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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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
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.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
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.
The sun beams down on a brand new day, No more welfare tax to pay, Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light...