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FTC Offput by Offsets

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the you-need-green-to-be-green dept.

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."

6 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Re:disgusting by sweetooth · · Score: 4, Informative

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

  2. Indulgences by Loki+P · · Score: 2, Informative

    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

  3. Re:disgusting by Psychotria · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  4. Re:All Hogwash! by Mesa+MIke · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  5. Re:disgusting by OakLEE · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
    The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...
  6. Re:Greenpeace by Card · · Score: 2, Informative
    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.