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

Re:disgusting

[ceejayoz]

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

Re:disgusting

[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...

Re:disgusting

[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.

Re:disgusting

[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

[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.

Re:disgusting

[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.

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).

Re:disgusting

[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.

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.

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.

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: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.

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: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.

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: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.

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.

[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.