but grows slowly. Fast growing plants taking its place will reduce CO2. Oh yes, we should stop burning up oil or alcohols and go electric. Airplanes are crazy. maglevs in a vacuum make more sense.
Golddogs
Agree with you that capitalism as we know it, plus solving human contributions to globing warming, can’t co-exist.
I hate what capitalism’s become (and, maybe always was), but the global warming problem isn’t limited to the idiocies of modern capitalism. Every other major, modern ecomonic system, like the quasi-Commie State Capitalism in China, is just as blind if not more so, on this issue.
The crisis for our world on this and most other issues, lies I suspect in hugely magnified top-down political structures. But what are we to do about it?
The template for elitist rule and top-down governance among humans didn’t begin with national states or their greed-fueld economic systems. It began thousands of years ago, with a strong, dominant man or woman getting a family or tribe’s shit together, by dint of ‘personal power,’ to bring home the food and fight the threats of wild animals, climate, and, increasingly, other family and tribes.
Present humans are more dysfunctional via influences of their ancient wirings, than we like to examine or care to admit. A person or nation becomes dominantly empowered, for whatever reason, and that empowerment tends to make the power holder less sensitive, less contextually conscious. And then, strife always follows from this lack of fellow/context-consciousness. This is a pattern endlessly reproduced at both small and larger scales of human (and other animal’s) organisation.
This is also why some religions, when daring to be even marginally honest, admit that The World Is Flawed.
We humans like to think, now especially in present times, that as creatures we have High if not unlimited developmental Possibilites.
That may be true. I hope it is.
But as we chronically continue as a species to behave like self-destructive and mutually murderous creatures, I think all the talk about Humanitie’s High Possibilities is just so much compensatory blather to hide what we don’t want to acknowledge: we are still, in terms of regular behavior, scantly more than brain-diseased monkeys with machine guns. And if scantly more, only because of a few artists and philosophers whose message has largely been pseudo-worshipfully glossed-over, but who’ve nonethess left among us a wisdom that might allow us to reach these Higer Possibilies.
If the human world dies on this agonized planet, capitalism as we know it, as you say, will surely have been a significant causal factor, in snuffing us.
But it will hardly have been the only or even the basic causal factor.
USAn wrote: You mist live in either a warm climate or one so cold they don’t bother with road salt.
Heh, heh, heh. With global warming, you wont need road salt anymore.
lizard wrote: Airplanes are crazy. maglevs in a vacuum make more sense.
Wouldn’t pulling a vacume in a railway tunnel the length of the transatlantic route be extremely costly? Can you give a link showing the energy cost-benefit of a maglev over conventional air travel? I always imagine maglevs as being so science fiction. Thanks.
Do you think we have the time to survive this climate crisis while still making a profit? While still playing this dumb-assed game of war and wealth? The super-rich know it’s crunch time. Unfortunately for everyone, they’ve pinned their (and, by extension, our) survival hopes on holding all the marbles, rather than the cooperative power of billions (of healthy, educated, able and organised people). Perhaps survival of civilization would be best insured by a re-evaluation of that approach. (There are so very few of them and so very many of us—but how can we get their attention??…hmmm…)
As much as we like to think otherwise, Nature rules.
Apparently, none of the human cultures (the remnants of which we are, and have been actively destroying) that survived the previous temperature/CO2 spike reversal (110kya) were very big into profit or psychopathic corporatism. Maybe we should learn what they can teach us before we kill them off for the resources they happen to be living in/over.
Words from Long ago:
Those who would take over the earth
And shape it to their will
Never, I notice, succeed.
The earth is like a vessel so sacred
That at the mere approach of the profane
It is marred
And when they reach out their fingers it is gone.
For a time in the world some force themselves ahead
And some are left behind,
For a time in the world some make a great noise
And some are held silent,
For a time in the world some are puffed fat
And some are kept hungry,
For a time in the world some push aboard
And some are tipped out:
At no time in the world will a man who is sane
Over-reach himself,
Over-spend himself,
Over-rate himself.
—LaoTzu 600BC+/-
Cheers.
snydly - many thanks for your more gently said and very mind-opening post. The poesy of Lao Tzu is exactly on the mark.
Cheers to you, too, dear good Being!
I don’t like the idea of paying someone to *not* burn a forest down. But I suppose in a world of Markets, you have to ‘value’ everything. How much is it worth to you for me *not* to beat the cr*p out of you ? $100 ? Your watch ? How about those nice shoes you’re wearing ?
I like the idea of green tags better. Pay a little extra for the dirty energy you are using, so that others can invest in creating cleaner, renewable solar or wind energy. There are a number of organizations working on things like ‘green tags’.
lizard - While I often disagree with you, your comments on cutting and replanting forests makes sense. However, I think that the rainforests offer more than carbon sinks/sequesterers. I am dismayed that it seems like the vast majority of posters critisize the “plant a tree” approach. This approach is not “the answer” but it helps. While I think that the impact of CO2 on global warming has been overstated, it clearly has merit, and I think that substantially changing the quantity of a major component of out atmosphere should give us pause. We can quibble over what we do not know about the effects of increased CO2 in our atmosphere, but our inability to predict the effects of this change should be reason enough to try and stop doing it. i would say that the best thing we can do is to stop having so many kids (2 or less), so that some of these kids can have good lives.
I can’t understand why SUV’s have not ben made illegal immediately?!!! I can’t understand why all cars available are not Hybrids. There should be some program right now to trade in all vehicles not attaining at least 35 mpg. Why are there not scientists going crazy desalinating the ocean waters to make potable water? Um, the shit has hit the fan, the northwest coasts crab population has risen onto the shores DEAd because the melting icecaps have made the oceans too cold.In our lifetime, within the next 40 years Florida will be under water, and Atlanta Georgia beach front property. HELLO does anyone give a shit at all? ITS BONA FIDE FACT, read James Lovelock the most brilliant scientist since Einstein.
I am not rich, yet have taken every step I can, I threw away every incandecent bulb and replaced them with earth bulbs. I recycle, have high efficiency heating and air conditioning equipment, both my wife and I drive Hybrids, we use plant soap based detergents for our clothes, If anyone can tell me of more to do we’ll do it. But every human being on the face of the planet should be doing all of these things now. Hell if Jimmy Carter was left alone we would have been doing all of these things by the late 70’s. What the fuck is wrong with everyone? SUV’s are not only gas guzzling pollutant machines but dangerous to everyone else on the highway. They should require a commercial licence and be used for construction workers only. All you SUV owners go to hell! When you get into an accident you live and your victim in a car dies. The fact that people are responsible and refuse to immediately do everything they should clearly demonstrates how vile and disgusting the human race really is. The fact that there has not been a revolution in this country to overthrow the Bush Crime Family and institute some new form of government sickens me, I have been to hundreds of protests that now seem meaningless. Its as if the human race has thrown in the towel and lies back comfortably numb not only waiting but wanting to watch the hammer come down, with the same sickness it takes to watch a trainwreck they eagerly are waiting for the four horseman to ride……..
liberal with an attitude - When your hybrids go belly up, buy one Honda civic, and you’ll do less damage. Buy only food and fiber produced from high-intensity agriculture and you will save natural habitat from being distroyed by low -yielding/land-wasting low-intensity farming practices. Boycot free-range animal products that gobble up ground and render it a poor habitat and destroy biodiversity. Do not buy organic products that rely on animal waste for fertilizer. Animal production is a major contributor to global warming, and replacing synthetic fertilizer with animal waste encourages more animal production. Think through the consiquences of your actions!
actually my hybrid is a honda civic hybrid. 50 miles to the gallon, nearly no emissions. i do the hemp clothing thing, i am a vegetarian so do not contribute at all to the animal thing. Anything else I can do?
also and this has nothing to do with this topic but i only purchase gasoline from citgo, thereby supporting the worldwide hero hugo chavez, who in turn sends residuals of his profits to our poor citizens not able to afford fuel oil.
We must use less. Consume less. Even if that sucks for the short-termer folks who praise economic growth because its so wonderful to profit them. We are amazingly wasteful. Beyond that, let politicians know that as a society we must create the structure for people to live with less impact. The US society puts very little into real planning.
And there are too many people. A good step to do something about this is get rid of BushCo and their son McBush. Ending wars is a must.
liberal with an attitude - Sounds like you are trying hard to be part of the solution. I do not buy Citgo gas. Theatening and deviciveness are not attributes that I associate with heroism.
I want to thank the posters here who have many good suggestions and are doing many things to help save the planet.
I have a 93 Sentra I bought 2 years ago that i keep goin and it gets 29 MPG with the air on.
I buy Citgo gas when I can because Chavez is one of the the most non threatening leaders on the little planet I love and that is why he is the number one enemy of the worst leader, Bush, who is not only the most threatening but the most destructive in the history of our little planet.
Mr Obvious, you just missed the obvious.
Turn your own yard into a garden. Own only one car. Use the bus, train, carpool, get a bike, or a scooter. Learn to be green and put more green in your wallet.
You are kidding right? Hugo Chavez is the most peaceful, liberal, progressive, socialist that there is. That is why he has been the target of the Bush Crime Family. His oil company has helped to subsidize the expense of heating fuel for the poor people in our country. And unlike what the Bush Crime Family would have you believe he has been elected by a huge margin in each of his terms. So i fail to see how he is threatening to anyone.
Javarunner,
Michael Crichton is a really crappy writer (in terms of plot development,subtlety, character development, dialog, and other basic writing skills) and has no scientific credentials. He is clearly bought by self-serving oil interests.
Good link by WTF discrediting this boob.
You critisize GWB Jr. and then praise King Chavez and his effort to eliminate term limits. That’s real consistent.
Big Money - I like your comment re: old Civic v. new Hybrid SUV. Empirically, it all depends on what comes out of the tailpipe, and MPG. However, your point strikes close to my everyday worry that this new wave of consumer awareness re: climate change and the environment is promoting feel-good, ineffective personal action (i.e., “I recycle and therefore I am a steward of the earth), rather than the level of sacrifice that is required of each of us to turn the ship. Of course, a hybrid SUV is certainly better than a standard SUV, but not by much in the context of the obligation we have before us, globally, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.
Hybrids are largely expensive gimmicks. Many ordinary, less expensive small cars in Europe get the fuel economy of a Prius.
Of course, the best thing to do is not use a car at all. my battery electric motor scooter gets the energy equivalent of 400 mpg.
The purpose of these sort of programs are to change the mindset of the majority. A large part of the population is frightfully separated from the natural world. In order to change the way people think you have to start with some sort of program that engages them in the issues. Once this information becomes part of the thinking you can then move forward with other aspects of changing their behavior. This sort of technique works well with children and the mentally
retardedchallenged.Can Offsetting Really Help To Save The Planet? Yes.
First off, yay for old Honda Civics with manual transmissions! I was a little wasteful this fill-up, went down to 38 mpg.
Now, the important part of having any kind of tradeoffs that isn’t a con is an honest, impartial and deep-thinking certification agency.
The government can’t do the certification. They’re too often crooked, then caught up in bureaucracy, then crooked again. Not to say that a few sleazebags won’t try.
Next, multinational companies can’t certify themselves. Sorry, but the Wal-Mart Institute of Environmental Purity isn’t going to fly.
I want to know that a forest wasn’t clear-cut just so a few tiny carbon credit trees could be planted. I want the cooperating countries to be rewarded, and the corrupt countries to absorb general or specific trading tariffs.
I want a whole-environment approach to these tradeoffs. It’s one thing to trade off the Greenhouse gases caused by an old Civic, and quite another to be rich enough to think about trading off the GHGs caused by the family’s three brand new Hummers. That’s why we need deep thinking and an independent consumer certifying agency.
Every litre of Coal, Oil or Natural gas that in mined will be burned. Sooner or later. It is utterly inevitable. And it will put its load of carbon into the atmosphere. All other activity notwithstanding.
Mr Obvious,
There you go again!
Is that the worst you got on Chavez?
He does think He is most important because he is in the middle of a revolution against Bush Neo Imperialism… not an easy task.
But his desire for more terms was turned down by the voters… a sign of a healthy Democracy in the middle of a revolution. The “King” as you call him respected the voters choice.
Man how bad can a leader get?
How about “King Obvious” for a make over.
So, in the end, a Creative Artist had the right idea, buy the land and prevent it from being used by those corporate marauders who plunder, rape and pillage for profit alone.
Still, I am disgusted at the fact that human beings have to resort to scams on even this. Such people need to be named and shamed, we need to know who they are, and we should revoke their license to operate and turn over their businesses to those who can green them correctly.
Jim Glover - There’s plenty more about Chavez, but I though that this clear indication that he is trying to keep himself in power at the expense of democracy is best example of his self-serving attitude. If he really was a man of the people, he would not push for abolishing term limits for himself. This in itself should be enough to judge him. What would be your response if Bush did this? Be honest and don’t go off on a rant about it being ok to have a benevalent dictator.
Restoration of the Planet begins in your back yard. It will not come from Washington, the City of Death. Life is still eager, it just needs a little care and encouragement.
Doom n Gloom - I agree! Our back yard is pretty big too.
Mr. Obvious-I think you’re seriously wrong about Chavez. Hey, it’s hard to like any politician too much and Chavez’s big ego is annoying, but at least he’s entertaining. Seriously though, he’s not a dictator. He asks the people to vote for him every 4 years. Using the word ‘dictator’ is completely unfair. His policies and ideas are far better than those of most nations of the world with a severe rich/poor divide.
We’ll see if he steps down when the time comes.
First of all, this article - on a very important topic - is very confused. Sophie Morris initially seemed to be saying that the entirety of rainforest preservation is a waste of time distraction designed to make people feel good. Then, at the end, her ‘what you can do’ section is all about rainforest preservation. A few important points:
*recent studies suggest that tropical rainforests in particular are REALLY important to preserve for their greenhouse gas sink potential relative to, say, temperate forests;
*can we all say in unison the following: “THERE IS NO SINGLE SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE.” I’m really getting exhausted with articles (and CommonDreams comments, for that matter) that devalue any given solution (be it wind energy, alternative fuels, habitat preservation, conservation, investment in public transit infrastructure, and so on) because it is not going to solve the climate crisis by itself. We are going to need forest preservation AND conservation AND a bunch of other steps if we’re gonna start getting ourselves out of this mess.
*…and by the way, we are unlikely to see the end of capitalism anytime soon. Solutions will need to be at least cognizant of the economic perspective, while still dealing with the realities that, in some cases (like technology transfer to India, China, etc) it’s simply going to cost money.
*to Paul M: even if what you say is true, the question of HOW FAST all of those fossil fuels will be vaporized is absolutely key for 2 reasons:
1) both global warming and ocean acidification are predicted to be sensitive to the rate at which the fuels are burned over the next centuries. This much is crystal clear from the IPCC reports, for example.
2) carbon sequestration technology could insure that some of these burned fuels will not end up increasing atmospheric CO2. It goes without saying that the longer we wait to burn all these fuels, the more likely a workable sequestration solution becomes.
*people feeling good as a motivation for doing the right thing is not, in and of itself, problematic. Indeed, this often is an important way that people change their behaviors. The problem is if the “feeling good” in a given instance is a fantasy. We need to be realistic even as we are positive.
peace
seastar - If I may be so bold as to expand your statement: THERE IS NO SINGLE SOLUTION TO CONSERVING OUR ENVIRONMENT. If global warming motivates you, then great. In any case, our environment is getting degraded and it is a loss to everyone’s future enjoyment of the planet. Do what you can, but educate yourself on what really helps. Don’t just subscribe to the flavor of the month that may or may not be helpful.
I see climate change (in a broad sense, including ocean acidification, which is even less in dispute than global warming) as an umbrella over-arching all aspects of environmental conservation, awareness and action. I happen to agree, though, that environmental conservation needs to be considered in a realistic context. Thus, for example, if we don’t simultaneously deal with ending poverty the whole thing will largely be a waste of time. I agree with the idea of “not just subscribing to the flavor of the month,” but one also should be conscious of excessive cynicism getting in the way of taking action.
Crichton owned by oil? Really? Am I owned by oil too? That why I’m driving a 98 Mustang?
Climate change. Look. The climate changes, OK? This planet warms up, cools down, then warms up again… Worrying about climate change is like worrying about death. People die. You don’t address that with government and high tech. You address that by studying people like Socrates and Christ. By the way, I remember reading in Newsweek in the 1980s that all these scientists were terrified by The Coming Ice Age. And lately there is data indicating global cooling.
As for worrying about “future generations,” I have a sincere question. Does worrying about “future generations” pertain inside the mother’s womb where “future generations” get their start. Just wondering guys, don’t go ballistic.
ClassAct said: “Carbon trading will legitimate pollution by placing emission control in the purview of the “free market” and beyond the reach of government.”
I don’t agree, but the problem is the government. It needs to remain an active regulator of this new market to keep it ‘open’ as opposed to ‘free’. That means it must have a set of regulations keeping the market honest, and a paid police force ENFORCING those laws (i.e. forcing all companies to act like MyClimate is acting voluntarily). With the current penchant for government to get ‘out’ of the regulation/enforcement business, your concerns are likely to be realized. If we can return to effective, activist government we had in the 1950s-1970s (and which neocons like Bush/Cheney abhor), we can carefully proceed in this new (and VITAL, in my opinion) direction. Otherwise, say hello to Enron, 2010.
Obviously we need to prevent deforestation and we have to reduce carbon emissions. We must do both.
I heard this guy talking about an initiative of people buying up forest land in 3rd world countries for eco-tourism there. I have to wonder though, is this not in fact eco-imperialism/colonialism. Americans didn’t do so well with preserving its forests, and now some well to do Americans are going to buy the forests in the 3rd world and save them? What about the locals in those countries? Is it right for foreigners to own their collective land? I really don’t think so personally.
Eco-tourism can be good to help preserve the forests if its done right, but I think the locals should still own the land rather than Americans. As long as it can be done in a way that empowers locals and hopefully is owned by locals then it could be fair and just. But, americans buying up land in foreign countries isn’t the solution in my opinion, unless they then donate that land to the poor locals in trust or something.
Its not as bad as americans buying land in Costa Rica and clearing the forest for their new luxury ranches. But, its still not great. Costa Rica is for the Costa Ricans!
Plus, while eco-tourism can be a good thing, it depends on how it is implemented. It can indeed harm and disrupt the forest and other environmental settings. In Costa Rica in the “Tortuguero” area, rich resorts have now coopted the canoe rides given by locals to view wild life. Instead of quiet muscle powered canoes that do not scare away the animals and which employ independent working class locals… now you have these big, loud, polluting, manatee shredding motor-boats run by huge resorts messing it all up. Even when you take a canoe with a local, there’s some jerk in a motor boat nearby spoiling it, and usually they try to follow the local canoe guys since they are better animal trackers.
There’s a huge class element in this climate crisis, and more of the rich coming in to save us working slobs isn’t going to save the planet.
Unfortunately, it is just much more complex than many of the proposed solutions that people are throwing out for carbon credit, etc. And it is quite disturbing to see that many of these solutions are in fact financially motivated. The free market has destroyed the forests of the world by and large, and I’m not interested in trusting the Ayn Rand fundamentalists that would like to say that it will save the forests now.
There are indeed some sound market solutions, but we have to watch these for-profit groups like the ones that were planning on dumping iron in the Galapagos in some hair-brained scheme to grow plankton. And we have to watch the rich kids and aristocrat types who aren’t aware of their class perspective (and priviledge) and how that is part of the problem. Aristocrat priviledge and exploitation are at the core of eco-devastation.