The TerraPass did not stop me, and might have been part of my transition.

FWIW.

the difficulty of precisely measuring additionality; the potential for shenanigans in a largely unregulated market; the potential to sap people's willingness to make tough choices.

I do think the metaphor of buying Medieval indulgences is a good one, however. There's a lot of guilt out there and offsets provide a way to relieve that guilt without changing one's actions. Similar psychological mechanism.

I don't feel compelled to argue against offsets nor against green consumerism, though. They are steps along the way, inadequate though they may be in themselves.

Bart
Energy Bulletin

Another one of my favorites: any given article about offsets will prominently mention the "potential for fraud," as though this somehow distinguishes offsets from...anything else in the world. Usually journalists will put this accusation in the mouth of some random commentator, but often it's taken as so axiomatic that the reporter will include it unattributed.

I've been struggling to think of other industries that so often get smeared with the "potential for fraud" line despite having no actual demonstrated instances of fraud. (And, to be clear, the fraud line is not a reference to quality issues. It's a reference to out-and-out fraud.) There's probably a decent analogy with the way the organic food industry was treated by reporters in the early '90s, but my memory isn't that good.

www.terrapass.com/blog

See the info I have collected.

http://baranoff.typepad.com/cheaper_electric/2007/05/my_v ...

http://baranoff.typepad.com/cheaper_electric/2007/07/mit- ...

Aaron Baranoff
http://baranoff.typepad.com/cheaper_electric/

Aaron Help the enviroment while helping the country and yourself in a incremental but common sense way.

There's a lot of guilt out there and offsets provide a way to relieve that guilt without changing one's actions.

One of my points in the post was that people claim this about offsets all the time, without offering a shred of evidence. Now you've come along and ... claimed it again. Without offering a shred of evidence. Who uses offsets to relieve guilt and avoid changing their own actions?

Also: assuming I can, via offsets, produce a larger net reduction in CO2 emissions, for less money and less effort than it would take to change my personal behavior, well, so what? Why should I feel "guilt"? Why should the notion of "sin" enter into it at all? CO2 is a molecule. We want to keep it out of the atmosphere. Is keeping it out only acceptable to you if people do it in the morally appropriate way?

The indulgences analogy is fundamentally logically flawed, in fairly obvious ways. I'm puzzled by your attachment to it.

grist.org

If there really were such a thing as sin, and there was a finite amount of it in the world, and it was the aggregate amount of sin that mattered rather than any individual's contribution, and indulgences really did reduce aggregate sin, then indulgences would have been a perfectly sensible idea.

Barbara Tuchman's tremendous book "The March of Folly" notes how indulgences undermined the Church and played a big part in the lead up to the Protestant Reformation.  

The corrosive aspect of the church's indulgences, and why they are so apt for carbon offsets, is that there really is no practical limit on sin, or greenhouse gas production, other than to stop sinning so much.  The wealthy who bought (and the corrupt who sold) indulgences were basically buying the right NOT to stop the activity that put them ALL in mortal peril (according to the ideology of the time).

You seem to suggest that there is a finite amount of greenhouse emissions, and that only the aggregate total matters.  I suggest that, for all practical purposes, there is no limit on the aggregate total greenhouse gas we can emit, because the payback -- the Venusian climate -- won't strike until decades after the emissions are made.  The fact that "offsets" rose in step with emissions saves no souls, in other words.

As far as individual contributions not making the difference (and only the aggregate), it's a little like the repeat offender claiming that he should get the reward for crime prevention because he didn't steal his neighbor's car yesterday -- "I could have stolen my neighbor's car, and I've done so in the past (so this represents a real reduction with real "additivity")."

Every jet flight made is a certain contribution to runaway climate disruption NOW; every available purchased "offset" is a hoped-for non-reduction that --- data suggests, since greenhouse emissions are increasing at an increasing rate annually --  actually does nothing but operate on the conscience of the purchaser.

Hence, the comparison is pretty apt.  

The 5% Project

And for good measure, let's throw in the strawman that we are, or will, "rely on offsets" as our only tool.

The basic science is that increased greenhouse gases are giving us trouble.  We are still in the realm of science when we conclude that reducing greenhouse gas emissions will reduce our problem.

But, stinky monkeys that we are, we rapidly fall off into semantics, and yes, religion.  Group greenhouse gas emissions under a label, and call them the devil.

The ship is till sinking, and no amount of "but it would be sinking much faster if we hadn't ..." will change that fact.  Gunning the engine to stay afloat while taking on water only appears to help.

But, in fact, it makes it things worse, because it delays the needed response --- stopping the inrush of water.  Once you have taken on enough water you sink anyway, and you regret not having put your priorities in order the minute you understood that you were taking on water.

As I recall, you were big on Al's 10 point plan to Congress.  What is it about "Freeze carbon emissions now and then begin reductions" that is confusing?

The 5% Project

Both contribute to making food more expensive.

All is relative.

"If a jet travels over an African forest and someone below plants a tree does the jet contribute to global warming?"

Well, what happens when the jet travels and no tree is planted?

"And how many children will die because someone contributed money to planting trees instead of growing food?"

How many children would benefit from their parents tree-planting?

All is relative.  This absolutist stuff is religion.

If an offset keeps fossil fuels permanently in the ground then true.  Oil and gas will be mined and burned by others so those fossil fuel offsets are false.  Trees die so also false.  If coal is avoided by an offset and not all coal will be mined by others then that offset is true.  Do I have this correct?  Are there other logically true offsets?

I like the spin-off values of false offsets, like participatory politics, trees, and conserving gas and oil as bridges into the future.  So, many false offsets are good by me, but they sound like social engineering with transparency risks.

If the recipe for survival is to freeze greenhouse gas emissions now, and then start reducing them sharply, then any available source of reductions is already spoken for.  We need them all, and we need them all on line as soon as possible to reduce PRESENT and PAST emissions, which have to STOP going up.

You ask --

The notion that offsets distract attention from, or otherwise make less likely, more substantial responses to global warming is something else that gets asserted over and over again with no evidence. Why would we think that doing a small thing distracts attention from doing big things?

Ummmm, how about because the institutional support for doing those "small things" is trumpeting them as a way to avoid having to make the "big changes"?

As for evidence, the evidence is that global greenhouse emissions have not only continued increasing while "offsets" have taken off, but they have continued to increase AT AN INCREASING RATE.  That is, I submit, strong evidence that you cannot establish any positive benefits from  offset programs except by making a priori assumptions that beg the question.

The way to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations is to reduce emissions, not to increase emissions while engaging in a gigantic masturbatory bookkeeping fantasy about how much carbon was not emitted thanks to our bookkeeping.

The 5% Project

No, perhaps not any clear evidence to support the indulgence charge, but 2 things from near the opposite ends of the spectrum.  1) You always hear of fatcats buying offsets, but 2) you never hear down at the bowlin' alley:  "Yep, got to git me some o' them offsets.  Mabel--beer me!"  Just ...doesn't...happen.

Actually David, I strongly disagree with you.  I have no cable TV to feed me talking points, and I seldom spend any time with the blogosphere.  My observations and conclusions are pretty much spontaneously my own.  

I see offsets as a clear indulgence, a device of the rich: pure and simple.   Further, it is a way, deliberate or not, but I say it is, to delay progress on sustainability.    

And every device instituted by the Corporate Oligarchy favors the....what?--Corporate Oligarchy.  The U.S. income tax used to be progressive--maybe 90% was too extreme but that is another issue.  What has happened, however, is that since the 60s the upper rates have dropped while the lower rates have changed very little.  Billionaires--that's BEEEEEEElionnnnaires--now pay the same 28% rate that school teachers and taxi cabs driver pay.  Do we not see the potential for abuse and outright fraud?  Why do we think offsets would be ANY different?  

I have done a LOT to reduce my foot-print, and continue to make incremental improvements.  Like someone here has said, we need to brag about it.  Those of us who live in a responsible way, by choice, but far more critically by necessity, are very much like small farmers who just want to get a decent return on their effort.   At the same time the fatcats are sippin' whiskey and smokin' big seegars.  

No. Sorry--it's an indulgence.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
s

GRID CONNECTED FARM METHANE PROJECTS

We help build manure digesters on farms whose baseline practice is to store their manure in storage ponds, where it is kept pending bi-annual or tri-annual spreading on the fields.  In these storage ponds, all but the very surface of the manure has no access to oxygen, so bacteria that thrive without oxygen decompose the manure, giving off gases including methane (CH4) as a byproduct, which bubble up and enter the atmosphere.  There, methane has 21 times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide.  Each 95¼ pounds of methane can be expressed as one ton of CO2-equivalent, or CO2e.

The farms we work with install anaerobic digester systems in place of the storage ponds.  These are heated, airtight systems that accelerate the decomposition and capture the methane, which the farms then burn to generate electricity and useful heat.  The digested manure is then pumped from the digester to pre-spread storage lagoons, with virtually no future methane off-gassing.  As the CO2 emissions from burning the methane for electricity and heat are equivalent to the CO2 that would have been emitted if the manure was put directly onto the fields, the electricity and thermal energy are considered CO2-neutral.  As a result, the farms create three sources of CO2 or CO2 reductions:

    * Reductions from the displacement of electricity from fossil fuels that results from the farms' generation of electricity and delivery of that electricity to the grid ("Electricity-Based CO2 Reductions");
    * Reductions from the displacement of the farms' use of fossil fuels for heating and cooling needs that results from the farms' capture and use of heat given off by the generators ("Avoided Fossil Fuel CO2 Reductions"); and
    * Reductions from the avoidance, or abatement, of fugitive methane emissions that would have resulted from the farms' continued pond storage of manure that would have occurred in the absence of the digester ("Methane Abatement CO2e Reductions")

But, in fact, it makes it things worse, because it delays the needed response --- stopping the inrush of water.  Once you have taken on enough water you sink anyway, and you regret not having put your priorities in order the minute you understood that you were taking on water.

Seriously, what does this even mean? Setting aside pointless analogies about water and sinking and whatever, is there anybody who credibly believes that the thing holding us back from the needed response to climate change is the carbon offset market? How can any reasonable observer of politics, economics, or culture suggest that offsets are the reason that we haven't adequately addressed climate change?

And stepping back a bit: given that offsets are a general funding mechanism for renewable energy and efficiency projects, why exactly can't they be part of the "needed response"? Is wind energy part of the needed response? Improved public transport? More energy efficient buildings? Well, all of these things cost money. Offsets provide money. Explain the distraction thing to me again, please.

I know that some people feel that the only legitimate route to addressing climate change is simply using less energy. But we can't conserve our way out of this problem. We need to switch to carbon-free energy sources, in addition to pursuing efficiency and conservation measures. People who think we're going to conserve our way out of global warming are either uninformed or unserious about the task we face.

www.terrapass.com/blog

If the math worked out... A BIG IF... if there was a net gain in fixed carbon in the soil and it more than compensated for the emission of CO2 by the power plant, would y'all think it is an acceptable offset?

I'm sure someone is thinking about it. Once offsets are acceptable, everyone and his neighbor will be looking for them in the craziest places.

Probably most pre-Reformed Catholics who paid good money for indulgences similarly had good intentions.  JMG, having read Barbara Tuchman, would know more about this than I.  My feeling is that for most of them, the transaction was not carried out cold-heartedly, as if it were just a very self-conscious process for securing a license to continue doing bad things.

Also, sometimes there was an attractive dimension of international solidarity.  In Martin Luther's day, the money that was being raised among German Catholics by the sale of indulgences was sent to Rome, to be thrown into the fund to finance the building of the new Basilica of Saint Peter.  Or so everyone was told.

Though it may not appeal much to CO2-watchers and economists, the prophet WiscIdea's idea is nice: Live mindfully, and informally offset your CO2 emissions, in Protestant fashion, by donating for example to humanity-helping and biodiversity-helping organizations, instead of doing the more Catholic-looking thing and locking yourself into a formal offset system.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Hey, Sunflower: The only thing I would correct about your message--quite good--has to do with trees.  Everyone seemingly makes this mistake so I am just taking this as an opportunity.  

TREES are not FORESTS!  In the current silviculture business climate, trees are planted as a cash crop, in plantations, just like row crops only taller and with a longer time 'til harvest.  They are single species, single age, no understory, little herbaceous growth--they are not forests.  They are intended for wood (for some sort of construction) or fiber (for some sort of paper).  Tree plantations have about a millionth of the motive force of real forests, which have a tremendous biodiversity, 3-6 physical levels, and are real functioning ecosystems.  Tree plantations are like plowed fields, about one species away from being a parking lot.

A real forest does not really die, but once they are old, they do go through long periods of rejuvenation and regrowth, spatially and over hundreds or thousands of years.  The amount of sequestered Carbon in a large complex real forest is nearly constant over time.    In a large forest portions burn, other portions die and others grow rapidly at every level.  

If everyone wishes to think of 'trees', or any other so-designated entity, as offsets, think sterile row crops as vessels for some pretentious someone's CO2, which someone else will come along and harvest.  ON the other hand, real forests are precious nearly eternal natural institutions that must be protected.  It's about biodiversity.  

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

Here's my solution:

Stop calling them carbon offsets.  Market them as something larger - environmental protection credits.  Trees provide many other services aside from carbon sequestration - storm buffers, habitat, & filtration to name a few.  It's time to start selling these services the way we sell lumber.  EPCs would be a way to ensure the protection and even creation of ecosystems that provide these services.

Not all environmental credits will produce all services.  For example, a project may not actually sequester any carbon.  This is not a problem inherent in offsets, this is a problem with measurement.  You can't control what you can't measure.

Stop wasting your time trying to stop voluntary offsets and start using to figure out how to measure their services so that we can make them better.

I saw what happened in New Zealand when they clear cut their forests.  They can not get the indigenous trees to grow back in spite of valiant seedling efforts.  So they plant rows of invasive trees like corn.

But as long as we're making arguments about environmental policy based on imaginary conversations at a bowling alley, here are some other things I didn't overhear the last time I hit the lanes:

"I've been putting in overtime at the factory so I can get that new Energy Star fridge."

"Are these raspberries locally grown and organic? I'm trying to cut down on my food miles."

"Can't wait! I'm picking up the plug-in conversion kit for my Prius at Wal-Mart tomorrow."

Clearly, energy efficiency standards, organic food, and hybrid cars are the province of fatcats who enjoy Glenlivet and hand-rolled Cohibas. Burn the Priuses, I say! Burn them!

www.terrapass.com/blog

Afterall, those in favor of offsets do seem to go on an awful lot about all of the other advantages and even admit that offsets might not result in a decrease of atmospheric CO2.

Every single pollutant or otherwise harmful chemical -- since CO2 is not really a pollutant as much as something you just don't want too much of -- could be assigned a number reflecting harm to the environment. It might have to be tweaked now and then, since a few hundred years ago CO2 was not a problem. Only because so many people are releasing it has it become a problem. Anyway, those wishing to release any harmful chemical would have to purchase an environmental protection credit proportional to the number reflecting harm and the amount released.

All costs are INTERNALIZED! Let the most benign processes for generating power win!

The funds collected could be used to mitigate harm to the environment, repair past damage, or go toward research into finding alternatives to the harmful chemical.

BRILLIANT!

Many ecosystems are so old, that the very conditions that led to their establishment no longer exist. The forests of South America, for example, probably relied on now-extinct mega fauna to distribute their seeds. Apparenty, some will not germinate very easily because they evolved to first pass through the digestive system of a large herbivore. The oak savannas of North America might have relied on Passenger Pigeons to accidently drop acorns some distance from the parent trees, so now oak groves to not spread as quickly as they used to and are not as capable of occupying ground exposed to sunlight by a wind storm or fire. It is a severe disadvantage when there are alien species eager to fill a niche. I mentioned whale carcasses on the ocean floor some time ago... apparently important for life to move from an old deep-sea vent to a new one.

If offsets involve repairing ecological damage and are intended to sequester carbon, there has to be enough work done to re-establish working ecosystems. A tree is definitely not a forest.

Thanks for the observation.

Question TWO:

In one hundred words or less, what are the top 10 preferred carbon offset activities? Use whatever criteria you prefer for ranking them.

Thank you.

DR: Who uses offsets to relieve guilt and avoid changing their own actions?

• An environmentalist activist-scientist when asked about the air travel she and her group engage in, tells us that they buy carbon offsets.
• A local environmentalist organization emphasizes carbon credits over behavior change.  

Others are less conscientious, and one suspects they use offsets for PR purposes (politicians, corporations and rock stars). But why be indignant?

"Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue."

David and odograph maintain that a molecule of CO2 is a molecule of CO2 - why should we care about how it is kept from the atmosphere?  In other words, this is purely a scientific problem.

On the contrary, I submit that this is a social problem. Our actions have a cascading network of consequences. For example, by choosing to fly, one enriches the airlines, encourages the construction of more airports, and sets an example for others (friends and family).

If Priuses, cloth shopping bags and carbon offsets were sufficient to deal with the problem, then I'd jump on the bandwagon. Unfortunately, these measures are woefully inadequate.

The underlying cause of global warming is a set of paradigms (consumerism, frequent travel, suburbia,  etc.) which offsets do not address. To some degree, they numb awareness and allow the paradigms to continue.

Because the problem is deeply rooted in our culture and behavior, I don't think that science and techno-fixes are enough.  

To change as much as we need to, we must turn to religion, morality, belief systems.

For a good discussion of different strategies for change, see  Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System, by Donella Meadows, the late co-author of Limits to Growth.


Bart
Energy Bulletin

So far, I have virtually nothing but a litany of 'buy/plant trees', which is so vague, pardon me, vacuous, that it could have come from the Stooge-In-Chief, George Dumbass Bush.  So, someone provide a list of Carbon offsets offered, and since some of you are so proud of them, rank them by value, importance, or efficiency.  And as someone here said, the only qualifier should be to the extent that it prevents Carbon, sequestered over geologic time, from being extracted and consumed--you can't "un-ring" the bell, you can't put the Genie back in the bottle--not in the time of crisis.  All the rest is a shell game.  Let's vet them.  Go!

Oh, and a prima facie argument that offsets are a distraction:  this thread...and the eleventeen Godzillion ones before.  

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

Wiscidea's suggestion of a top-10 would also work.

Also, Jon, Wiscidea, and Sunflower have pointed out what should be painfully obvious, which I will extend: old-growth forest of all types (rain-, coniferous, deciduous, Alpine, upland, riparian, you name it) and every other biome on the planet must be protected.  Period.  Not for us--we are only one species which won the natural selection lottery--but for their own intrinsic value.  Otherwise, we are a bunch of narcissists.  This used to ostensibly be the function of governments, but in the rush of gobbleization, it has lost all priority.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

It's fun to say. Gobbleization. Gobbleization. Gobbleization. I'll have to find ways to include it in everyday conversation, as well as in my usual, and apparently leftist, rants

THANK YOU!

Now where's those lists of offsets?!

Come on, Dave Roberts! Please give us a list of YOUR favorite offsets. What should an industry interested in pouring CO2 into the atmosphere do to cancel out their contribution to global climate change? Which airline would you use, if each purchased a different offset?

Unless of course it's maintaining mature rainforrests.

An offset which takes 20-40 years to kick in is NOT equivalent to emitting stopping that same level of emmisions in the short term.

Merely because given feedback loops, by the time that offset is accounted for, the resultant warming effect would be much larger in 20-40 years.

In effect tree carbon should be near worthless, unless it's already mature trees. (Which as Romm points out, should also have to be certified trees, since you don't even know if the tree will last that long)

_

Also the concept of biofuels is rather distressing, since it's NOT the same as the raw ammount of carbon.

BioFuels emit N2O, NOx, O3, and CH4.  All of which are far more potent greenhouse gases than the sum of their deconstructed parts.

Especially when you consider that the laws of thermodynamics do not allow for a "Free lunch", biofuels cannot inheriently be carbon nuetral (Much less carbon negative).

_

With ONE rare exception being where biomass is turned into charcoal, with 30% of the rest being turned into gases and liquids.

Buy using ONLY the gas/liquid, and burying the carbon, you can achieve a net reduction in GHG.

HOWEVER, this assumes that the soil where you bury it is not significantly distrurbed (i.e. Tilling the soil)

So if you assume the high quality charcoal isn't just burned, AND you assume the charcoal is left sequestered in the soil then you might be able to recieve a net reduction in carbon benefits.

When in reality, due to feedback loops, it really should be more akin to a payday loan.  (i.e. gignormous interest)

_

Saying for instance, "I'll take $10000 from you, and pay you back $10000 in the next 40 years"

The capitalist system doesn't work that way.
And in this case, neither does the natural system.

Seriously, what does this even mean? Setting aside pointless analogies about water and sinking and whatever, is there anybody who credibly believes that the thing holding us back from the needed response to climate change is the carbon offset market? How can any reasonable observer of politics, economics, or culture suggest that offsets are the reason that we haven't adequately addressed climate change?

I'm not sure that anyone has suggested that offsets are THE thing holding back the needed response to climate destabilization; I think what has been suggested is that, like the indulgences, offsets permit those with the greatest resources, the very people who have the greatest ability to change their behavior, to rationalize doing something OTHER than change the behavior.  That's all.  (Though that's quite a lot.)

As for the sinking ship metaphor, sorry you don't like it.  I think it's more apt all the time.  The first rule of survival at sea during flooding is stop the flooding.  Any time/effort/ resources spent on doing other things is taken from that available for the prime objective, stopping the flooding.  

And stepping back a bit: given that offsets are a general funding mechanism for renewable energy and efficiency projects, why exactly can't they be part of the "needed response"? Is wind energy part of the needed response? Improved public transport? More energy efficient buildings? Well, all of these things cost money. Offsets provide money. Explain the distraction thing to me again, please.

I believe that assisting with capital formation was the argument I made in favor of offsets the last time this row started; you might be interested to know that I bought a Terrapass a few years ago, and then switched to making a monthly donation to Carbonfund.org, which I continue to do.

So I don't have any particular animus towards offsets -- I just think that, to use another tired cliche (is that, itself, a tired cliche; anyone know of any peppy cliches?), offsets are very much like the famous deckchairs on the Titanic.  

I know that some people feel that the only legitimate route to addressing climate change is simply using less energy. But we can't conserve our way out of this problem. We need to switch to carbon-free energy sources, in addition to pursuing efficiency and conservation measures. People who think we're going to conserve our way out of global warming are either uninformed or unserious about the task we face.

And I'd respond that anyone who thinks that voluntary carbon taxes (which is what offsets are) is a solution is either uninformed, unserious, or biased.

The most comprehensive solution that gets at the capital formation question, prompts conservation and efficiency AND carbon free supplies of energy is a stiff carbon tax.  

The critical question is whether offsets lead us closer to the universal carbon tax or away from it.  I'm still just barely leaning towards the hope that, by taxing myself voluntarily with Carbonfund, I'm sending a signal to the political powers that (a) we must respond to climate change, and (b) that they won't be lynched for responding in the most effective way.

But every time I meet an offset frequent flyer I move a notch toward saying that offsets are actually hurting us because they are encouraging precisely the most aware people to keep on spewing greenhouse gases.

The 5% Project

Why did George Bush beat Al Gore in 2000?  Some say it was because of Florida.   It was because Bush outspent Gore by 60 million dollars in the campaign.

Carbon offsets are nothing but disarmament in the face of a war to change the politics in America and around the world.

George Washington said that Government is Force.   It's only the force of taxes for carbon and reduction of other taxes that gives us any hope of doing anything meaningful.

I myself offset my emissions. That is, the ones remaining after having purchased a Prius, a new fridge, changing out all my incandescents to CFLs and some other energy saving devices and changes in habits.

I've also contributed to John Edwards campaign, Environmental Defense and others, and I can't help but think that if I took those dollars that I've put into offsets and put them into more PAC fundraising efforts that they would have more of an effect on the climate by way of improving our leadership in Washington.

I'm only personally able to afford so much to improve our global situation, and I want to make sure my dollars are being put to their most effective use.  So I might just start offsetting my emissions by making more political contributions....  

Cheers, Gary Gifford

Man, the crickets and other night critters are deafening!  Or, is it, "I know you're out there I can hear you breathing."  Or maybe more appropriate to the cyber venue, "Gee, what happened--yer keyboard broke?"  

Or is it that planting trees is actually all that is available?   Now, would that be a straw man or a smokescreen?  Oh....but it was our illustrious thread author who referred to "straw men". So, what about these putative "offset providers"?  

I would sincerely like to know, is there anything beyond the sappy (ooh, sorry) idea of planting trees?   It really is a simple genuine request.

Regarding the plea from several of us here, and I suspect millions around the world, of preserving biomes worldwide, it really should be done without regard to offsets.  In reality it is an act of generosity and humility, and not an act to somehow compensate for a lifestyle.  You are not offsetting anything.

Someone here mentioned changing the name of offsets.  Taking the suggestion at face value, I would say absolutely not: change the color of the lipstick on a pig and you still have a pig.  

I mentioned, not at all facetiously, that for many, offsets are a form of distraction from the real issues.  Judging from the large number of threads on offsets here on Gristmill, one has to wonder just how the "distraction" function works, and to whose benefit.  It certainly is a distraction trying to track the threads.  Just what purpose does this serve?

Some of us await constructive honest answers.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

Question TWO:

In one hundred words or less, what are the top 10 preferred carbon offset activities? Use whatever criteria you prefer for ranking them.

Thank you.

We've one vote for preserving mature ecosystems and one for freeing the government... I'm not sure what that means.

But seriously, if I want to purchase and offset so I can go out and buy a Humvee, guilt-free, what are my options? I would like someone who is a strong supporter of offsets or, even better, someone who is a broker to post of list of the top 10 preferred offset activities.

This is your chance to change someone's view by presenting some really good examples. THE WORLD IS WATCHING. I know you're out there. You believe in offsets. You should be able to quickly give us a list or direct us to a website.

I SUSPECT that a combination of offsets and a carbon tax, especially when corporations enter the picture, would create a regulatory/tax collection nightmare. There would be tax advisors searching for all sorts of loopholes and schemes to avoid both. Lobbyists would have ample opportunity to beg for exemptions. Those buying offsets would say they shouldn't have to pay the tax. They would probably buy offset from themselves to avoid taxes -- one subsidiary buying the right to pollute from another subsidiary!

Anyway...

Question THREE:

Why is a carbon offset better than a carbon tax?

Thank you.

P.S. Please answer Question TWO (see above) first.

She slowed the release of carbon. Global warming is a related rates problem.


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Many people are nervous about the environment and want to help in some way, and I agree with Romm that the best thing you can do is reduce your own footprint.  But, if you have to buy goods and services, just buy them; your obligation to the environment is included in the price.  This is not a perfect system but it is improving, and when some cap and trade legislation comes through prices will jump considerably.

The situation seems bad, but there is no reason to jump the gun; fly to France, drive a Hummer if you want, etc. while you still can afford it.  This is in fact what most people are doing.  Offset project will be funded in plenty of time to make a difference, by corporations with much deeper pockets than yourself who are legally obligated to do so.  Don't take on the weight of the world.

So...find offsets that fund clean power generation which displaces grid power from coal-burning power plants.  In this category, wind farms and methane digesters in strategic locations are the clear choices.  To that end, I bought my offsets from Native Energy and directed them to wind, figuring that helping the wind industry along will also pay off down the road.

 I also want to agree that the people who buy offsets are generally those taking other, more tangible steps as well -- so I really don't see them as indulgences.  They're just one more piece of the puzzle.

But. Forget about indulgences, people - too far in the past, too Catholic, too dependent on a knowledge of medieval church history. Think about a parallel much closer to home. Recycling. Anyone with any serious knowledge of the recycling industry will tell you that some areas of recycling make a whole lot of environmental sense and some do not. Some kinds of recycling are even environment-negative (sound familiar?). Money and other resources are nevertheless dropped into municipal and private recycling programs with little accounting of the true value: it sounds like a good thing good to do and plenty of folks are uncritically happy to see it done. But the greatest damage that has been done by the yes, feel-good emphasis on recycling is that it has resulted in almost total neglect of the first two of the the three R's - Reduce, Re-use - remember them? Anyone care to tell me which of the three has the greatest potential for environmental benefit, and which has the least?

Since the three R's concept was introduced - what, 30 years ago? - with its baby-step, almost pain-free third option available to salve our environmental consciences, our consumption of energy and primary materials has gone through the roof with the global consequences we see today. So much for the "every little bit helps" approach. We've been burned once, Dave. Recyclomania has NOT led to conservation and other sensible environmental policy and practice. Tell me again how offsets are going to raise public awareness and help us do REALLY smart stuff down the road?

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

Offsets aren't going to do much to raise public awareness, but they ARE helping us do smart stuff down the road by funding cleaner technology, which really needs the capital....and that, in itself, is reason enough for me to buy some.  

According to Jim Hansen, emissions is an absolute quantity, not a rates problem.  Because CO2 remains in the air for many centuries it does not matter if we delay emissions, the totals will still cause tipping points into disaster.  Offsets that offer temporary reductions and not permanent reductions will not help, not a wedge solution.

GreenMom -- Yes! Put wind turbines in coal country.

In one hundred words or less, could an expert in the field please present a list of the  top 10 preferred carbon offset activities? Use whatever criteria you prefer for ranking them. Please present it in a clear manner. We can discuss the details later.

Thank you.

I think what has been suggested is that, like the indulgences, offsets permit those with the greatest resources, the very people who have the greatest ability to change their behavior, to rationalize doing something OTHER than change the behavior.

Yep, that sure has been suggested. Again and again and again. It's unsupported by any available evidence and happens to be untrue, but that shouldn't stand in the way of a good suggestion.

And I'd respond that anyone who thinks that voluntary carbon taxes (which is what offsets are) is a solution is either uninformed, unserious, or biased.

No one thinks this. Not a single person. If there's anything that offset retailers are unanimous about, it's that a long-term program for addressing climate change will require legislative solutions that put a price on carbon. The hope is that the voluntary market can hasten and supplement regulation, but not one single person has ever suggested that it will replace it. So why attack this absurd strawman other than as a sleazy way to insinuate bias?

On the other hand, I daily hear someone suggesting that what we "really need to do" is stop driving SUVs and flying to academic conferences. I know it's fun to rant about how everyone needs to change his behavior. Affecting righteous moral postures in front of an eager choir is a lot easier than coming up with realizable solutions. Just don't be surprised when nothing good comes of it.

www.terrapass.com/blog

To stretch the topic even further: I get nervous about David Sustainablegreen's intensity sometimes but he's spot-on about how public policy on everything environmental (actually, just on everything period) is crippled by public governance that's lost its accountability to the general population and which is hand-in-glove with business governance that never had any of that accountability to begin with (David, I hope this is an acceptable paraphrase of some of your thinking in this area). Crack THAT nut and we can hope for some serious progress. Otherwise - bidness as usual.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

In terms of some broad guidelines, I would suggest the following:

• Supporting renewable energy is way more important than protecting old-growth forests. Every coal plant that gets built is going to be with us for a long time. The best long-term dividends come from hastening the transition to low-carbon sources of energy.


• In terms of additionality, methane abatement projects are generally considered quite solid. These include landfill methane abatement, dairy farm methane, and others. There are some nuances here, but I'm mentioning it because these projects are probably off the radar screen for most people.


• Project type isn't really as important as project quality, which can vary dramatically even within project categories. This will become easier for consumers to sort out as standards emerge, but right now I don't have a 100-word rule of thumb.

Sorry not to have a better answer. It's a complex topic, not amenable to a top ten list.

www.terrapass.com/blog

Issue one is the credibility and reliability of carbon emissions remediation or carbon fuel conservation programs.  Such an issue is the stock and trade of accounting.  It's a matter of making some simple rules to approximate the complex real world impacts of carbon fuel use, counting up the impacts that would take place without countervailing programs, counting up the impacts with countervailing programs, auditing the counts for accuracy, and accurately reporting the contributions of each actor involved.

Issue two has to do with predicting the likely human responses to various schemes of assigning rights to and costs of releasing carbon into the atmosphere as a consequence of other individually desirable activities.  Such matters are exactly what is captured in the frame of economic analysis.  Yes, physical sciences are necessary to understand probability and possibility of carbon emission of sequestration given a certain set of human actions, but it is economics that best predicts which actions will be taken in the context under discussion.

Issue three has to do with the further complexity of unintended consequences to other scarce resources, such as water, topsoil, and biodiversity, given a certain economic program or set of programs that aim to alter carbon emissions or sequestration behaviors in multiple societies.  Again, physical sciences will provide the details of the likely environmental impacts of human activity, but (sound) economics will best describe what activities are likely under various economic conditions, such as carbon trading markets, carbon taxes, or carbon caps.

I made a stab at laying down an initial framework for appropriate economic analysis of the problems at hand  in Joseph Romm's initial thread on this issue when I hastily jotted down Rune's Rulez before taking off for an extended backcountry outing.  In my opinion, Romm got himself into a never ending cycle of unsatisfying conjecture and exceptions to his own conjectures by completely ignoring the language and lessons of economics and accounting, instead relying on moral and ethical pontification and over generalization, such as insisting that each individual make the maximum effort to reduce their carbon emissions related activities before availing themselves of the opportunity to invest in others' possibly more effective efforts toward the same end, or simply declaring that no tress should ever by cultivated in the name of carbon reduction.  Others have simply played off of this unproductive approach rather than reframing the issue in the terms that have been used by numerous studies to assess the problems and effectiveness of carbon reduction regulatory and market mechanisms.

If I had the ability to start a thread of my own on this subject, I would refine my initial Rune's Rulez, point to the analyses that have convinced most well intentioned policy wonks and business people that carbon taxes backed by sound auditing measures are more effective, reliable, and efficient means of reducing carbon emissions worldwide, while politicians and business opportunists favor carbon offset trading, which is more likely to result in a system that is gamed for quick and ill gotten profits by those making the markets and those using accounting tricks and outright lies to sell something on paper that does not actually produce the declared value for which it is sold in the real world.  However, I have no way of starting such a thread, so I will just wait and see if anyone else who does is inclined to dig into the economics and accounting angle.  So far, it appears that was a thread killer when I brought it up early on, so I won't take the time here to clean up some obvious flaws in my first contribution toward that end.  I am certainly not inclined to dive into any of the numerous rounds of conjecture and personal insults.  That's just pointless.

On the other hand, I daily hear someone suggesting that what we "really need to do" is stop driving SUVs and flying to academic conferences. I know it's fun to rant about how everyone needs to change his behavior.

I certainly plead guilty to thinking that addressing the climate crisis will require everyone changing his or her behavior.

What about you?  Do you think otherwise?

The 5% Project

Scratch below the surface and one quickly finds the battle of either/or, white/black, good/evil logic chains.  One way they manifest is in looking at social change in purist terms.  To be crass:  Who's greener than thou, and who's not?  Sociologists have described this process as "boundary maintenance."

Go to pretty much any environmental activist meeting and you can see this at work.  We engage in boundary maintenance so routinely that we have stopped seeing it.  Alas, when we don't see it our activist group is more likely to resemble a knitting club than one that actually accomplishes social change out there in the real world.

One analytical tool for transcending either/or thinking is to pull out a copy of Alan AtKisson's "Believing Cassandra" and play the "Innovation Diffusion Game" he describes in Chapter 9.  The exercise sheds light on how social change is a complex SYSTEM.  Us green visionaries are only one small part of it.

Embracing that perspective requires a certain amount of humility, because it beckons those of us with more utopian visions to acknowledge that we will likely never see them fully realized.  Indeed, even achieving a small part of our vision may REQUIRE us to make our peace with those holding very different attitudes.

Offsets are nothing more than a tool for trying to bring together people with differing agendas.  Like all large-scale social experiments, offsets are going to have contradictions that drive purists nuts with indignation.

David does a good job of pointing out the logical weaknesses of purist arguments against offsets.  My only criticism would be his apparent wrapping of offset participants in the flag of idealism.  Right now the "industry" may be new enough that it is dominated by idealism, but I would expect that to decline as the practice becomes more "mainstream."  Outright corruption is always a possibility.

In other words, it is POSSIBLE that offsets could start to function somewhat like medieval indulgences.  Does that completely negate the potential value of offsets as a social change tool?  In my view, no.  At least not yet.

JMG writes:

I certainly plead guilty to thinking that addressing the climate crisis will require everyone changing his or her behavior.

What about you?  Do you think otherwise?

AS do I--plead guilty, that is.  We are all in the problem together but many, mostly in the West, but also those elsewhere who are influenced by the West, are a much bigger part of the problem.  Simple per capita overconsumption, driven up to some small amount by simply middle class people, but mostly by the rich, whose consumption most of us cannot imagine.  So, no, I do not think otherwise on this issue.

Thank you, JMG, for the timely opportunity. This is how it is done.  This is how questions are asked and answered.  

Furthermore, for those whose profligate lifestyle and consumption has made much of the problem, and made it much worse by their negative role models, more is expected.  This is why offsets are so suspect on the face of them, since they are a device of the Corporate Oligarchy.  As I tried to explain, suddenly causing Adam Stein to apparently turn stupid but certainly condescending, the progressive nature of the U.S. income tax has been completely undone, and offsets are no better, being part of the same phenomenon.  If offsets are to have any value they have to realize real reduction on Carbon, i.e., the reason for Wiscidea's and my request for substantive projects; and the value of the offsets have to  be proportional to the consumption of the individual buying the offsets, i.e., progressive.  

Real reductions come from practical doable effective activities. Speculation and hype and research and future unproven hopes do not belong in that group.  This is why agro-fuels are such a disaster on so many fronts.

Ignoring serious and sincere questions make the so-called experts look less and less qualified.  Avoiding clear and direct answers  make you the experts look condescending and arrogant.  Or it makes you look like you have a dark, ulterior, greed-driven motive, which of course you will not share.  

Give us some answers.  Wiscidea has repeated his question, very decently and honestly.  Some of the so-called experts have sought to tear down 'planting trees' (by the way, said in the most superficial blase manner imaginable, reflecting NO understanding of biology or ecology or their intrinsic non-human values), but while tearing down trees, have nothing else to propose, but vague generalities.

Come on.  My rule is simple: a type of project receiving offsets qualifies to the extent it prevents Carbon, sequestered over geological time, from being extracted and consumed.  Can't possibly rank them ("OH, dear me!")?  Just name them.

There are some excellent comments here that deserve response or at least praise, but the format and practice here seems to thwart that.  I regret this condition.

Let's have some real answers. I have modeled the process for you.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

Just forget you ever heard about this nonsense, join your local democratic party, and the next time your democratic senator or congressman comes to town, talk directly about stopping the war, corporate welfare of all types, and diverting the money to incentives for taxpaying voters to invest in plugin vehicles, conservation, and renewable energy.

And volunteer to get democrats elected and republicans ousted if you have republican congressmen or senators in your area.

When you volunteer your voice trumps lobbyists.  grassroots is real political environmental action.  This offset "industry" is a flat out scam.  Indulgencies?  Who cares?  Another non-issue.

Carbon trading?  Another "free" market scam.  Carbon taxes?  Regressive and political suicide for our green friendly democrats.  

Just get out there and do it.  Stop debating issues designed to divert attention and energy from this battle to save the living planet.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Adam Stein writes:

Supporting renewable energy is way more important than protecting old-growth forests.

Suddenly I see: an interesting dichotomy, which is probably spontaneous.  Many of us here enclose a saying or motto or philosophical message; others have a website or other link.  Still others remain into themselves.  How interesting to be able to tie these things to the purposes and goals of the participants.  Many are quite revealing; some are less than appealing.  

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

The covers become a little loosened, and the anthropocentric shallowness of the motive is revealed, as well as a lack of understanding of the broader world, of which humans are only a small part.

Sorry, David, but no. Building a bunch of new coal plants is bad for the broader world. There's nothing anthropocentric or