Letters to the Editor
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lame agitprop
and far beneath TDB quality standards.
Offsets aren't consumption indulgences, they're leverage.
For the cost of junking my car and getting a shiny new hybrid, I could build a freaking windmill -- or, I could purchase offsets that make ten windmills possible by making them cost-competitive with cheaper and dirtier forms of power generation.
Not to mention the carbon cost of manufacturing the hybrid.
I'm not saying there aren't problems with carbon markets, but this kind of objection is sophistry.
I thought Ruben Bolling was supposed to be some kind of ex investment banker, so it's odd that he doesn't understand leverage. Maybe he worked in some kind of Gordon Gekko organization that taught him the world was zero sum. It's not.
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Well, that sucked!
I didn't know Al Gore is the cause of Global Warming (BTW Ruben, he just got approval to solarize the family home--it required a change in local building codes to do it).
And if rude people had to pay money to hire other people to nice to balance out their asshole ways, that would be a good thing too!
Yay offsets!
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Carbon neutral for the wealthy not enough
Maybe the point is that western industrialization and resource consumption have created the lifestyle behind the problem; yet the solution requires all energy consumers to pay the marginal cost of carbon neutral energy production. What should those who live in developing economies do, when they can't resist the profligate lifestyles that are modeled by the wealthy, but can only afford to match the pace of acquisition the old fashioned carbon spewing way?
Maybe a solution is to up the price of guilt free consumption, pay not just to be carbon neutral but pay to sequester the historical carbon that was responsible for the capital development that created one's wealth.
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2 bros, 8 cousins
Bolling's 3rd situation makes a good case for why we should reinstate the draft (only for guys shall I say to head off Darwinian sniping). The missing element in opposition to the Iraq war is the knowledge that YOU or YOUR OWN KID might be REQUIRED to DIE for your country's policy. This condition may create more informed voters/policymakers as it eventually did regarding Vietnam. --December
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@$#-hole neutral
is brilliant.
I think the shot at Gore is a little misplaced. However, the strip does a good job of pointing out a couple of problems with the carbon-neutral cottage industry, both the sketchiness of some of the offerings and the attitude that nothing has to change in our consumption habits to get to a sustainable model.
If anyone is interested in reading an often amusing column about some fairly painless ways to reduce impact, please check out Ask Umbra at www.grist.com.
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Exceptional!
one of the finest satires on the corporate green stategy (and examples in other areas) that I've ever seen!
It's about time some one pointed out that carbon trading is an environmental ponzi scheme!
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offsets
@$*hole offsets was hilarious. I thought the rest was a little overly harsh, but I loved the @$*hole panel.
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Thanks
For the honesty, Mr. Bolling.
Poco
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Enough with the offset bashing
Where to start...
I know a guy who installs biomass heating systems for medium to large buildings- schools, office buildings, etc. These systems burn a mix of grass and wood pellets. The energy balance on pelletized fuel is great; you skip right past the energy-intensive conversion steps that ethanol currently requires. And you can grow native grasses on marginal lands with minimal inputs.
But of course such systems have some extra upfront capital costs (e.g. you need a large area for fuel storage). My acquaintance sells carbon credits for his projects through Native Energy; they can make the difference between a system being cost-effective or not. So in this case at least, carbon offsets have a strong additionality component.
I personally buy offsets as a complement to other steps that I take (CFLs, B20 heating fuel, major reinsulation work, etc.). For me to go much further, it's going to get expensive. If I installed a PV system on my house, I think the cost of avoided emissions is something in the range of $300/ton CO2 avoided. If the carbon offsets I bought truly had additionality (contrary to the cartoon, and consistent with my example above, offsets actually can cause, well, offsets), that money could have a much bigger impact, say, financing wind turbines in China, where all you have to do is bridge the cost gap between wind and coal. And that's huge- any clean energy capacity that gets built in India or China is pretty clearly in place of increased coal capacity, either now or in the near future.
And frankly, I don't have a huge problem with people buying offsets in lieu of reducing their carbon footprint, or even with offset projects that are not truly additional. That's because I take a long view on this, and the fact is, offsets are a (voluntary) mechanism to start to internalize the external costs of energy use. And they provide a real funding mechanism and market signal for current and future projects that are truly additional.
Finally, let's remember that CO2 emissions are really fungible. The cartoon's @$#-hole credits are a good foil- they guy who you are an @$#-hole to does not benefit if you pay another a-hole to be nice. But if I fund a reduction in emissions (that's truly additional), it is the same as if I directly reduced my energy usage.
So please, join me in financing wind, etc., esp. in developing countries. They need (and have a right to have) the energy, and we have an interest in minimizing the extent to which these economies (esp India and China, who have huge coal reserves) rely on fossil fuels. Building a windmill in China will help reduce the rate of increase of CO2 emissions, and frankly, that's where we are right now as a society- reducing the rate of growth.
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geez, lighten up
Allow your sacred cows to be held up to the cleansing light of ridicule. Ruben is making light the fact that people will think that offsets are enough to take care of the issue by themselves. They are not enough, just one more step in the right direction. But hey, does anyone else here feel optimistic like me that the environment and the issues surrounding it are finally being taken seriously? Just the fact that offsets are REAL ENOUGH to be ridiculed cheers me. Now, who wants to trade some asshole credits?