The Inexact Science of Carbon Neutrality

snydeq writes "Sustainable IT's Ted Samson raises questions regarding the purchasing of carbon offsets, a practice growing in popularity among tech companies such as Dell, Yahoo, and Google in an attempt to achieve 'carbon neutrality.' Essentially financial instruments, carbon offsets enable companies to invest money in sustainable endeavors in an attempt to counteract the carbon footprint they incur conducting their business. But as a recent article in the Wall Street Journal shows, measuring the value of these carbon offsets is tricky business, as some recipients of offsets say the results of their sustainable efforts would be achieved regardless of any one company's investment. 'The question of whether carbon offsets hold value just scratches the surface of the overall carbon-neutrality question,' Samson writes. 'For the time being, there isn't even a consistent approach to measuring an organization's carbon footprint in the first place. And if you don't know how much CO2 you're responsible for, how do you know how much offsetting is necessary to become neutral?'"

Comments

The next step is obvious

[daemonenwind]

Christians came to these realizations roughly 500 years ago....how long before the new Enviroligion realizes the following?

(Highlights follow, with apologies to Dr. Martin Luther and all the other good Lutherans/Protestants on /.)

27
There is no green authority for preaching that the pollution flies out of the biosphere immediately once the money clinks in the bottom of the chest.

28
It is certainly possible that when the money clinks in the bottom of the chest avarice and greed increase; but when the Treehuggers offer intercession, all depends in the will of Gore.

29
Who knows whether all souls who live in pollution wish to be redeemed in view of what is said of St. Severinus and St. Pascal? (Note: Paschal I, pope 817-24. The legend is that he and Severinus were willing to endure the pains of a befouled environment for the benefit of the Treehuggers).

32
All those who believe themselves certain of their own harmony with nature by means of letters of carbon credit, will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.

41
Carbon Credits should only be preached with caution, lest people gain a wrong understanding, and think that they are preferable to other good works: those of loving trees.

49
Hippie Treehuggers should be taught that the Gore's indulgences are useful only if one does not rely on them, but most harmful if one loses the fear of Pollution through them.

54
The word of Gore suffers injury if, in the same sermon, an equal or longer time is devoted to Carbon Credits than to that word.

67
The Carbon Credits, which the merchants extol as the greatest of favours, are seen to be, in fact, a favourite means for money-getting.

82
They ask, e.g.: Why does not the Gore liberate everyone from pollution for the sake of loving trees (a most Green thing) and because of the supreme necessity of their environment? This would be morally the best of all reasons. Meanwhile he redeems innumerable polluters for money, a most perishable thing, with which to build Gore Manor, a very minor purpose.

MGW: a shitty lie and ppl need to think about it

[gd23ka]

Hey I just took a shit. I parted with about what I would say looks like 200 grams of digested food and here's your fun science fact for the
day: shit also contains a _lot_ of dead intestinal cells - no kidding.

I bring this up because again we're knee deep into the Man-made Global Warming / Carbon Tax LIE-complex. Just think about it. Earth has
been around far far far longer than we've been poking a thermometer into its rear. From what we do know, the 1700s saw temperature
significantly higher as far up as the WINEYARDS(!) of England(!) (yep, England was known for its fine wine back then). The average temperature
was far higher than it is today and by that I mean the warm spell we had the years before. Now it's so cold they're changing their tune
either to "Global Cooling" (man-made too of course) or they're now resorting to the more generic term "Climate Change". I'm sick of this crap
and so should you be.

There's a whole world of deceit and outright lies out there spread mostly by the so-called "Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" ("IPCC").
Isn't it interesting that scientists sue -- and have to sue -- to get their names taken off the "IPCC" reports and studies because same scientists
either actually entirely disagree with the "findings" in those reports or just had their name listed without prior permission or any affiliation or
relation with the "IPCC".

So back to the turd I flushed. 200g of organic matter, I'm guessing 74% H, 5% oxygen, nitrogen, 1% calcium, sulphur, phosphorus and various
other minerals and of course 20% carbon. Why should I pay say an extra dollar for flushing my toiled to "offset" the fictitious "cost" of me being
alive with a metabolism .. when it's ALL A SHITTY LIE?!?!

Take a look at this:

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/swindle.htm

A Review Of 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' By S. Fred Singer, (Atmospheric Physicist) March 19, 2007

Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth has met its match: a devastating documentary recently shown on British television, which has now been viewed by millions of people on the Internet. Despite its flamboyant title, The Great Global Warming Swindle is based on sound science and interviews with real climate scientists, including me. An Inconvenient Truth, on the other hand, is mostly an emotional presentation from a single politician.

The scientific arguments presented in The Great Global Warming Swindle can be stated quite briefly:

1. There is no proof that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from human activity. Ice core records from the past 650,000 years show that temperature increases have preceded--not resulted from--increases in CO2 by hundreds of years, suggesting that the warming of the oceans is an important source of the rise in atmospheric CO2. As the dominant greenhouse gas, water vapour is far, far more important than CO2. Dire predictions of future warming are based almost entirely on computer climate models, yet these models do not accurately understand the role or water vapor--and, in any case, water vapor is not within our control. Plus, computer models cannot account for the observed cooling of much of the past century (1940-75), nor for the observed patterns of warming--what we call the "fingerprints." For example, the Antarctic is cooling while models predict warming. And where the models call for the middle atmosphere to warm faster than the surface, the observations show the exact opposite. ...

Re:The inexact science of everything

[Hawthorne01]

Well, I think anthrocentric global warming is a load of hooey, and I drive a Civic Hybrid.

Wrap your brain around that for a while, then get back to me...