FTC Offput by Offsets

theodp writes "US corporations and shoppers spent more than $54M last year on credits toward tree planting, wind farms, solar plants and other projects, prompting the FTC to question whether carbon-offset money is well spent. 'There's a heightened potential for deception,' said FTC Chairwoman Deborah Platt Majoras of the green-sounding offers that seem to be confronting consumers at every turn."

Comments

disgusting

[jgarra23]

I remember in high school reading about in the middle ages when people would buy offsets for their sins so they could get out of hell or something... not far off it sounds

Re:disgusting

[sweetooth]

You are thinking of Indulgence and certainly there are some similarities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence

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[Psychotria]

And, it possibly may be worse... "carbon-offset" programmes are usually really "Greenhouse-Gas programmes"--i.e. they are meant to offset other greenhouse gases as well. This is usually converted (by some factor) into "equivalent carbon" which can be offset by tree-planting etc. The problem, as I understand it, is that there aren't any long-term studies (correct me if I am wrong) to determine how much carbon tree species "A" can sequest over a given period of time. Without this baseline data, surely the models based on how much carbon a tree can offset are nothing more than a stab in the dark(?) Therefore, how can one determine that planting X tree will offset X tonnes of carbon?

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[ceejayoz]

Carbon offsets, unlike indulgences, have at least the potential to not be a scam.

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[timeOday]

I like tree planting, wind farms, and solar plants - and therefore carbon offsets. I don't see the sin in emitting carbon if you are sequestering just as much somewhere else. HOWEVER, we definitely need legal definitions, standards, and truth-in-advertising enforcement for this type of thing. Companies are sure to go for the cheapest available carbon offsets, so government needs to ensure that they're legit.

Re:disgusting

[Doppler00]

Easy. After 20 years, cut the tree down, burn it, and measure the CO2 emissions it produces.

Seriously though, what's the point of planting a tree? Are we saying that somehow by putting a tree sapling in the ground is going to be somehow more efficient than the native plants that would grow on that some spot of land and consume the same water etc...

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[FooAtWFU]

What's truly interesting is the parallel you've just drawn between Religion and the environmentalist movement. I recall reading a short Michael Crichton speech on how the environmental movement is religious in nature (some Slashdotters will no doubt be familiar with this one) and while I didn't think he was entirely on the mark, there were some interesting points - in particular, how Environmentalism is often a moral imperative than a practical one. To demonstrate this, propose to your favorite strong environmentalist that a perfectly clean source of infinite energy was readily, cheaply available - would this be a good thing for the world, or a bad one? Some contend that this is the worst thing that could ever possibly happen (or otherwise Not Good). This is the religious/moral imperative angle.

I appreciate, to a certain extent, some of those best parts of the personal-level environmental-religious aesthetic - some sort of humility / thrift / not-wastefulness / self-denial of any individual's actions, but I do not approach them from the same environmental angle, make the same assumptions about the state of said environment, or attempt to push this agenda with it. And if these values are really important, people ought not tie them to a crisis (imagined or real) in the state of the environment, which I believe will some day (though not in any of our lifetimes) will be made utterly insignificant by technology.

And, for a less topical aside, as for your reference to indulgences, it could be said that to give of your money, to give of your labors, is to give of yourself, and while the Catholic church has never generally held that one achieves salvation through one's own actions but rather by the grace of God, giving is nevertheless a good and desirable thing. One can and should condemn the charlatans who preyed on the ignorant in this regard, corruption in their sales from the clergy, wastefulness of funds, and other degenerations of the practice. However, one should be prepared to acknowledge that while the idea that one can obtain some measure of God's grace from giving is certainly not universally accepted or necessarily true, is at least reasonable and plausible. (I leave aside for this post the Protestant-related objections of the authority of the Church to authorize them.) The common knee-jerk reaction that the matter of indulgences is one altogether deplorable, utterly unholy, or otherwise intrinsically wrong is naught but simple narrow-minded religious and ideological intolerance: never a healthy foundation for an agenda or ideological exercise.

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[Psychotria]

I think there is the assumption that the trees will be planted on already cleared or degraded land. In Australia, at least, it is more than an assumption and a requirement.

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[Loopy]

I'd like to see this, too, but you have a better chance of seeing Hillary Clinton swear off dissembling than you do of getting a straight answer anywhere around the global warming debate. Not to mention that even if you did get a fact-filled answer from someone here, it's almost guaranteed to be half the story (with the half not mentioned usually having to do with projected costs to taxpayers and industry).

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[Jah-Wren Ryel]

a perfectly clean source of infinite energy was readily, cheaply available - would this be a good thing for the world, or a bad one? Some contend that this is the worst thing that could ever possibly happen Just who contends that? Seriously.
Sounds like a strawman argument to me.

Re:disgusting

[rush22]

Say what you mean. Say "global warming is a hoax. global warming is a religion. I do not care about my effect on the Earth. I do not care about pollution."

Say it, science-lover. Say it, technology-lover. Say it, nerd. This is news for nerds isn't it? My, my I was thinking it was "news for idiot c-student video gamer pretards who have no clue when it comes to actual science, ignorant moron gadget dorks rooting for the 'winning team of science' because it makes them feel smart while having absolutely no idea how to play the game" for a second there.

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[zippthorne]

I'm no environmentalist, but even I would be opposed to a cheap, perfectly clean source of infinite energy. Unless it came with a cheap, perfectly clean, readily available infinite heat-sink.

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[OakLEE]

I believe what the grandparent is referring to is known as the Dark Green sect of the environmental movement. These people tend to believe that it is not pollution that is the problem, but rather the current form of human civilization itself. Some of them see the continued growth and expansion of human civilization as the worst case scenario. Thus to these groups an unlimited, pollution-free source of power, which would enable unlimited growth and expansion of human civilization, would be a worst case scenario since it would allow for unbridled expansion.

In my opinion these fringes of the environmental movement are merely using the whole "save mother Earth" as a front to push their true agenda, which is the desire to see civilization regress to an agrarian, survivalist, (maybe even subsistence,) state of existence.

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[Cassius Corodes]

Continuing the religion analogy that would be like saying that the worst case scenario for religious folks is to meet god.

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[Dachannien]

You only need the infinite heat sink if you need to dissipate infinite power. So, it's okay to have a source of infinite energy, as long as you don't try to use it all at once.

Re:disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously though, what's the point of planting a tree? Are we saying that somehow by putting a tree sapling in the ground is going to be somehow more efficient than the native plants that would grow on that some spot of land and consume the same water etc...

Well in a lot of cases I'd have to say, yes, the tree will be more efficient at tying up carbon over its lifetime and afterwards as opposed to grasses.

The tree will grow vertically and spread out horizontally which vastly increases the surface area of its foliage for absorbing CO2 and the trunk, branches and twigs required to support the foliage will tie up quite a bit of carbon for many years. Unless its foliage is extremely thick or the tree exudes chemicals that prevent the growth of other plants then it does not preclude the growth of ground cover or scrub beneath it. Even after the death of the tree the carbon in the branches and trunk will be tied up for some time as the decay process proceeds. In some areas decay could be extremely rapid while in other areas decay could take years or decades to fully release the contained carbon.

Grasses covering the same area on the ground as the foliage of a tree don't come close to using the same amount of carbon as does the tree and the carbon locked up in the grass will cycle back into the environment much more rapidly when the grass dies in the fall or winter.

Brush / shrubbery / scrub undergrowth is somewhere between grasses and tree on amount of carbon locked up and longevity.

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[runningman24]

I believe the speech you are referring to is http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html

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[onemorechip]

the surface area of its foliage for absorbing CO2

Your conclusions are correct, but I don't know why you'd need to consider surface area at all. Ultimately, isn't it the amount of carbon sequestered directly proportional to the mass of the grown plant? I don't know what percentage of a tree is carbon, but if the tree weighs a ton you multiply that percentage by one ton, and you have the answer. Ignoring what are probably small differences in carbon percentage, I'd think a one-ton pine tree would sequester as much carbon as a one-ton oak tree, even with different foliage surface areas.

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[onemorechip]

Then the energy stored inside the thing would have infinite mass, so we'd all be dead anyway.

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[UbuntuDupe]

What would be the point?

Let's say we can get carbon sequestration cheap enough that the typical person's (in a developed economy) entire carbon contribution can be sunk for ~$200/year.

Then, say, the government ensure everyone sinks their contribution, so it's, in effect, scattered throughout the year via taxes on carbon.

And let's further say that money is applied to removing the carbon from the atmosphere.

Hell, let's sweeten the pot: all countries do same.

Problem solved, right? No more net emissions. No more global warming. Full environmental cost of carbon is contained.

Raise your hand if you think the cries for reducing fossil fuel consumption would end. Okay? You there, with your hand up: I want what you're smoking.

"Fossil fuels cause global warming" may be true. It's definitely *also* a rationalization for a separate, independent goal.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Companies are sure to go for the cheapest available carbon offsets...

The cheapest carbon offset offers seem to come from Nigeria. You just e-mail your credit card information...

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[clsours]

Perhaps grandparent meant eternal energy instead of infinite.

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[Paradoks]

Thanks for being an excellent example for your cause, whatever it is.

By the way, I love the assault on reason by Al Gore.

It's an excellent idea for a book.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I am liking grammatically correctful sentences, but I'm not too worrified by uncorrect spellings and odd expressifications.

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[radimvice]

And if these values are really important, people ought not tie them to a crisis (imagined or real) in the state of the environment, which I believe will some day (though not in any of our lifetimes) will be made utterly insignificant by technology.

You're right, the environmentalists' unquestioning belief in the future crisis of humanity is indeed very much like the religious movement. I'm glad the futurists can set us straight on the logical path, toward our inevitable technological salvation.

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[Repossessed]

They aren't legit.

Most of these offers are 2-6 dollars extra. But think about it. For a device that's usually on, you need to plany about one tree per watt, or generate a watt via solar/wind/tidal.

That means that $2 tree planting you got offered with your last system is supposed to plant 150 (or more) trees.

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[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The description at wikipedia suggests otherwise. To my eye it says that Dark Greens are opposed to the continued growth of the human civilization not because growth is inherently evil but because growth has an impact on the environment. IMO, a truly unlimited and pollution-free source of power would enable zero-impact expansion of civilization which ought to pass muster with the Dark Greens too.

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[Strange Ranger]

> a perfectly clean source of infinite energy was readily, cheaply available

The problem is what comes with the limitless growth and consumption that "free energy for all" would produce.
I don't know where I stand or what shade of green I am, but there has to be a middle ground between turning the earth into a giant Borg sphere and regressing to Survivalism.

It also doesn't take religious moral zealotry or a chicken-little mindset to think that the World Population Curve is something to at least think seriously about.

The problem is simply this: There is only one planet available to us. Everyone is trying to make sure we don't fsck it up. We don't get a do-over.
With respect to that, even the Deep Greens have their place. It's the kind of issue that rightly generates a lot of passion.
What we really need is far more dispassionate inquiry and concern. We can't afford to be dismissive of that curve.

Re:disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Your conclusions are correct, but I don't know why you'd need to consider surface area at all. Ultimately, isn't it the amount of carbon sequestered directly proportional to the mass of the grown plant? I don't know what percentage of a tree is carbon, but if the tree weighs a ton you multiply that percentage by one ton, and you have the answer. Ignoring what are probably small differences in carbon percentage, I'd think a one-ton pine tree would sequester as much carbon as a one-ton oak tree, even with different foliage surface areas.

With regards to surface area I was thinking of the surface area of the foliage on the tree being larger than the surface area of the grasses that would grow in the ground area covered by the tree (foliage included) which would allow the tree to absorb more CO2 than the grasses. Sorry if I wasn't clear about that.

I do agree with you that two one-ton trees of different species would each seem to sequester just about as much carbon even with differing foliage surface areas.

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[catprog]

"Fossil fuels cause global warming" may be true. It's definitely *also* a rationalization for a separate, independent goal. reduction of consumption of a limited resource?

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[Anonymous Coward]

IMO, a truly unlimited and pollution-free source of power would enable zero-impact expansion of civilization which ought to pass muster with the Dark Greens too. Your opinion sounds wildly implausible. Extra people have to live somewhere that would otherwise have supported other plants and animals. They will inevitably want to use their unlimited energy source to build extra airports (that have to be somewhere etc.) to fly them around the world to various resorts (that have to be somewhere etc.) etc. Cheap energy will mean cheaper and thus more construction of all kinds.

In theory you might be able to leverage all that energy to solve all these problems but not without making a massive amount of mistakes and miscalculations along the way. There is no chance at all in reality of civilization growth being zero impact, regardless of available energy sources.

Re:disgusting

[edunbar93]

Not just the cheapest possible carbon offsets, but very likely the least likely to actually *do* anything. There's a difference between Ford commissioning El Verde Grande LLC to plant trees in the Nevada desert (questions like "Are the trees even being planted" and "did the seedlings survive long enough to offset any carbon" come to *my* mind immediately) and Wayerhauser actually hiring actual workers to actually plant trees that they actually expect to actually grow to maturity.

While I know that some companies out there (say, Xcel Energy are indeed willing to offset their own emissions by replacing them with green technology (so long as the public is willing), the benefits of say Pearl Jam's CD production offsets, are a wee bit more vague.

Personally, I would prefer to *invest* money (with the expectation of profits and return on investment and all that corporate greed stuff) in a company that directly helps the environment than to "buy carbon offsets". At the very least, I get a nice profit-and-loss sheet and a decent understanding of what they did with my money (even at the risk of, well, you know).

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[Blackhalo]

Spot on. It is not the tree that should count for and offset but the LAND for trees to grow on. "Plant a tree" programs are the biggest fucking joke. Reserving undeveloped land from any other propose would be of value. Converting farms/ranches to National park would be far more productive in achieving some kind of "Green" benefit.

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[OakLEE]

Even with unlimited, clean energy, growth still leaves an environmental footprint. Increases in population demand more food, and more living space, both of which would involve expansion into unsettled habitats (e.g., cutting down the rain forests, developing grasslands).

The Dark Greens, who would prefer to not see any this destruction of habitat occur. Unlimited energy however would make expansion into undeveloped habitats cheap, and therefore easier and more likely. Thus, as a sect of the environmental movement that primarily favors preserving undeveloped territory (over reducing pollution), Dark Greens by necessity would have to be opposed to finding cheap, clean, unlimited energy.

I surmise that they would much rather see energy prices skyrocket, and no new sources be developed. This would necessitate a worldwide Powerdown scenario, which would effectively halt, if not at least dramatically slow, worldwide growth. Only after this state, would their vision of society be palpable to the masses. In a nutshell, they are eco-Marxists.

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[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Of course the difference between environmental movement and religion is that there is a lot of science to back the former up, so there is often a large grain to truth to what they are preaching. The problem is more the way they go about it. I don't like the way Greenpeace works, but I do like what they stand for, and I think a lot of people feel that way, compared to say, the perception of religion these days.

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[chrb]

Some contend that this is the worst thing that could ever possibly happen

Looks like you've fallen for yet another untrue smear propagated by the right-wing.

This is the religious/moral imperative

This argument reminds me of one I had a long time ago. One of my friends claimed that science was a dubious religion, and you had to believe in it. I said no, science is a methodology, not a theology; you don't have to believe in it any more than you must believe in bricks and cement in order to build houses.

I believe will some day (though not in any of our lifetimes) will be made utterly insignificant by technology.

That's nice. Is there any reason we should hold your opinion above those of the many climatologists out there? Or the CIA, who say that water is shaping up to be the planet's number one most contested resource, and a driver of wars and instability?

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[BeanThere]

Well, there is an important difference, in that here the extra money paid (the 'premium') *is* actually supposed to go towards making the products carbon-neutral, even if in indirect ways, you're still buying something very specific and not made-up (*except* those few cases when you're being scammed, which is what the article is about --- i.e. they're not saying offset programs mean nothing, just that people are abusing it fraudulent to sell non-offsets as if they were offsets). W.r.t. indulgence, well, I don't see that ... the closest one can get is if the church ended up using some of that money to help the community, although that wasn't necessarily specifically the purpose overtly. (Actually there is at least some logic to it then, if you view it that way: Sinning may 'harm' the community, so giving money to an organisation that helps the community offsets that harm.)

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[TapeCutter]

"you have a better chance of seeing Hillary Clinton swear off dissembling than you do of getting a straight answer anywhere around the global warming debate"

IANAClimatoligist, but ummm....what was the question again?

Re:disgusting

[El Yanqui]

Not just the cheapest possible carbon offsets, but very likely the least likely to actually *do* anything.

I've decided to offset all of my carbon by hanging little evergreen air fresheners in people's cars.
As has been mentioned before, it's far too close to indulgences for my liking. How about doing more to reduce and stop your pollution rather than this red herring. The idea of being carbon-neutral might be good in that it encourages people to do plant trees etc., but it seems many are viewing it as the end step.

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[Oersoep]

Biomass.

The tree consists of carbon for a large part. That's carbon that the tree absorbed out of the atmosphere.

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[BinBoy]

And... carbon released from oil is carbon that otherwise would have been stored indefinitely. The tree will store the carbon only during its lifetime and then will release it into the atmosphere. It's a scam.

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[houghi]

emitting carbon if you are sequestering just as much somewhere else.

Why somewhere else? Why not yjere where it happens as much as possible. The extra advatage is that many people will suddenly see what is going on. Another side effect is that cities will become much greener and cooler in the summer. That will lower the need of airco's and will thus need less energy.

Obviously you can do both.

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[StringBlade]

It's unclear to me from your post if you're saying that the environmentalist claims of catastrophe are as unfounded and unprovable as religious claims of God and heaven or if you're just saying that carbon credits are as feel-good as indulgence was.

Either way the situation is one in which the environmentalists cannot win. If they are right and nothing is done, it's the end of the world as we know it (that's bad). If they are wrong and nothing is done, it's life as usual (that's good). If they are right or wrong and things are done to prevent catastrophe, we'll never know if it worked because there will be no catastrophe and people will claim that they were wrong and we simply wasted a lot of time and effort for something futile.

This is much like the Y2K bug "problem" -- was it real or imagined? Hard to tell, but so much went in to preventing it that all (or most) critical systems that could have failed and lead to catastrophe were patched before the zero hour and thus we'll never know if that work hadn't been done, would we have actually had the problems predicted?

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[mike2R]

I dunno. I'm a convinced atheist and I'd put the scam potential at about the same...

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[Anonymous Coward]

How about they cut the spam and phone slamming fraud and get the fuck out of environmental progress where they have no fucking business.

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[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Even with unlimited, clean energy, growth still leaves an environmental footprint. Increases in population demand more food, and more living space, both of which would involve expansion into unsettled habitats (e.g., cutting down the rain forests, developing grasslands). I don't think you quite grasp the full implications of the unlimited in "unlimited, clean energy." With unlimited energy it would be possible to move the vast majority of food production and the vast majority of housing into places where there is no environment to speak of - e.g. space. In fact, such a development would mean the reduction of human civilization's footprint on Earth which is exactly in line with the goals of the Dark Greens as expressed on wikipedia.

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[Stervyatnik]

Yep. I blogged about this here. You may get a laugh out of it!

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[mccabem]

In large measure, this is also what drove enrollment in many if not all of the crusades. The church offered that if you go and kill muslims in the holy land that you would still get into heaven even if you'd been a sinner at home.

Church is awesome.

-Matt

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[mwlewis]

But that's a problem that takes care of itself--especially in absence of government interference/regulation in markets. Do you really think that's why certain groups advocate getting away from fossil fuels?

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[Stiletto]

With the technology edge that we have in the USA, and the capacity to actually reduce our CO2 footprint, we should be SELLING credits, not buying them.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that, morally, a right action does not eliminate a wrong action (sin). The sin doesn't go away. But environmentally, sequestering one ton of CO2 does completely make up for emitting one ton of CO2. The CO2 is gone. So it's a superficial comparison at best.

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[Phanatic1a]

I don't see the sin in emitting carbon if you are sequestering just as much somewhere else.

Because you're making the problem worse, not better.

Consider what happens. You consume power in your home market, and pay for 'carbon offsets' to encourage the construction of a windfarm or solar plant in some other market.

What price signal is your consumption sending in your home market? You're consuming more power, and you're sending the message "Demand is increasing! Build more dirty power plants!" Meanwhile, in the foreign market, the construction of a wind or solar plant is sending another message: "Supply is abundant! Consume more power!"

If you want to pollute less, pollute less. Don't pollute more and then pretend buying offsets actually mean you're polluting less.

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[Anonymous Coward]

did the seedlings survive long enough to offset any carbon

It's worse than that. If the tree ever dies and rots (or is cut and used) then the offset is zero. There are few places where trees store carbon for the long term. The best place is marshes, of which there are few left and very hard to create.

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[Anonymous Coward]

and Wayerhauser [wikipedia.org] actually hiring actual workers to actually plant trees that they actually expect to actually grow to maturity. Thank you! Sometimes people play make believe and use their imagination to make up stories about real people and places. The overwhelming assurance that your story is fact is welcomed and not in the least bit redundant or galling.

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[AndersOSU]

That puts you into a dangerous game where you're selling credits for reducing carbon emissions, not decreasing total carbon emissions.

See I can build a coal plant with no emission controls and get credit for reducing carbon emissions by putting even the most primitive scrubber on line (this is what China is doing). This might make more financial sense than just building a cleaner powerplant upfront. In order for any carbon-tax or cap-and-trade system to work, it has to account for every kilo of carbon, not start at some arbitrary limit and reward people for decreasing. If you actually reduce you pay less, and you can't play games by getting credit using less energy by making fewer widgets, because your business is drying up.

Since the US is the major greenhouse gas emitter we should be paying everyone else until China or India surpass us, either because of our reduction, or because of their increases.

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[Bent Mind]

I surmise that they would much rather see energy prices skyrocket, and no new sources be developed. This would necessitate a worldwide Powerdown scenario, which would effectively halt, if not at least dramatically slow, worldwide growth. Only after this state, would their vision of society be palpable to the masses. I live in a cold climate. The first thing I'd do, should a worldwide powerdown occur, is grab an axe. I'd then head to the nearest unsettled habitat. I wonder if any of the other 2-million people who live near me would have the same idea.

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[CrazedWalrus]

Unfortunately, wherever money and power are present, exploitation, scams, and corruption follow. If this isn't closely watched, it'll just be one more way that the governments of the world rip off the people without providing any real benefit.

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[onemorechip]

No, I understood that point entirely. I'm just saying you don't need to consider surface area at all. It might not even be helpful to do so, because it isn't merely the rate of photosynthesis that matters. In addition to photosynthesis, plants also consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide in order to produce energy (for cell reproduction and whatever else plants do). Unless you know how much of the photosynthesis is offset by respiration, you can't conclude that greater surface area means more carbon will be sequestered. The end result, though, can be seen in the mass of the plants. So trees sequester more carbon than grasses because they are more massive, not because of surface area.

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[FredFredrickson]

Think of it more as burning fat.

You could have some fat freakin legs, and a really fat ass, but you can do ANY cardio excersize to burn it off- thanks to the fact that fat burns evenly throughout your body. An ass excersize will tone your ass better, but that fat will leave your ass at the same rate with or without ass excersize.

Now replace ass with earth, and fat with carbon.

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[TheRaven64]

In 3001, Arthur C. Clarke described the 'age of infinite energy' as happening in the 21st century. This was depicted as a huge environmental disaster. After the development of some cheap abundant energy source (I can't remember if it was some kind of quantum vacuum generator or muon-catalysed fusion in the book) everyone started using as much energy as they wanted and dramatically increased the temperature of the planet.

All of the energy you use eventually turns into heat. In his Ringworld series, Larry Niven postulated a solution to this where a planet would have long fibres extending into space which would radiate waste heat. In Prelude to Foundation, one of the most powerful sectors on Trantor was in its position because it was situated at the pole and was in the best position for radiating waste heat away from the planet.

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[zippthorne]

If you have access to unlimited energy, it's going to get used. The problem is that although your "infinite energy source" may itself be thermally stable, the things you do with it are not. Everything you do, even useful work, adds heat to the environment. If there is no limit to your activity, it's going to get pretty warm.

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[Kadin2048]

Do you really think that's why certain groups advocate getting away from fossil fuels? Well, that and global warming seem to be the obvious reasons. But you seem to think there's another motive -- what is it?

The only thing that comes to mind as being particularly valid concerns are the geopolitical ones; it would seem like a pretty good thing if we stopped letting the Saudis put us over a barrel. (And in Europe, the Russians with the natural gas supplies.)

There may be a core of radical environmentalists somewhere who hate civilization because, well, just because, but I've never met more than a handful and I don't think anyone takes them seriously.

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[mwlewis]

My point was that they're not concerned about oil running out. In fact, they'd probably be happy if it did. Many people are definitely concerned about global warming, or other geopolitical issues, and there are some who definitely want to change the nature of western economies and governments. And that's not to say which issues are more important to individuals.

No one cares about having enough oil except as it's useful for making things or for energy. If the GGP had mentioned some rare type of flower, or a bird or something, then I'd believe him.

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[Maint_Pgmr_3]

And if it wasn't for Indulgences, we wouldn't have the movable type printing press.

And how can you NOT scam carbon offsets??

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[Quiet_Desperation]

Yeah, but we already rope off areas as national parks and protected areas. Unlimited clean energy (UCE) would not necessarily prevent that, and it would provide the energy to go and fix areas we've already broken (strip mines and toxic sites and such things).

UCE also allows you to build bigger and more densely: think SimCity arcologies. You could utilize existing space more efficiently. Even make "icebergs" out of your cities from the standpoint that 80% of them could be underground. Earthquake prone areas excepted, of course. ;-)

But these are political problem, not scientific.

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[ceejayoz]

And how can you NOT scam carbon offsets?? If I pay $10 to have some trees planted, it's not a scam if they plant $10 worth of trees minus a reasonable (yes, that's vague, I know) sum for implementation.

If they pocket the $10, it's a scam. That's what the Church was doing.

Re:disgusting

[sweetooth]

The difference is almost entirely semantic. The people that purchased indulgences surely thought that the money they were paying was going to remove their sins just as the people paying the money for carbon offsets believe that their money actually is going to offset programs and used legitimately. There was fraud perpetrated in the indulgence system and there's fraud in the carbon offset system. That's not to say that neither system has/had merits. It's certainly possible some churches used the money to help the community just as some carbon offset programs are 100% legitimate.

Re:disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

Redundant, yes, but maybe it was to make a point... vs. the relative chicanery described TFA.

Re:disgusting

[Maint_Pgmr_3]

Well, $10US will get you anywhere from 8 to 20 trees, depending on the type of tree (if you buy wholesale, plugs or liners).

How long before those trees, lets say 50% survival rate, how long before those 4 trees really start to offset your carbon production? A mature tree is said to product enough O2 to offset a family of four for a year. (Hearsay, don't know the type of tree and how long it takes to mature) But in the mean time, you are still producing carbon at the same level, or perhaps higher and the trees aren't giving any pay back.

Sounds like you bought $10 worth of Hope in the future, which is what the Church was selling, Hope in the future, the afterlife actually.

the pundits say we have less then 10 years till total destruction, well, that talk has been around since 1998 (so we should all be dead already), so we buy indulgences for our future.

Now, if you told me that you have gotten rid of all your remote controls in your house, that you no longer buy alcohol (fermentation produces CO2 at twice the rate of Alcohol) and you bought $10 worth of trees, then you have changed your life style, you may be heading towards salvation. Else I still consider what you are doing is buying indulgences, you are getting scammed. Or fooling yourself.

Re:disgusting

[Descalzo]

For some religious people, meeting God IS the worst-case scenario.

Slow moving government...

[palegray.net]

From the article:

The FTC has not updated its environmental advertising guidelines, known as the Green Guides, since 1998. Back then, the agency did not create definitions for phrases that are common now--like renewable energy, carbon offsets and sustainability. This is a good example of the sluggish response of big government. Perhaps a bit of that carbon offset money should be spent on updating some federal publications and collecting feedback from citizens.

Re:Slow moving government...

[palegray.net]

Dude, as a Libertarian I'm always disappointed in our government. The Republican party had a chance to make serious fiscal reform 10 years ago, and ruined it by jumping into bed with the Christian Coalition over some supposed "moray majority" bullshit. The Democratic party pisses me off in many, many ways as well. Neither major party is really worth a damn, and as a result I'm never happy.

Re:Slow moving government...

[Khaed]

Sorry, I'll never trust or be satisfied with any government in any shape or form. Not that I'm saying we should do without government (I'm not an anarchist) but the people with the power are to be questioned and challenged to do better, since they're doing it with our money.

Republican or Democrat, they're all politicians, and politicians are dangerous when trusted.

Re:Slow moving government...

[duck0]

Yes indeed, binding the carbon into red tape is a way of removing it from the environment (for a while).

Re:Slow moving government...

[aproposofwhat]

Moray majority?

You mean those nice Christian Coalition folks are eels?

Always thought they were slippery fuckers...

"Green-sounding offers"

[Thornae]

I find it highly ironic that the ad I got with this story was for "Rackspace Green Server Configurations".

Re:"Green-sounding offers"

[BillX]

I tried to go green with my server rack one time, but ran out of spraypaint.

Re:Stop, collaborate and listen!

[palegray.net]

I figured the link in the parent post was a troll, but clicked it anyways... stupid me. That is genuinely disturbing, and I mean that in a psychologically painful sort of way. Wow.

Re:FTC

[palegray.net]

I'm going to burn some karma here while replying to a troll. So sue me. I direct the following at the parent poster:

Fuck you and the cunt of a mother you were expelled from, you stinking little fucktard racist prick.

Thank you, I feel much better now.

Slick Politics

[egrass]

Gee, what a shock. The FTC could go after any one of the millions of herbal remedy supplements and late night fat reducer pill infomercials and they choose to go after --- carbon offset providers. Think there is any political calculation going on to try to discredit the environmental movement and anti-global warming science directly or by association?

That's accountable though!

[StefanJ]

You could have a whole industry of finger-pointers and fact checkers looking into the effectiveness of offset claims.

The example of green server farms doesn't strike me as ludicrous or faddish. It's really easy to measure things like power consumption.

Siting would in part determine where the power is coming from. You could also do cool things like setting up in a northern state that gets lots of snow, and use ice ponds to assist the air conditioning.

It's conceivable that big farms could invest in local alternative energy plants as a way of stabilizing long-term costs and priority during shortages.

You could back up wind power with an investment in "methane farming" at a local landfill. Methane could be stored and "burned" in a fuel cell stack when the grid or wind farm can't supply cheap and/or "green" juice.

Re:Stop, collaborate and listen!

[Anonymous Coward]

what has been seen... can not be unseen

Re:FTC

[Anonymous Coward]

I see we found us a Democrat!

Your Government At Work

[hyades1]

So these wankers at the FTC have been sitting around with their thumbs up their butts for 10 years instead of offering some legally-defensible "green" definitions that could have been whipped off in a few days. Now they're concerned that companies are seeking to take advantage of peoples' concern for the environment because they've been throwing money toward wind and solar energy, and the like.

Go back to sleep, you useless pack of oxygen wasters. We'll work it out for ourselves. I guess they're really concerned that a penny spent on enviro-fraud is a penny not spent on fossil-fraud.

Re:Your Government At Work

[bperkins]

I don't think that's particularly fair. The FTC doesn't have the time of the resources to chase every marketing term out there, and these definitions are horribly muddy. For example, it took many years before the government (the FDA if memory serves) could agree on a definition of organic. This wasn't due to lack of need or desire or even trying, it was because the industry just couldn't agree on it.

"Green" marketing terms are even worse. Some would claim that nuclear power is green, while others would not. Some think paper bags are green, while others think plastic is green. Is corn-based ethanol green if the fertilizer used to grow it ends up killing off most of the Gulf of Mexico? I doubt you could nail down any of these definitions in a few months, let alone a few days.

Finally, carbon offsets are relatively new, and problematic from a consumer perspective. It's difficult to verify that way you're paying for is being done, and almost entirely impossible to verify that someone isn't selling offset multiple times. Even if you could, you can never be quite sure that someone isn't selling you a false offset. This industry is totally ripe for fraud, and it seems reasonable for the FTC to look into it.

Re:Your Government At Work

[jelizondo]

Hey Man! Don't rush to conclusions!

with their thumbs up their butts

They were accumulating methane to burn when their wind (hot gas) turbines weren't capable of supplying enough juice...

Re:Your Government At Work

[Anonymous Coward]

USDA certifies something as organic. Their name is right on the pretty green label.

Re:Your Government At Work

[pjp6259]

There is some regulation to carbon credits. The CDM Executive Board awards a 'Gold Standard' to carbon offset programs that meet their stringent criterion. Details

Re:FTC

[Handover Phist]

Too bad there isn't a 'Justified' mod option.

Indulgences

[Loki P]

Tree planting is especially unlikely to work. There just isn't enough land to plant enough trees to soak up all our emissions. Do the calculations, or see http://www.ptua.org.au/myths/trees.shtml

Re:Indulgences

[Psychotria]

I think this is basically a summary of my previous comment. However, I am still divided on the merit of tree-planting projects. I don't know if they could work or not because I can't find any solid research. As your link also points out, there is the problem of "leakage". For example, carbon is stored in leaves, which fall to the ground, which eventually release the carbon back into the atmosphere. I've not seen any coherent studies that take this into account in a realistic way. Leaves dropping may seem trivial, but given that most trees planted for carbon-uptake purposes have an "expected" life of 76-100 years, this would add up (not to mention all the other ways leakage could occur). Thank-you for the link.

Re:Indulgences

[WalksOnDirt]

I don't see how planting trees helps in the long run, either. What would help is harvesting trees, then storing the wood (carbon) somewhere where it won't decompose or burn for at least thousands of years. In essence, turn the trees into coal. Then the land will be available to grow more trees, continuing the process. You would need to fertilize the forests to replace the minerals taken out with the wood, of course.

It would probably be cheaper and less damaging to the environment to just stop mining coal in the first place.

Re:Indulgences

[joshv]

Turn it into paper, use it for awhile, then bury it in a landfill.

Re:Indulgences

[Dan Ost]

And then incinerate it for electricity.

Re:FTC

[palegray.net]

Actually, I'm a conservative libertarian (who also happens to be caucasian, if you were wondering). That post just happened to push my "holy freaking crap what a fucktard" button. I hate stupidity in any form, with many of the worst examples being the perpetuation of pointless and unjustified abuse of any demographic. As far as politics go, in the upcoming election, I'm telling everyone I know the same thing: we can argue all day long about who you're voting for, but for God's sake, vote!

All Hogwash!

[no-body]

In Germany, the power companies are selling electricity generated by coal and atomic power stations as "green" electricity i. e. people signing up for green (derived from resuable resources - wind, sun, tides) are to be environmentally mindful get just the opposite.

They feel cheated, are mad, protest and sue.

Whole parts of cities all of a sudden are using "green" electricity, which is impossible because the resources are not there.

The power companies can do that because they buy carbon credits (or whatever that excuse to just go on as usual is called).

The corporations buy the polititians (as one can see clearly on the money spent currently greasing the US 2008 elections) and then weak laws with loopholes and missleading names (1984-style) are made.

Re:All Hogwash!

[CajunArson]

Considering the carbon emissions of atomic power are 0 that's a pretty good "offset", although I think the entire thing is a scam to separate over-indulged yuppies with guilty consciences from their money.

Re:All Hogwash!

[Mesa MIke]

Yup.

Corporations don't really care whether the carbon offsets they buy actually do offset their emissions. They only care that they get to claim to be "green."

"Green" is just marketing hype to draw in the narcissistic types who want to feel good about themselves for "doing something," without actually having to do anything other than looking for the buzzword.

Re:All Hogwash!

[no-body]

Atomic power is not considered as "green" and people promoting the environment mostly oppose it and for good reasons. On this topic, btw.:

A recent study over there (GE) - done by respectable research bodies and ordered either by the government or the entity overseeing the atomic energy industry - has found an increase of children leukemia out of the average the closer the kids are living to an atomic power station.

The puzzling fact is that this cannot be explained by radiation levels since those are way below any limits. That was fairly recent - 1-2 months ago and they are still chewing on that.

as for your: ... is a scam to separate over-indulged yuppies

I could not disagree more - the scam is to allow big polluters a back door by buying credits and not having to clean up the mess they are putting into the athmosphere.

Re:All Hogwash!

[smaddox]

Link?

Re:All Hogwash!

[Anonymous Coward]

How you could possibly modded "interesting" is beyond me.
Perhaps the guy was as misinformed as you are.

Power companies don't sell " electricity generated by coal and atomic power stations as "green" " as you put it.
Yes, there was e.on and its "mix it"-ad with the governator Schwarzenegger in 2001 or 2002 if I remember correctly, where one could "mix the sources", however this was forbidden shortly after, since they can't guarantee nor prove that the energy your house gets is the one you paid for, meaning, they can't prove that you're getting wind energy or solar energy or atomic energy, since there is only "one" power supply line system and all energy sources feed into this system.

Also, the resources are there, but due to fluctuations in power consumption they don't produce enough,
since you can't store electricity, thus energy sources from, say, France for example, feed into this system as well.
Therefore you have another reason why you don't know where the energy is coming from.
There is a whole energy market. Every country and every power company buys and sells energy from and to each other.
These are the reasons why the "mix-it"-campaign was ruled illegal.

This doesn't mean you can't buy renewable or "green" energy and consequently support the movement for a better environment, but you just can't be guaranteed that you get green energy.

Your inane conspiracy theory and 1984 paranoia is pathetic.

Re:All Hogwash!

[inflamed]

How about this for a rationalization?

  Poorer people get leukemia more often due to unhealthier lifestyles. Poorer people are more likely to live near a nuclear power plant because richer people are less likely to live near one. The hatred of nuclear power is almost a universal characteristic these days.

That said, I wouldn't mind having a home near a nuclear plant where the property values (and taxes) are low. If there is going to be an "incident," I really don't think a difference of a few dozen kilometers will really make a huge difference in my likelihood of surviving unharmed.

Re:All Hogwash!

[Cadallin]

Ding Ding Ding! This is exactly what pisses me off when "environmentalists" trash nuclear power. They act like the alternative is everybody using Windmills and solar panels. What is actually going to happen is this: Alaska will ransacked, stripped of oil and forests, and the entire Appalachian Mountain Range will be strip mined for coal. That is the real alternative to nuclear power in the USA.

The Environmentalist-flag waving NIMBY crowd have doomed us to an ecological catastrophe far greater than any Nuclear Disaster in history.

Re:All Hogwash!

[whoever57]

Considering the carbon emissions of atomic power are 0

Actually, there are people seriously arguing that atomic power stations produce more carbon than they save. The problem is that building and fueling an atomic power station takes a considerable amount of energy. The argument seems to hinge on how much fuel can be created by breeder reactors and how much must be mined and refined.

Re:All Hogwash!

[CajunArson]

Please present some actual evidence for everything you just said, and some conspiracy-nut eco-lobbying website does not count. I grew up in Pennsylvania, home of Three Mile Island. If you had been standing at the exhaust vent where the (minute) amount of radiation was released and had been intentionally trying to suck down everything from the accident, you would have received LESS radiation than if you had hidden out in your basement in Harrisburg for 3 months following the accident... you know why? Radon! There has never been anything even approaching evidence that this "accident" ever injured anyone, and that is the worst-case scenario of anything that GE has ever been involved int.

      If anything I'd say you are in on the scam and are trying to scare people into "saving the earth" by lining your own pocketbook while the US destroys its economy and China pollutes all it wants since somehow dirty coal burned in China is "green" but clean nuclear power in the US is terrible.

Re:All Hogwash!

[jamstar7]

The problem is that building and fueling an atomic power station takes a considerable amount of energy. The argument seems to hinge on how much fuel can be created by breeder reactors and how much must be mined and refined.

Building anything takes power and fuel. The only way to not use up fuel and energy is to sit on a rock someplace until you starve to death.

Re:All Hogwash!

[Anonymous Coward]

Atomic power is not considered as "green" and people promoting the environment mostly oppose it and for good reasons

There is no legitimate reason to oppose nuclear power. If you think you have a "good reason", then it just means you are an idiot.

Re:All Hogwash!

[smilindog2000]

I found a relevant link. I live 17 miles from a power plant I firmly believe was the motivation for "The Simpsons", and I have two small children. At this distance, I suspect air pollution and stupidity at the plant are bigger health risks to my family.

Here in NC, we poison ourselves in many different ways. I have some old gas in my garage because my boat-mechanic told me to just pour it on the ground when I asked where I could find his recycling bucket. That was 100m from a major reservoir. I got our hunting/fishing state guide and read that it's not safe to eat as much fish as I want from most of our rivers. Even though my electrical power nuclear, the air here is nearly toxic from up-wind coal plants. The funny thing is I'm pretty sure most of us are willing to pay to clean up the place, but it's just not anyone's job to do it.

Re:All Hogwash!

[alexhmit01]

I could not disagree more - the scam is to allow big polluters a back door by buying credits and not having to clean up the mess they are putting into the athmosphere.

Do you know what else is a scam? The fact that I can go to work, earn money, then pay the power company to generate my electricity instead of generating it myself. What you're calling a scam is the same use of trade that we use everyone else in the economy, and allows specialization and creation of wealth.

Trade is the basis of a modern economy.

If a coal plant would spend $10M/unit of carbon reduction, and the treatment of landfills costs $100K/unit of carbon reduction, would you really prefer a law that requires coal plants to reduce by one unit (costing $10M), instead of requiring them to offset ten units anywhere, which costs them $1M? The coal plant saves $9M, and the environmental impact is ten times greater.

BTW: this process is how Al Gore was able to build a massive mansion, fly around on a private jet, yet claim a carbon-neutral lifestyle.

The question is, is the goal a massive reduction in carbon emissions, or is the goal a pseudo morality issue of dealing with the "sin" of pollution?

Re:All Hogwash!

[mollymoo]

A recent study over there (GE) - done by respectable research bodies and ordered either by the government or the entity overseeing the atomic energy industry - has found an increase of children leukemia out of the average the closer the kids are living to an atomic power station.

I recall a study here in the UK which found something similar - but interestingly, they found similar clustering at proposed sites of nuclear power plants, not just operating ones, which suggests the geology which is good for building nuclear power plants is the cause, not the plants themselves.

Re:All Hogwash!

[IHC Navistar]

According to Hillary, lobbyists represent the people. Remember that question when someone asked her if she would keep taking money from lobbyists? .....She forgot to say ".....people representing corporations and special interests with lots and lots of money".

Re:All Hogwash!

[no-body]

Link?

(in DE - you may have to run it through a translater)

From:

sueddeutsche.de Debatte um Atomenergie-Gefahren Kranke Kinder und eine alte Streitfrage - Wissen:

Das Risiko nimmt mit der Nähe zu

Die Forscher unter der Leitung der Mainzer Epidemiologin Maria Blettner stellten fest, dass zwischen 1980 und 2003 im Umkreis von fünf Kilometern um die Reaktoren 77 Kinder an Krebs, davon 37 an Leukämie, erkrankt waren. Im statistischen Durchschnitt seien 48 Krebs- beziehungsweise 17 Leukämiefälle zu erwarten gewesen. Etwa 20 Neuerkrankungen seien also allein auf das Wohnen in diesem Umkreis zurückzuführen.

--> in EN ->

Risk increases with proximity

Researchers under direction of epidemiologist Maria Blettner in Mainz, Germany noted that between 1980 and 2003, within a radius of five kilometers around the reactors 77 children with cancer, including 37 from leukaemia, were ill. A statistical average of 48 or 17 cancer-leukaemia cases can be expected. About 20 new cases were solely contributed to living in this vicinity.

Re:All Hogwash!

[NiKem]

There seems to be no english version of the study, but it is on the pages of the "Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz" (something like "Federal Office for nuclear safety"): http://www.bfs.de/en/bfs/druck/Ufoplan/4334_KIKK.html. In a 5 km radius around nuclear power plants there were from 1980 to 2003 37 cases of children with leukemia instead of the expected 17 cases.

Re:All Hogwash!

[Anonymous Coward]

France gets 80% of its power from nukes. A much simpler study would be to compare the incidence of leukaemia in France vs another country like the US which gets very little power from nukes. Quick search yielded not exactly what I was looking for, but it'll work:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/ux252n888q73r61p/

"...living within a 35 km radius of the French nuclear-waste reprocessing plant operating in La Hague, Normandy. During the period 1978-90, a total of 23 cases was diagnosed, giving an incidence rate of 2.99 per 100,000 which is close to the expected rate. In the 'canton' in which the nuclear plant is located, three cases of leukemia were observed compared with 1.2 expected, giving a standardized incidence ratio of 2.5."

Basically near the actual reactor they found 3 cases when they expected to find 1.2. If you know some basic statistics then you know that you generally need more then 3 data points to come to any conclusions (aside from "we need to study this further"). However the 23 number listed above is approximately what I learned in school was the minimum for decent statistics, and it falls in-line with expectations.

Re:All Hogwash!

[toddhisattva]

Atomic power is not considered as "green" and people promoting the environment mostly oppose it and for good reasons. Atomic power is the most green power yet invented and every real environmentalist is in favor of nuclear power.

Know nukes.

Re:All Hogwash!

[Sanat]

I see what you mean. I live in the Appalachian's and can see from my house the trains at a distance loaded with coal moving day and night... everyday. it is a lot of coal... but then there is a lot of coal here in the hills.

Many of my personal friends are each making headway towards getting off of the grid. Just as you said "using Windmills and solar panels". Most live out in the sticks on 20 acres or so size plots totally surrounded by forest, Wildlife galore and many burn wood for heat as it is plentiful and does not require cutting down trees. The land is VERY hilly and so as a tree grows it invariably begins to tilt and falls after 50 years or so. So it is easily available and obtained.

leaving the trees in the forests to decompose gives this area some unique ingredients that makes Golden Seal, Ginseng, and Cohosh to grow as natural herbs.

I have 22 acres of herbs that my partner and I planted.

I feel though that the pendulum is swinging the other way and that nuclear energy will be viewed as ultimately safe... however there may be higher dimensional repercussions of atomic energy that we still do not understand as we do not yet have tools to monitor or measure this energy.

To sum up my ramblings... I do not know if nuclear energy is really safe or not... but I do see the grave devastation that Appalachia is experiencing even now and has for a century just as you have mentioned in your post!

Re:All Hogwash!

[Cervantes]

The problem is that building and fueling an atomic power station takes a considerable amount of energy. The argument seems to hinge on how much fuel can be created by breeder reactors and how much must be mined and refined.

Building anything takes power and fuel. The only way to not use up fuel and energy is to sit on a rock someplace until you starve to death.

Personally, I wish the anti-nuclear activists would take this advice...

Re:All Hogwash!

[Cervantes]

I've yet to understand why people feel cheated by this.

So the corporation is trading credits. So what? That still means that somewhere, someone is doing something green in an amount equal to what you paid for. Whether your green payments go towards buying more hydro power from right next door, or get traded to someone replanting the Amazon, something green is still happening, it's offsetting your carbon emissions,

Yes, it would be ideal if it went to something cleaner in your own country, especially since carbon credits don't address all the other crap we spew into our air. But even putting something good in another country is still better than nothing, by a long shot.

What bugs me is they calculate the carbon credit based on the tree living 100 years. Like that is somehow going to happen. Most of them will be dead long before then, and that's assuming someone doesn't just come harvest them for lumber when they turn 30.

Re:All Hogwash!

[no-body]

Please see previous post which contains links, name of the researcher and some data translated into English.

Re:All Hogwash!

[Cadallin]

I wanted to get back to you. You do understand why it isn't possible for everyone to do what you're doing don't you? How much are yours and your friends project costing to move themselves off grid? Several thousand dollars at least, plus labor is what my research indicates is the minimum for a functional system. It's easier to do when building a new home, as the costs can be absorbed and offset in the larger project, but conversions of existing homes generally run at least $5000-$10,000. For so many people, that's not remotely achievable, and that isn't their fault.

Which isn't to say I that I disagree with people moving off-grid and building green houses, far from it! I applaud and admire your actions, and hope to be able to follow suit one day. What I mean is that it isn't possible for everyone to do that. There isn't enough wilderness for everyone to live out in the country and grow food and herbs. Really I'm making two separate points I need to articulate: One, that human population is so high, distributed, low impact living just isn't physically possible, and Two, that the economics of trying to live green still make it economically impossible for too many people to even try to make a difference. This combination of factors I see as the Rock and Hard Place, respectively, of sustainable human civilization.

Re:All Hogwash!

[no-body]

In case you have not noticed, one aspect here is "fueling" i. e. continuously generating the rods or pellets feeding reactors.

This aspect falls through the crack in your rather blatant statement.

What is the story on Iran of running a couple of thousand gas turbines for a couple of years to generate enough fuel for one reactor - they are not using up any energy?

What is the total expense on creating and maintaining the in- and output of a reactor, who controls this information and would have interest in publicising it if it's "not so great news" for some?

Any good answers there?

Karma-offset programme

[Anonymous Coward]

On a related note, could Slashdot possibly implement a karma-offset programme where we can trade and share karma? This way trolls could easily offset their trollishness by buying karma off the slashdot-karma-trading-system.

Re:Karma-offset programme

[Anonymous Coward]

We've got a guy on our street that sells carbon offsets for Lexus' and other weird stuff. Signs on the cars say "This Hummer Is Green" and the some drivel about a corral reef in Mexico. I had been pretty disgusted with the whole deal, but I'm beggining to
see some potentially creative uses for these set asides. I have another neighbor who slaps his kid around all the time. He's a nice kid and this is a bad thing. My wifes kid is a nasty piece of meat, but I'd never think of hurting him. But wait...maybe I could
work out something with the kids dad .Give him a thousand bucks to not beat his kid for a month, that'd be good for four or five beatings. I know he could use the money. Now I can go home and kick the crap out of my wifes kid a couple of times and feel pretty good about it. I'm happy because overall child beating on my street is down 50% The other guys happy because he's got a grand in beer money, his kid gets a well deserved break. Okay, the wifes kids not to happy, but he had it coming and might do him some good.
Yeah, I think I can work with this

Re:Karma-offset programme

[davidannis]

Good luck! I created an ignorance offset program http://www.ignoranceoffsets.com/ and abstinance offsets http://www.ignoranceoffsets.com/abstainer/

Nobody is amused. I tried to make it auditable, allow the user to retain the tax deduction, and so on. I've bought advertising on bidvertiser. So far, not a single donation. Nothing seems to have the karma of Carbon.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

[Mesa MIke]

Say, YOU don't have to feel guilty about emitting all those nasty green house gases. All you gotta do is cough up the money (to me, of course) to pay for Carbon Indulgences... Oh, and don't ask me whether I can show that what I use the money for actually offsets your sinful carbon dioxide effluence. Just trust me....

Re:A fool and his money are soon parted.

[general_re]

This is why all my offsets are free:

http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com/

All the sin, none of the guilt :)

Marketing expense, and yet...

[WindBourne]

the feds are trying to stop it. I am guessing that they do not like the heightening of global warming info.

Why doesn't the headline say "Carbon Offsets"?

[assassinator42]

I was confused and curious at the thought of the FTC being offput (which Firefox tells me is not a real word, confirmed by Google as this article is the third result) by memory offsets.

Re:Why doesn't the headline say "Carbon Offsets"?

[vux984]

offput (which Firefox tells me is not a real word, confirmed by Google...

Its clearly based on the much more common word "off-putting", which suggests it should be hyphenated as "off-put". But "off-put" doesn't appear in any dictionaries (that I checked) either which I found odd given that off-putting appears in *all* of the ones I checked, and its seems reasonable that by the rules of english suffix use that it would be reasonable to say:

One would be off-put by that which is off-putting.

Then again that's english... where we can "put you on" or "put you off" (deceive you for amusement, or delay meeting with you, respectively). You can't be on-putting, but you can be off-putting. And though if you are annoying we will be annoyed if we find you off-putting we apparently will not be off-put (off-putted? No, the past tense of 'put' is 'put', Had we 'putted' we would have hit a golf ball.)

Really its a wonder we can communicate at all. Do not correct this post for grammar or spelling. It hurts my brain just to write it once... I'm not going to proof it.

Self Off-Setting

[oznog]

While I'm sure there is a place for commercial and not for profit carbon offsetting I've never really understood while individuals, households, businesses etc don't self offset. What I mean is invest better technology. So instead of handing over hard-earned cash so someone can plant trees, why not put the money towards a solar system for your home, a new bike so you can ride to work, or put it aside so you can afford a more energy efficient fridge when the current one needs to be replaced.

Re:FTC

[Anonymous Coward]

It almost looks like GNAA (not to be confused with Greater Nashville Auburn Association) is making a comeback, doesn't it?

I'd like to elaborate on my previous post.

[palegray.net]

Disclaimer: I'm about ass-deep in whiskey right now, and fairly sleep deprived. Mod me as you will.

Here's some "true talk" for anybody considering posting a racist troll, whether it's on Slashdot or any other forum on our glorious World Wide Web. While I, as a Constitution-upholding sort of guy, fully support your basic human right of free speech and free expression, I honestly wish all you racist pricks would die a slow and painful death at the hands of a seriously disturbed motherfucker. I'm generally against capital punishment, with you assholes as my sole exception. Sidenote: Yep, a conservative libertarian serving in the military (hard-liners, please don't bother posting your objections to military service, I have my reasons), I'm against a justice system which could kill one innocent person.

I'm a 26 year old white guy, born and raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia. I was a career software developer and network security specialist before joining the Navy about a year and a half ago. My whole life, I've had to deal with uneducated, fuckwitted racist pricks. They're not all from the South, by the way, not by a long shot... here's some stuff to consider before your punk ass little 15 year old hands click the "Submit Comment" button on your favorite forum.

Thousands of your fellow citizens, who happened to be black, fought and died in World Wars I and II. Thousands more fought and died in Korea and Vietnam. I serve our nation alongside thousands more, many of whom are Iraq and Afghanistan right now bleeding because they chose to enlist in the armed forces of our nation and "obey the orders of those appointed over them." Many of those I serve alongside in the submarine community happen to be black.

I'll make you an offer. Why don't you email me at philip.paradis@palegray.net and give me some solid contact information I can work with? I'd love to have a friendly chat with you regarding your views on racial equality. If you're out of my liberty area, that's no problem... I'm sure I can get in touch with somebody in the service in your neighborhood who would be delighted to have a friendly wrestling match with your bitch ass. I'm sure you're a fucking pussy who won't actually own up to your childish behavior, but that's okay... I'm still out here defending your right to post asinine comments on public forums. So go fuck yourself.

Re:I'd like to elaborate on my previous post.

[Aardpig]

Dude, you forgot to to give us your SSN. Quick, tell us now, or the racists will win!

Re:I'd like to elaborate on my previous post.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you, you baby killer!

Re:I'd like to elaborate on my previous post.

[palegray.net]

You want me to give you my SSN? Which one? There's so many boats; you've gotta specify a hull number. If you can be more specific, maybe the CO would be willing to give you a friendly tour of his boat...

Re:FTC

[Ajehals]

As at 0455GMT he has been moderated +3 insightful, that's close enough to justified for me.

Re:FTC

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so you're allowed to bash someone's heredity based on observed bad behavior, but when others do it it's wrong.

You hypocritical race traitor!

Carbon Offsets: The New Indulgence

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/10/19/selling-indulgences/
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/67034/

Re:Not to mention...

[secretwhistle]

Whenever a government agency second-guesses spending other people's money (itself a rare occurrence), the word "refund" is never used.

To obtain God's Grace

[Anonymous Coward]

...you must give bolognese sauce.

Thank you, thank you, thank you

[Quila]

the scam is to allow big polluters a back door by buying credits and not having to clean up the mess they are putting into the athmosphere

That's the best explanation I've seen of how Al Gore is both a big polluter and a scam artist.

Re:FTC

[Khaed]

I'd be happy if /. would just find a way to filter these idiots. Here's an idea in pseudo-code:

if(poster = AC && postcontains nigger = true)
                DON'T LET THE IDIOT POST!

I'd say just completely block the word but at least signed-in users could be dealt with if there's not a reason for it (ie, me using it in this post). There are a variety of other possible filters to stop these people cold. Sure, they'd just use "n*ggers!" but I bet that would take the fun out of it for some of them.

I think paper consumption is green

[Quila]

And recycling isn't. The more non-recycled paper you buy, the more trees must be planted to fuel the demand, and ... well, there you go, more trees.

I should get a carbon credit (what's the unit of that anyway?) every time I buy a ream of paper.

Cheat offsets

[KeyboardMonkey]

This one is more useful: http://www.cheatneutral.com/

Sunday Creek Coal Mine - Ohio

[Sanat]

The water source for the Glouster, Ohio area is gotten from Burr Oak Lake which is man made here in the Appalachians. A dam was placed across a valley and made this huge lake.

People would drive from 15 - 20 miles away with containers to gather the water for drinking because it was so pure.

When the coal mine started producing coal approx 8 years ago all of the tailings would wash from Sunday creek area into the Lake and now it is dangerous to even drink the water because of all of the impurities.

What did the coal company do about it? They bought some of these "free passes"

So now that the coal mine is closed and another is now opened about 3 miles further up the road.

And residences of Glouster, Trimble, Jacksonville, and Burr Oak now have tainted water for ever.

The "Free Pass" is just the cost of doing business for the big companies and has nothing to do with the local residence to whom the coal company should feel responsible for fixing what they broke.

Re:Sunday Creek Coal Mine - Ohio

[bartyboy]

In theory, markets are supposed to correct this "cost of business". The expense of buying carbon credits is supposed to be passed on to consumers, who will supposedly select the lower-cost product. However, this assumes several things:

- The company has competition.

- The competition manufactures its products in a carbon-trading country.

- The cost of carbon credits is much higher than the cost of running a carbon-neutral or carbon-positive production.

There are probably other conditions that have to be met. And trading carbons will not help clean already polluted areas (like the example you gave).

Sequestration

[Anonymous Coward]

The environmentalist and green-business crowds go on about carbon offsets, but so far they haven't addressed the last link in turning "planting a tree" into truly offsetting carbon emissions: sequestration. Sure, you plant a tree, and it grows big and strong over the next few decades, but eventually it slows down, and the amount of carbon it removes from the atmosphere every year is substantially reduced.

Unfortunately, you've taken a piece of land and reserved it for that tree, when you could chop down the tree and plant a new one there that would be more efficient at removing carbon. That tree could be used for all sorts of things that don't involve turning that tree into emitted carbon (build houses, furniture, etc. out of it), or you could even shove it into an abandoned coal mine, but the environmentalists' story stops before you get to that point.

Better yet, once we've settled on cleaner non-petro-based energy sources, what do we do with the remaining oil? One word: plastics. You hear all the time about how plastics fill up landfills and won't break down even after millions of years. Isn't that a good thing? Isn't that a whole lot of petroleum that could have ended up as carbon in the atmosphere, but that instead will now sit inert under the dirt? That's true sequestration right there, but the kneejerk environmentalists have all convinced us that throwing away plastic is a bad thing. Just think how much more expensive crude oil would have been years ago if we hadn't been recycling all that plastic - maybe that would have motivated us to switch to a cleaner-fuel society years ago.

Wow

[Quila]

I almost expected to hear the phrase "Come close to the coastline and I'll ram an Ohio class up your ass!"

Re:FTC

[smilindog2000]

I wish it were that easy... H0W manny wways kan u spel a worrd? I think the moderation system is designed to deal with this, and the offensive poster was modded down to -1 troll before I ever read it. Even with my settings set to see all the -1 troll posts, slashdot is not nearly as offensive as my spam-box.

Greenpeace

[Card]

> Just who contends that? Seriously.

Since you asked... did you know that Greenpeace opposes fusion research? In their own words:

Fusion energy - if it would ever operate - would create a serious waste problem, would emit large amounts of radioactive material and could be used to produce materials for nuclear weapons. A whole new set of nuclear risks would thus be created.

Re:Greenpeace

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Since you asked... did you know that Greenpeace opposes fusion research? From what you quoted it sure does not sound like that.
What it does sound like is that Greenpeace opposes radioactive waste and nuclear weapons.
Is that really so surprising?

Re:Greenpeace

[Card]

The quote shows that they either don't know basic facts or they are willing to lie. From Fusion.org.uk's FAQ section (or check your physics book):

The major conclusions reached by the SEAFP team in 1995 were that fusion has very good inherent safety qualities; there are no chain reactions and no production of 'actinides'. The worst possible accident originating in a fusion power station could not breach the confinement; any releases could not approach levels at which evacuation would be considered.

The radiotoxicity of a fusion power station's waste materials decays rapidly, and they present no accumulating or long-term burden on future generations. They would not need guaranteed isolation from the environment for very long timespans. In addition to these favourable results, fusion produces no climate-changing or atmosphere-polluting emissions.

Re:Greenpeace

[TheRaven64]

When I was at school, I ran our Politics and Debating Society for a bit. One of the visiting speakers we got in was a representative from Greenpeace. When I asked his view on fusion (after he had ranted about fission for a bit) it was obvious that he had no idea about the difference between the two processes.

Greenpeace irritate me a lot because every month they send me an envelope (unsolicited). This envelope contains a begging letter and at least one leaflet printed on shiny (non-recyclable) paper with a picture of a wind farm and an oil refinery asking which you would prefer. It also contains a pen, made from plastic (made from oil). The total amount of oil used to print and distribute these is such that they could make a significant positive contribution to the environment by simply stopping sending them.

Global Warming FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit whining about global warming!

signed all of us living north of 43N latitude

Re:Not to mention...

[Moofie]

That's funny, I just got my kicker check from the State of Oregon. They do in fact refund tax surpluses to the citizenry.

I wish it were more common.

Bullshit

[Rix]

Sane, rational people do not oppose atomic energy. The only people who don't consider it green are the technophobic wingbats who'd like to see us revert to a hunter gatherer lifestyle (and you'd better not be using flint tools).

Re:Bullshit

[no-body]

Sane, rational people do not oppose atomic energy.

Maybe smart people allow a differerent perspective:

Case a:
atomic fuel + atomic power plant = electricity
assumed to be cheap and good

versus

Case b:
raw material + lot of energey = atomic fuel + radiating waste
atomic fuel + atomic power plant = electricity + more radiating waste

What is the total effort in energy, the potential long term risk, and is it worth it or are there better alternatives?
Have you seen a sane, rational discussion of this anywhere? Probably not because potential benefit of atomic power plants is diminished.

Sitting on a rock? That's irresponsible

[Rix]

You'll have to seal yourself in a cave, so you don't release methane when you decompose.

all find and good

[rastoboy29]

I think this sort of thing is all fine and good, but I don't think it will be sustainable until self-interest is the root cause of this sort of behavoir.

In other words, I'm okay with high gas prices, even at very great (I'm unemployed) inconvenience to myself, because I know it's the only way we'll ever wean ourselves off fossil fuels.  Which is in my longer term self interest, since I enjoy breathing.

Re:Kicker check from Oregon...

[secretwhistle]

That is amazing. I thought Oregon normally just melted down surplus tax funds to create light rail tracks.

The whole point of cap-and-trade

[bakuun]

the scam is to allow big polluters a back door by buying credits and not having to clean up the mess they are putting into the athmosphere.

That's one of the major points of cap-and-trade systems. By allowing a large corporation (A) to buy carbon credits from another corporation (B) instead of cleaning up / lowering their emissions, the costs are minimized. Notice that just because A doesn't have to clean up their emissions, B instead will have to. Regardless of where on the buy-credits-or-cleanup scale A chooses to sit, somebody will have to clean up for those emissions.

By having such a system, the efforts for cleaning up would automatically be done in the areas where it is most cost-effective. Let's say that company A can reduce their carbon emissions at a cost of 10 $ / ton (I'm just making up the figures, have no idea how realistic they are). Company B can reduce their carbon emissions at a cost of $5 / ton. Now, either company A could choose to clean up their act, or they could buy carbon credits for whatever amount of carbon emissions they have from company B (giving company A a profit of perhaps $1 / ton). It is clear enough that in the second case, total expenses would be lowered (and the "cleaning" company even gets a profit!), while the total reduction in carbon emissions stays the same.

It is very important to note that this part, the "trading" part, is only one half. The second part, just as important, is the "cap" part. It would be possible to just flood the market with these credits, thereby making the system useless. Instead, the idea is to initially give quite generous credit rations (but still low enough so that companies would have to lower their emissions) and then as time goes by, successively lower the number of available credits on the market. It is this process which will cause the emissions to go down. The market half is just designed to make sure that those emissions reductions occur in the areas where it is cheapest to do them.

'There's a heightened potential for deception,'

[bm_luethke]

Well, no shit Sherlock.

Lets see, we allow people to pay lots of money in order to spew extra amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Yea, we should all be shocked this one didn't work out well in the end. If one truly believes that this is wrong then doing so is, well, wrong. Most realize this though many want to rationalize why they can continue to do so.

How many would support increasing the costs of a Hummer by enough to "offset" the carbon impact and then declare this just as "green" as an alternative fuel only small lightweight car? How many would talk about how great it is purchase a hummer if they included in the cost enough carbon offset to make the car a carbon sink (and given their cost it wouldn't be much a percentage increase)? My guess is VERY VERY few. However, that is *exactly* what is going on here - except that the rich are able to do so for their freaking entire lifestyle. The carbon offsets can't be attributed 100% to the hummer and are generally spun as going towards other things, however for those living so called "carbon neutral" lifestyles and still driving such things that is *exactly* what they are doing.

If one ever wants to know why the general public doesn't care much at all, all we have to do is look here. The vast majority of the highly public outspoken people are making *no* sacrifice while demanding it of us. They are simply trying to purchase their way by having us "less fortunate" people make up their slack. Especially true when certain Nobel Prize winners purchase them from their selves (not naming names here - after all that would be unfair). More often than not offsets are simply used for the True Believers to rationalize away their living gods.

No, no abuse of the system going on here. It is perfectly legitimate for those with more money to purchase a lower carbon impact of those without money so they can continue to do what they have always done. Nope, no problem there.

Re:'There's a heightened potential for deception,'

[maxume]

"You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? I'd like -"

"It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said. "It's a poem. By Robert Burns."

"I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."...

Anyway, I keep picturing these little kids playing some game in this big field or rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean, except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy."

Al Gore...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is that you?

Mod parent up!!!

[edunbar93]

This is indeed the truth, laid out in ways the ./ public can understand.

Double wow

[Lije Baley]

Drunkeness really compounds being new to the internet for you. But then maybe I've just grown callous from years of exposure to common trolls. At any rate, thanks for feeding them.

If that was the cost, what was the benefit?

[patio11]

I don't live in Glouster, Ohio so I'll just take your claim that the water doesn't taste good anymore at face value. (Although it appears the fish don't mind: http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/FishingSubhomePage/LakeMapLandingPage/BurrOakLakeFishingMap/tabid/19488/Default.aspx) So that was the cost -- what was the benefit?

How many folks in the area are able to feed their families because of the coal mines? How many folks in the area did not freeze to death this December because their houses had access to cheap energy? How many hospitals in the area did not see a sudden loss of all folks on ventilators because they had uninterrupted access to electricity regardless of the weather conditions?

Human action doesn't *just* damage the environment -- it also enriches our lives. For example, there never would have been Burr Oak Lake in the first place without the *enormously* consequential decision to dam the river.

Re:If that was the cost, what was the benefit?

[Sanat]

I do not disagree with any of your points in fact they are often my points too.

The focus I was making was of the "Credits" that large companies can buy from the government so that they can create environmental messes without the need to clean them up. The whole ground around this area has "Yellow Boy" everywhere which is high acidic liquid that has a host of microbes that thrivew at the high acid environment.

Our water treatment plant now has to deal with this. The whole watershed from the mine runs directly into Burr Oak and Sunday Creek... downhill all the way.

A non-profit organization Rural Action (composed of volunteers) has a program in place to combat some of this but the problem is very complex... especially when drinking water is involved.

The Ohio State rating moved from the top level to a low level as to the quality of the drinking water in the area.

Many of my friends are coal miners and their parents before them and their parents before them too. We are fortunate to have such natural resources here. My point is that Buckeye Coal Company is doing nothing to assist the now poor drinking water sitution.

Thanks again for making the valid points that you made.

Lesser of Evils

[StringTech]

TFA: "The FTC has not updated its environmental advertising guidelines, known as the Green Guides, since 1998. Back then, the agency did not create definitions for phrases that are common now--like renewable energy, carbon offsets and sustainability."

The real definitions obviously not 'flexible' enough for them.

I say let the fatter cats spend, but keep an eye on the skinny ones. As long as we stick to our 'definitions' some of it may benefit.

"By comparison, an offset sold by Dell for three years' use of a notebook computer costs $2."

Is some of this is driven by a used-equipment market? As in a 2-year old linux box that runs Windows faster than a Vista machine. Or cheeper-to-own cars from the 80's AND 90's.

...not baiting, but I think the whole carbon issue is mis-guided, there's plenty more nasties in the air than CO2. I'm not sure how they measure it. If its all lumped together there's a problem. Simple carbon in the air is no big deal (cyclohexane sucks).

Sorry, its wrong.

[Shivetya]

Its a license to pollute. It is the ultimate expression of wealth. You are buying permission to pollute.

All I saw at the recent get together for global warming supporters in Asia were people willing to save the environment because they are willing to make ME sacrifice. They, no, they have the money to buy themselves the right to destroy my environment and the political power to protect that right of theirs while taking mine away.

Sorry, but the primary reason I destest Al Gore is his excessive resource use which he somehow thinks he absolves by buying trees. If he were truly serious about OUR environment he would cut back what he uses, not buy the right to abuse.

There is nothing more arrogant than carbon credits : paying for excessive resource use and the right to pollute.

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[sethawoolley]

I agree, but I'd go a bit further.

I think the worse sin is the fact that they are measuring amount of carbon. That's simply not complete. They should be measuring the difficulty of replacing the carbon it's supposed to offset and then investing directly in some technology that's supposed to do that.

Buying wind power that's unusable to power an airplane means that. Donating to (not just investing in a company) that will actually promise to develop and give away a technology that enables airplanes to fly for the same miles you flew. Now that would be equal.

Carbon credit buyers are merely trying to use the "amount of carbon" as a proxy for guilt. I'm sorry, but that's not an accurate proxy. Try again.

Seth

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[UbuntuDupe]

I'm sorry, but this is a pretty ridiculous perspective. If all you're concerned about is reducing the net emissions that lead global warming, you shouldn't care whether someone a) doesn't emit, or b) emits and then re-sinks the same amount. In that respect, certain indulgences *do* cancel your damage and are valid alternatives to reducing emissions.

I strongly suspect that it's more than environmental damage that bothers you when people use fossil fuels. And that's okay! But don't be surprised when people respond to your concerns with policies that are optimized for "environmental preservation" rather than "weighted sum of environmental preservation and destruction of the capitalist system".

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[FredFredrickson]

Since everybody on this topic seems anti-carbon credit, I will provide my 2 cents (on the assumption that at least 1 organization does carbon credits correctly).

I believe carbon credits to be a good thing. First, it shows a sense of responsibility. I don't buy carbon credits to show them off, I buy carbon credits out of a desire to neutralize my carbon.

If I buy enough credits to cover the carbon I emit this year, then I've done more to protect the environtment than you. Period. It's not a license to pollute, think about it- It's a license to clean up after yourself.

Imagine if I decided to throw all my trash on the ground, but I paid someone to pick up after me. It would be a weird habbit, and it wouldn't say much good about me, but at the same time, it would certainly be better than not getting somebody to pick it up- so it shows a sense of responsibility. In the end, my habbits affect nobody at all. My habbits have zero impact on anybody. And that's better than just not doing anything at all.

But another angle people don't look at is this: I just plainly don't make enough money to make major changes in my life. I've switched my lightbulbs and switched to energy efficient heat. In the end, I could afford that because it made my bills go down, so it paid for itself.

But at the job I have, I just can't afford to much else. I HAVE to get to work, and there's no public transportation where I live. I can't afford a more energy efficient car (although I dream about some day getting one). I can't afford solar panels (although I drool at the idea of ridding myself of an electric bill). I can't afford to make the major changes in my life that would really impact my footprint on this earth.

Maybe some day I'll be able to afford it. But now I cannot.

The saying is: Reduce what you can, Offset what you can't. It's not a license to pollute- it's my ability to do something on my budget, instead of nothing at all- Until I can afford to make a difference myself. Part of this is dependent on greener energy and devices becomming available and affordable.

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be stupid: when you plant trees, you *do* offset your carbon dioxide emissions, and that's because - gasp - carbon dioxide is not bad *per se*. It's not a poison or another dangerous substance; it just becomes a problem if there's too much of it.

Contrary to what you might think, there's nothing wrong with releasing CO2 into the atmosphere: you do it every time you exhale. Plants use CO2 and thus pull it from the atmosphere again, so the whole thing's a delicate balance.

Which we've been disturbing, of course, and THAT is the problem. But planting trees is a perfect way of offsetting your emissions; contrary to what you seem to think, it's not a "I did something bad, so now I'll do something unrelated but good to make up for it" kind of deal. Rather, it means you're LITERALLY undoing what you've been doing when you released that CO2 in the first place.

So you really should educate yourself a bit more before talking.

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[operagost]

I believe carbon credits to be a good thing. First, it shows a sense of responsibility. I don't buy carbon credits to show them off, I buy carbon credits out of a desire to neutralize my carbon.

No, you buy them so that you do not have to reduce carbon output.

If I buy enough credits to cover the carbon I emit this year, then I've done more to protect the environtment than you. Period. It's not a license to pollute, think about it- It's a license to clean up after yourself.

It's a license only available to those with means. People who scrape by, without even the ability to to replace their carbon emitting vehicles and heating systems, are not going to be able to buy credits.

Imagine if I decided to throw all my trash on the ground, but I paid someone to pick up after me. It would be a weird habbit, and it wouldn't say much good about me, but at the same time, it would certainly be better than not getting somebody to pick it up- so it shows a sense of responsibility. In the end, my habbits affect nobody at all. My habbits have zero impact on anybody. And that's better than just not doing anything at all.

Clearly, it's a lot easier and cheaper to hold onto one's trash until a public receptacle is found than to replace one's inefficient fossil-fuel burning devices, which would be required of those who can't buy the indulgences.

But another angle people don't look at is this: I just plainly don't make enough money to make major changes in my life. I've switched my lightbulbs and switched to energy efficient heat. In the end, I could afford that because it made my bills go down, so it paid for itself.

But at the job I have, I just can't afford to much else. I HAVE to get to work, and there's no public transportation where I live. I can't afford a more energy efficient car (although I dream about some day getting one). I can't afford solar panels (although I drool at the idea of ridding myself of an electric bill). I can't afford to make the major changes in my life that would really impact my footprint on this earth.

Maybe some day I'll be able to afford it. But now I cannot.

You can't afford to make major changes; how are you going to afford the carbon credits?

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[FredFredrickson]

No, you buy them so that you do not have to reduce carbon output. No, I buy them because I cannot reduce carbon output any more than I already do.

It's a license only available to those with means. People who scrape by, without even the ability to to replace their carbon emitting vehicles and heating systems, are not going to be able to buy credits. It's true, poor people won't have the means.

Clearly, it's a lot easier and cheaper to hold onto one's trash until a public receptacle is found than to replace one's inefficient fossil-fuel burning devices, which would be required of those who can't buy the indulgences. Ok, bad example. The point was that at least I'm cleaning up after myself.

You can't afford to make major changes; how are you going to afford the carbon credits? Carbon credits for 1 year is cheaper than a new car + solar panels + self-grown food + self-made clothes. Not to mention I wouldn't have time to do all that, if I was also trying to make enough money to pay for all that. The concept is simple, I donate X amount of money towards X% of something that would ultimately offset my carbon emissions. Say it takes 5 people's yearly donations to build one windmill, and that windmill offsets exactly the amount of carbon those 5 people make, It works out.

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[Geoff-with-a-G]

Its a license to pollute. It is the ultimate expression of wealth. You are buying permission to pollute.

I'm extremely skeptical of carbon credits/offsets, and the talk of how we're "building a wonderful new carbon trading economy" irritates me, as it feels like a big "broken window fallacy" scam to me. But you lost me with the bit about permission.

I don't know about you, but I already have "permission to pollute" - if we're defining the emission of carbon dioxide as polluting. Aside from the trivial example of how I personally exhale it, it's not illegal for me to burn all the wood I want in my home fireplace, or for me to buy a Hummer and drive it in a big circle around the city all day, everyday. Sure, it would cost me money, just like these carbon offsets cost people money, but I'm not lacking in "permission".

Beyond your permission issue, I don't see your moral problem with me putting X tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, then taking X tons out. We're not talking about human life here, carrying its own moral weight, where having five babies does not permit me to kill five people. "Putting out CO2" does not have its own moral cost. The only problem with it is that the CO2 ends up in the atmosphere, and has effects on the atmosphere while it's there. If I don't actually cause any of those effects, how have I done something wrong?

Now like I said before, I'm not a big prospective buyer of these credits, but for those who are, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the FTC would investigate to prevent them from being defrauded.

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[Machtyn]

No, I buy them because I cannot reduce carbon output any more than I already do. The scary thing about this statement is that it sounds like you are willing to be taxed for the carbon output offset. I don't want to be taxed any more. In fact, I want my taxes to decrease, government programs reduced or removed, and people to generally care about themselves, others, and the environment... but I don't want to be taxed to do so. Utopia, I know.

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[z-j-y]

In the end, my habbits affect nobody at all. My habbits have zero impact on anybody. Ask the guy who picks up after you.

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[FredFredrickson]

He can't bitch too much, I'm paying him afterall...

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[LionMage]

Sorry, but the primary reason I destest Al Gore is his excessive resource use which he somehow thinks he absolves by buying trees. If he were truly serious about OUR environment he would cut back what he uses, not buy the right to abuse.

Funny enough, this charge was leveled at Gore during Congressional testimony. I believe it was Senator Inhofe who questioned the carbon offsets that Gore was using for his mansion.

At any rate, Al Gore was certainly sensitive to this criticism, and he actually did something about it. In about October of last year, Gore finished major renovations on the historical mansion that is his home; the story was picked up in most major news outlets, and I believe it was even mentioned here on Slashdot (sorry, don't have the link handy, but see the CNN article I just linked to). The list of improvements is staggering, and impressive when you consider the mansion is an 80-year-old structure that had to be entirely renovated to meet modern standards. So yes, Al Gore has indeed "cut back what he uses."

Buying carbon credits in the meantime was a smart strategy for him to employ; some of these improvements took years. (I can only imagine how long it took to put in the geothermal energy system, and it wasn't even fully integrated yet when the CNN article was written.)

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[JoshHeitzman]

Whoopee! Now instead of using ~12 times as much power as a typical Nashville home his home now only uses just ~10 times as much. So if we follow his example we can all increase our power usage by 10x. Yeah!

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Well, the primary reason I detest YOU is that you gleefully burn a hundred times more fossil fuel than the typical resident of the planet, and you do NOTHING about your enormous energy usage. You even make it worse by running down the people who are actually trying to change the situation, to make it possible for you to use cleaner energy.

That just about puts you in your place, you fat fat rich American pig. Try living on a Nigerian's energy budget and maybe you can say that you aren't really doing much harm.

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[UbuntuDupe]

You seem reasonable, so maybe you'll reply to me.

I mostly agree with you and sympathize with the grief you're getting: if you emit carbon, and sink it right back, what right others have to say you're hurting the environment?

That's why the best solution is to just do a mandatory version of this: have a carbon tax, and apply the taxes toward carbon credits, effectively neutralizing everyone's carbon, without them even noticing much. Easy, and pretty painless since you can just switch to less carbon-intense things, and the "magic of the market" will be put to use, now that environmental inefficiencies *are* economic inefficiencies.

The problem, of course, is that "environmentalists" oppose this *because* it's easy. See, the solution is designed to reduce net carbon emissions. But for most environmentalists, "global warming" is merely a pretense to slow down economic growth. So if you propose a solution that takes them at their word, they'll be a bit confused: "But ... but ... that isn't economically damaging enough". They'd rather come up with an (ineffective) laundry list of things they don't like and want to ban (SUVs, incandescents, etc.) regardless of what their users do about the carbon.

Would you agree with me that this is why environmentalists by and large (I know there are a few exceptions) oppose the solution I outlined?

(Btw, this all assumes that the effect of the offsets is to prevent or remove CO2. Some offset programs feel good but don't do this. For example, simply building wind farms merely increases the supply of energy, decreasing the price and encouraging use. If you wanted to get credits through a wind farm, a better way would be to work out a deal whereby a power plant with replace *existing demand* for energy one-for-one with wind energy instead of fossil fuels, and subsidize the wind farm so that it can profitably sell at prevailing energy rates.)

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[FredFredrickson]

Well, let's work on the basis that our windfarm actually replaces existing demand, so it's effective- because in essence, it will provide energy, that if not used by one house, will be exported to other houses (as the electric grid works), therefore seriously limiting demand on the existing infrastructure. Basically meaning the power-plant will produce less electricity and therefore emit less carbon (because these guys are good at not wasting their own money when power isn't needed).

Then yeah, I understand simply why people are so against something this easy- but I think that it's not quite errant thinking either. The concept is Reduce what you can, offset what you can't.

That means, I, too, am against the idea that Mr-Everything-Is-Disposable joe drives his SUV alone to work every day in the carpool lane and uses 3 water bottles a day, instead of re-using one.

The difference is simple- in one case, we have somebody like me who does everything in his realistic power to change for the better, and pay a nominal tax to cover the rest. Whereas Waste-a-lot joe has no problem covering his tracks, but he's still using too many resources, and it's unfair. But this argument extends to the gap between the rich and poor now- completely unrelated to carbon emissions.

I'm guessing that if a TAX was mandatory for carbon credits, and was based on real things like gas efficiency and your yearly milage, size of house, number of family members- it would convince everybody to simply reduce what they could, instead of be so wasteful.

But, yes, I think really what these people want is vengence against the people who care-not. The game keeps changing, but their desires don't. I doubt the carbon game will give them much, and it'll move on to hatred of the rich people affording frequent space travel while others are modest and only go to the moon once a year.

Re:Sorry, its wrong.

[UbuntuDupe]

but I think that it's not quite errant thinking either. The concept is Reduce what you can, offset what you can't.

And that's where I deem the environmentalists to be demonstrably wrong, and the source of all the fallacies that bleed into the rest of the discussion.

The concept should be "undo the environmental harm of all your actions". Then, if you enjoy an activity while still being able to marshal the resources to erase its impact on the environment (i.e. pay for others to undo it), you should be in the clear, whether or not others deem it necessary.

Like I've said in the previous discussions, you simply can't know what is "wasteful" (and therefore what I can or can't reduce). Efficiency is benefit provided per cost (including environmental cost) expended. I accept that you can tell me the cost expended, but the benefit provided exists purely in my mind.

Because environmentalists advocate restrictions far more intrusive than simply undoing your damage, their opponents are absolutely right to object to such meddling and paternalism. Remember, emitting carbon (according to environmentalists) hurts the environment and thus you, whether or not I needed to do so. And likewise, a pound of a poor person's carbon is just as harmful as a pound of a rich person's carbon. So to justify these restrictions, as posters typically do, on grounds that "your use affects ME", is disingenuous.

Finally, about the windfarm: by itself, all it does is affect the supply curve by making is so that, for any electricity price, the number of units of electricity offered are the same or more. That cannot lead to reduced bad-energy use in the aggregate. You would have to specifically make an arrangement whereby the electrical gird only uses its power in lieu of already-demanded energy. What you (and all environmentalists) need to realize is that we do not live in a static world, where people keep on engaging in the same patterns of activity and resource use, and hey, we just need to satisfy this present pattern and we're all good. People respond to incentives, and your policy needs to account for the changes in incentives people face.

Funny comment by Rush Limbaugh

[weave]

I almost crashed the car when Rush claimed several weeks ago that all of the carbon-credit trees Gore had planted burned down in the SoCal fires late last year.

Re:Funny comment by Rush Limbaugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Admitting on Slashdot that you listen to Rush Limbaugh? You're a braver man than I.

It will depend

[WindBourne]

Grasses die quickly and release back to the environment. Bushes last 10-20 years, but overall do not absorb a lot of CO2. In addition, they will go back to being CO2. OTH, a tree not only absorbs lots, but the CO2 can be pulled out nearly permanently. How? Because we can cut down the tree and make it something useful. While it is wood (alive or dead), it is not CO2.

Ya think?

[argStyopa]

1) The 'carbon trading system' is itself non-progressive, in the sense that it promotes NOTHING in the sense of preventing the emission of carbon. All people are doing is justifying their carbon emissions by pointing at some other carbon sequestration going on somewhere else. Sure, there is a TINY incentive to perform carbon sequestration but since there is so much capacity elsewhere and the revenue generated by incremental change is infinitesimal, that's really no incentive at all.

2) "There's a heightened potential for deception" - ya think? A globe-spanning system of compelling people into spending their money, which is neither monitored, audited, nor regulated by any objective authority. One might think that there would be an incentive for the members which feed off that system...be they scientists getting grants to study it, former government officials who are paid ridiculous fees to talk about it (& they get world recognition and adulation, itself a useful currency), or the mandarin who pass these off as genuine transactions ... might have an incentive to overvalue what they are selling? I'd be curious to see how many of the alleged owners of carbon credits (which should be anyone that owns forestland or farmland, right?) ACTUALLY have seen a dime of the guilt-money wrung from the first world on their behalf. It's White Guilt that you can absolve with CASH! W00t! Perfect for your (white) wealthy urbanite who feels that somehow they don't deserve the abundance around them. Now they can sleep with the peace of moral certitude, for only $X.

I stand on a beach. The tide has rolled out. I say "look at all this cool free land that nobody owns!" and my friends and I promptly build houses on it. When the tide inevitably rolls back in, I cry to the government that they must save us, and I make a tendentious movie purporting to prove that the tide has only now rolled in since humans built on the beach, that it MUST be humans' fault.
Different time scales, but otherwise just as stupid.

Re:Ya think?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's White Guilt that you can absolve with CASH! W00t! Perfect for your (white) wealthy urbanite

Slashdot... where dogfucking racists are modded Insightful.

Re:Ya think?

[argStyopa]

Slashdot, where the brave crusaders against perceived racism show their strength of character... by flinging turds anonymously from the shadows.

Only if it doesn't work.

[FatSean]

What if the trees do offset his carbon usage? What if they more than offset his carbon usage? We certainly need to re-tree South America and other regions to re-build our rainforests and other forests. While this happens, technology advances and we all start produce less carbon as a result. Improved powerplants, different products made available, etc...

If we were all to suddenly stop our consumption, economies would be unable to absorb the change...bad things could happen.

Also, many people are fat, dumb and greedy and won't change quickly. We need to mitigate their selfishness because they won't do it themselves. Carbon credits have value, and they aren't the only technique we will use, so I think you should chill out about them.

Re:Only if it doesn't work.

[mwlewis]

What if the trees do offset his carbon usage? What if they more than offset his carbon usage?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that these offsets do what they claim. If he really believes in the apocalypse that he preaches about, instead of offsetting his heated pool, he could be offsetting the output of actions by other people, many of whom can't afford the luxury of buying offsets.

Do as I say, not as I do is not a way to convince others of your sincerity. And if he doesn't believe that it matters, then why should we?

Because he is rich.

[FatSean]

Sucks, but it is the truth. No matter what your joe-jobbing patriotic friends say about America, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The worst part? Many people in this nation think the rich got rich because of *snicker* merit.

I understand your point. I personally ignore any and all laws if I can get away with them, because why should I obey our law when my government won't obey international law? WHy should I toe the line when police officers abuse the law they supposedly enforce.

Railing against the assholes doesn't seem to help any, in my experience. It just makes you more bitter. Do what you feel is right, and fuck the rest of the scumbags.

Re:Because he is rich.

[jgarra23]

The worst part? Many people in this nation think the rich got rich because of *snicker* merit. This is probably completely OT but I just wanted to point out that everyone in my family got rich on their merit. We came to America with nothing during WW2, my parents' generation (in my family of course) all worked their asses off, joined the military to get their college degrees when they had to and they are all wealthy from their hard work being doctors, accountants and engineers. Now my generation in my family, we grew up living in shacks as my parents worked hard to get to where they are today. We went to public schools, spent our time in libraries learning, worked to pay for college (well not my youngest siblings, they get to enjoy the fruits, yay for them!!) and now my sister is doing well as an accountant, I've made a pretty penny programming, my cousin is a forensic biologist, my other cousin whatever she's doin @ UW, she's makin' good money doing it. While we're not all millionaires (yet) we're all probably in the richest 1% of the world population and all for hard-work and merit. Maybe you just mean the wealthy celebrities like our politicians and entertainers...

Not surprising

[Freeside1]

With just about any fad or popular movement, there will be people seeking to take advantage of it to make loads of cash. I have no idea what kinds of companies Al Gore has invested in, but it makes me question his motives. I'm super cereal.

Ah, so that's it

[spun]

I never really understood the vehement opposition most conservatives have towards ending global warming until now. You actually think that the real goal is destruction of the capitalist system. Wow, I need some of what you're smoking.

Seriously, what evidence do you have that that is the goal?

Re:Ah, so that's it

[UbuntuDupe]

The evidence is the fact that they reject any sustainable, effective, long-term solution if it also isn't economically damaging. For example, a carbon tax plus contracting out the carbon sinking could (like I suggested before) contain the problem completely and be robust against pretty much anything (people who "need" carbon intense activities, different power sources, any carbon-intense new technology), while at the same time having a minimal economic impact, esp. as the sinking cost goes down.

All proposals are something designed to be as inconvenient as possible, and they'll rationalize away any non-economically damaging solution.

You have seen me in the past propose carbon tax + sink in lieu of e.g. inefficient-product bans, and agreed it would be a better, sustainable, long-term solution. What do *you* make of the fact that every "environmentalist"-proposed solution emphasizes inconvenience over the environment?

(And btw, I wasn't necessarily saying that *that* poster was anticapitalist, just explaining what results when you rationalize ["that's bad because it hurts the environment"] rather than justify ["that's bad because it hurts the environment, and even if it didn't, it would concentrate power in the hands of the few"]. FWIW, I think it's consistent with support of capitalism to demand that people who violate the rights of others pay compensation, and the tax I proposed is consistent with that ideal as a remedy.)

Re:Ah, so that's it

[Thundersnatch]

I never really understood the vehement opposition most conservatives have towards ending global warming until now. You actually think that the real goal is destruction of the capitalist system. Wow, I need some of what you're smoking.

Seriously, what evidence do you have that that is the goal?

Umm... Al Gore?

Re:Ah, so that's it

[spun]

Seriously? Al Gore, a center right democrat, is out to destroy capitalism? Now I know you're high. That man's whole life has been spent supporting and profiting off of capitalism.

Re:Ah, so that's it

[Thundersnatch]

*woosh*

I was joking, but if you consider Al Gore "center right", you must be the reincarnation of ol' V.I. Lenin himself.

Re:Ah, so that's it

[spun]

Ahaha, good one. Kucinich is the only left wing candidate. Gore is definitely centrist, if not center right.

Where are these trees? Re:disgusting

[u8i9o0]

Easy. After 20 years, cut the tree down, burn it, and measure the CO2 emissions it produces.

From the day I first heard about plant-a-tree carbon-offsetting, I assumed that the main source of these planting operations was the lumber industry.

It's all so simple:

• the lumber industry gets their replanting operation subsidized,
• the broker pockets the remainder,
• the customer gets to exploit feel-good marketing exposure.

I mean, with huge corporations as customers, who else is going to let you plant and grow tens of thousands of trees without much hassle?

Zealot

[Anonymous Coward]

From you? No, I have never seen you sanely and rationally discuss atomic power.

The negatives of atomic power are slight and manageable - much, much more so than the negatives of other power sources like coal and oil. Solar and other sources are preferable but are not currently viable as they are either too expensive or cannot meet our energy needs.

Re: The study. A single data point is hardly damning evidence, especially when causation has not been established and other possible and plausible explanations have not been ruled out.

Do not feed the trolls

[spun]

Honestly, people who post racist comments to Slashdot aren't usually racists at all, any more than the guy who posts shit eating stories likes to eat shit, or the guy who posts mare-sex stories enjoys bestiality. What they do like is shocking and outraging people. You just made this asshole's whole week, thank you very much, and he will no doubt continue posting bullshit in the hopes of netting another one like you.

money making alternative

[bremstrong]

How about this for an alternative to carbon offsets: direct investment in renewable energy companies.

Anyone can buy shares of a company developing solar, batteries, wind, etc. The bonus is the shares pays dividends and might appreciate nicely.

If everyone invested 1% of their income in new renewable energy technology firms, which is theoretically doable but not likely to happen, the risks of global warming would be substantially reduced. People don't realize that the solution is in their hands.

Rather than a "feel good" gesture of buying a carbon offset that may or may not make much difference, buy stock in a renewable energy firm you feel will offer the greatest return on investment.

Is anyone surprised by "green" fraud?

[BarnabyWilde]

"Green" fraud is everywhere, starting with the big lie (man-caused "global warming"), and working down to the little lies (Compact Fluorescent Lighting is good for you).

Who's shocked?

Not me....

Are you.... really?

It's that or coal

[Rix]

Any opposition to nuclear power is implicit endorsement of coal generated power.

Re:It's that or coal

[no-body]

Any opposition to nuclear power is implicit endorsement of coal generated power.
= a closed mind statement very similar happening in a religious believe system follower.
Humans will need to become more skillful, flexible and consequent with their newly acquired brain capacities quickly in order to survive within the next couple of centuries.
Too much effort goes into destructive activities initiated by dominating psychopathic leaders.

A scam

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for a time for a company that was paid because they had a power station with very low emissions. We were instructed to do all sorts of things, most of them illegal, to try to scam the regulators into thinking we had low emission, when in fact we were spewing nasty things all the time.

At one point, we were burning pressure treated wood scraps from house construction (very nasty emissions). We also ran fans in the boiler when the boiler was cold (no fire) to simulate low emissions and pretend we were running it. It was a lot less expensive than burning fuel! At one point, the EPA was called in and the owner was fined for an enormous pile of ash and soot that was uncovered and blowing all over the place. I called in OSHA for other infractions but nothing came of it.

These credit systems attract the lowwest sort of people to invest. We should tax the polluters, not encourage gaming the system.

Oh, and the power station owner was Worcester, the same guy that donates thousands of christmas wreaths (made by illegal mexicans) to Arlington Cemetary every year to game the tax system and write off them at $50 a piece.

Delicate balance?

[JoshHeitzman]

The balance doesn't seem to be all that delicate to me. Per the chart at this page http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html . It shows both temperature and CO2 levels on a geological time scale and includes links to the sources for both sets of data that were used to create the chart. CO2 levels have been in the thousands of ppm (peaking at ~7000 ppm) for hundreds of millions of years at a time vs the hundreds of ppm we are now.

Taxes

[slashkitty]

It's the best market approach to fixing the problem. You add a small tax on carbon output, and the market will work to correct it by reducing carbon output. (or maybe it's taxes on the sources oil, coal, natural gas, etc) Then, spend the tax money on good things, like planting trees or developing new technologies. However, if it's done right, businesses will sink their own money into developing good new tech. Even Ron Paul should approve.

I get all my carbon credits here

[Anonymous Coward]

It's super easy, and the least I can do:

http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com/

Re:FTC

[Anonymous Coward]

http://2men1horse.com/

http://1guy1horse.com/

Question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, people who post racist comments to Slashdot aren't usually racists at all, any more than the guy who posts shit eating stories likes to eat shit, or the guy who posts mare-sex stories enjoys bestiality. What they do like is shocking and outraging people.

How the fuck do you presume to know what any particular poster believes, or likes to do irl?

The fact that others modded posts Troll and Flamebait doesn't mean you have actual insight into the posters' motives.

Re:Question:

[spun]

Poor troll, does it hurt you to know you are that transparent?

Re:Question:

[Anonymous Coward]

QED.

I wonder how many faulty assumptions you make in real life, and what disasters have resulted, and then I pity you.

More fun ideas

[Quila]

SSN + racist troll + torpedo tube = I'd pay to watch.