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

Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't anyone watch Penn and Teller? They already covered it.

Re:Bullshit

[Arker]

You think they're going to be perfectly scientific and objective when their paycheques are riding on it?

No more than I think that the ones paid by governments and environmental cultists will be.

So to evaluate the arguments one must go further than looking at the fact that research takes money and the provenance of a researchers budget tends to correlate with their opinion on the issue. You have to take a look at the actual scientific merits of the work done.

One doesnt need any particular knowledge of a given field to check whether or not fundamentals of scientific method are being applied and whether arguments are logical and supported or not.

The endless repetition of fallacious arguments such as those referencing 'scientific consensus' (which, even if it did exist on this issue which it clearly does not, is still an entity with precisely ZERO place in the scientific method) by those on one side in particular stands out like a sore thumb. So does the way that political control of funding is exploited to silence skeptical scientists. It is certainly true that most funding for skeptical scientific research on the subject comes from organisations that have a clear vested interest in minimising the issue - but equally clear this is a natural consequence when public funding is provisioned only to those researchers who play ball with the envirocultists. A real scientist in such a situation has no option but to go to the private corporations for funding or retire from the field entirely.

This doesnt mean either side is wrong. If you have multiple funding sources with multiple agendas, each is naturally going to tend to fund researchers that tend to support their agenda. The researchers themselves, if they are good scientists, will simply do the research properly and if it displeases their funding source they'll go to a different source who DID like their results for their next grant - this is much easier said than done, it's inconvenient at best, and runs the risk of failing and leaving the scientist and her family in deep difficulty, but still, if you want to be a scientist that's what you have to do.

If they're NOT good scientists, they'll just play ball and make sure that their reports favour the right side to avoid the issue. To see which one is happening in any individual case, there's no substitute for a critical review of the work itself. Simply correlating results with funding sources doesnt mean anything.

Frankly I dont doubt that human pollution is having and will continue to have consequences on the climate of the planet - I cant think of anyone that does. But that fact tells us nothing about whether the affect is large or small, beneficial or damaging, let alone what, if any, actions would actually moderate or reverse the affects (assuming that doing so is desirable.) Despite that global warming enthusiasts are constantly making policy prescriptions which, just coincidentally, always wind up being that we should do what environmental cultists have always wanted to do for their own religious reasons.

The logical conclusion is that these people are full of %*!&, particularly when they claim to be scientists (to be a scientist is to understand and implement the scientific method, not to wear a lab coat and have a 'sciencey' job title,) and if they happen to be getting anything right in their predictions at all, it's an accident.

Re:Bullshit

[Daniel Dvorkin]

One doesnt need any particular knowledge of a given field to check whether or not fundamentals of scientific method are being applied and whether arguments are logical and supported or not.

Oh really? Are you competent to evaluate controversial issues in high-energy physics? Synthetic organic chemistry? Structural bioinformatics? Or is it only in regards to climatology where you think you have some magical insight which people who have worked and studied in the field for years lack?

'scientific consensus' (which, even if it did exist on this issue which it clearly does not,

A vast majority of the world's working climatologists isn't a consensus? I'm curious as to what you would consider constituting a consensus. 99%? 99.9%? Would you insist that there is no consensus so long as there is one dissenting voice, no matter how much of a crank that dissenter might be?

is still an entity with precisely ZERO place in the scientific method)

With regard to the methods of science, you're partly right -- obviously it's true that science isn't done by consensus, else no new science would ever be done at all. (I say "partly" because all scientists in the modern world build on the knowledge gained by their predecessors, and that knowledge is passed on by, yes, consensus in the field.) But with regard to the body of knowledge we call "science," you're dead wrong. Politicians aren't scientists. Lobbyists aren't scientists. Activists, as a rule, aren't scientists. Hell, when it comes to dealing with fields outside their expertise, scientists aren't scientists; my opinion as a bioinformatician is of absolutely no more import to the climatological debate than any other reasonably well-informed layman's, which is to say, not much. Which means that when it comes to setting policy based on science, it is the responsibility of those who do not work in the field to shut up and listen to those who do -- and when scientists in a particular field overwhelmingly agree, those outside the field have absolutely no credibility arguing with them.

So does the way that political control of funding is exploited to silence skeptical scientists. It is certainly true that most funding for skeptical scientific research on the subject comes from organisations that have a clear vested interest in minimising the issue - but equally clear this is a natural consequence when public funding is provisioned only to those researchers who play ball with the envirocultists.

Do you have any evidence for these statements? At all?

to be a scientist is to understand and implement the scientific method, not to wear a lab coat and have a 'sciencey' job title

To refer to "the scientific method" as though it were a single thing is to show that one's understanding of science is limited to half-remembered lessons from high-school "science class." And to imply, as you strongly do, that working scientists aren't really scientists because their results disagree with your politics is to show that you are an ideologue with no interest in science beyond how it can serve your agenda.

Re:Bullshit

[Roger W Moore]

Are you competent to evaluate controversial issues in high-energy physics?

Well yes, I am but that is not really the point. The point is are scientific methods being applied? Although I am high energy physicist and not a climatologist, it should be possible for a climatologist to provide convincing and conclusive evidence that humans are unambiguously the cause of the recent global warming. You have to be an expert to come up with the data and its interpretation but if you cannot explain the resulting evidence to a fellow scientist, even one outside your field, there is something wrong.

The problem with global warming (as I understand it) is that there is conflicting evidence as to the cause. So far I have not heard an expert on either side of the debate come up with convincing arguments to explain the other side's evidence. The conclusion I am therefore forced to reach is that we do not understand why the Earth is warming at the moment. Having had a chance to talk with an expert in a climate related field a couple of weeks ago this was his conclusion too.

So, I would disagree strongly with your '99%' concensus number and, while we should certainly respect and listen to the experts in the field, that does not mean that we cannot question them, especially when there is no concensus.

Re:Bullshit

[jonbryce]

Well there are people in England at the moment who are saying that global warming can't possibly be happening because it is very cold in the South of England at the current moment in time. The coldest it has been for about 20 years.

It is cold at the moment, colder than in for example Scotland, Greenland and Antarctica.

Trying to get them to understand the difference between "climate" and "weather", and the fact that it is global average temperatures that are increasing, is impossible. Instead they focus on today's temperatures in some little corner of England. The fact that today's temperatures in a little corner of Scotland are unseasonably warm doesn't matter though.

Re:Bullshit

[Arker]

BTW: Consensus is an integral part of science,

No it isnt.

it's implied every time you hear the phrase "scientists say".

Which is why that phrase is one which only tends to come out of the mouths of people who can't distinguish between 'scientific' and 'sciencey.'

Re:Bullshit

[UltraAyla]

While I agree with what TapeCutter said about you finding a reputable source that disagrees, I'll still help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

Yes, it's wikipedia, but it is extremely well cited, so believe it.

Re:Bullshit

[TapeCutter]

Congratulations, a well reasoned and genuinely skeptical post. Your self-confesed ignorance also implies you are intellectually honest but unfortunately it has let you down in a few places.

There is no consensus: just plain wrong

"So far I have not heard an expert on either side of the debate come up with convincing arguments to explain the other side's evidence." - Try here or here. There are very slim picking on the other side of the fence, but here is a list of individual scientists that disagree with all or part of the consensus.

"The problem with global warming (as I understand it) is that there is conflicting evidence as to the cause." - Multiple uncertainties are catered for by the error bars in this graph of known forcings. There is generally more uncertainty and possibly unknowns in the +ve/-ve feedbacks caused by these forcings although some such as water vapour are well known.

To cut a long story short, humans are NOT responsible for ALL the changes (eg solar flux in the graph above) but we are responsible for most of it. Most so called "skeptics" I have read over the last 25yrs or so subscribe to the "single cause" idea and build their strawmen by painting climatologists with the same brush.

Note that the list of skeptics link also defines the "the consensus" and is worth quoting...

The scientific consensus was summarized in the 2001 Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as follows:
1. The global average surface temperature has risen 0.6 ± 0.2 C since the late 19th century, and 0.17 C per decade in the last 30 years.
2.There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities", in particular emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.
3.If greenhouse gas emissions continue the warming will also continue, with temperatures projected to increase by 1.4 C to 5.8 C between 1990 and 2100. Accompanying this temperature increase will be increases in some types of extreme weather and a projected sea level rise of 9 cm to 88 cm, excluding "uncertainty relating to ice dynamical changes in the West Antarctic ice sheet". On balance the impacts of global warming will be significantly negative, especially for larger values of warming.

Re:Bullshit

[Arker]

Oh really? Are you competent to evaluate controversial issues in high-energy physics?

Only to the extent of being able to spot certain grosser errors. I'm sure there would be many errors that could be made in the more obscure corners of the field that would fly right by me. So this means that if I see a clear logical error that is NOT over my head, I'm supposed to just trust the supposed expert that made it? I dont think so. Quite the opposite. If he makes a mistake I can catch that's just more reason to think he's making plenty of others I can't.

Synthetic organic chemistry? Structural bioinformatics? Or is it only in regards to climatology where you think you have some magical insight which people who have worked and studied in the field for years lack?

I didnt claim any such 'magical insight' and you know it.

Are you really claiming that only someone with specialised experience in physics is qualified to point out errors in the arithmetic in a physics paper? So if A is a physicist and B is a mathematician, and B says A's paper makes an error in a given calculation, you're going to stick your fingers in your ears and ignore him until a qualified physicist makes the same observation? That's the modus operandi of a priesthood or a beaureacracy, not of a scientist.

A fundamental characteristic of science is that it relies on logic. Logical errors in ANY field can be fatal to claims which rely on them.

With regard to the methods of science, you're partly right -- obviously it's true that science isn't done by consensus, else no new science would ever be done at all. (I say "partly" because all scientists in the modern world build on the knowledge gained by their predecessors, and that knowledge is passed on by, yes, consensus in the field.) But with regard to the body of knowledge we call "science," you're dead wrong.

If the body of 'knowledge' you call science is characterised by testing propositions for truth by polling workers in a certain field on their opinion, rather than by rigorously testing the logical consequences of those propositions against empirical data, it is neither scientific nor is it knowledge.

Which means that when it comes to setting policy based on science, it is the responsibility of those who do not work in the field to shut up and listen to those who do

Not just a very unscientific statement, but in fact an actively anti-scientific statement. Just because you get paid to work in a field clearly does not ensure that you do that work in a scientifically valid and meaningful way. In fact, if anything, the opposite argument can be made, and clearly applies in some cases. Funding sources may not, quite often do not, understand, or care, about scientific rigor.

Re:Bullshit

[DrFalkyn]

Well there are people in England at the moment who are saying that global warming can't possibly be happening because it is very cold in the South of England at the current moment in time. The coldest it has been for about 20 years.

It is cold at the moment, colder than in for example Scotland, Greenland and Antarctica.

Trying to get them to understand the difference between "climate" and "weather", and the fact that it is global average temperatures that are increasing, is impossible. Instead they focus on today's temperatures in some little corner of England. The fact that today's temperatures in a little corner of Scotland are unseasonably warm doesn't matter though.

Actually there is one theory that the UK and much of Western Europe is going to get *colder*, because the melting of ice will shut down the Atlantic currents which keep those areas abnormally warm given its latitude.

Re:Bullshit

[TheCage]

So when there was a consensus that the earth was the center of the solar system, the people who believed that were being scientific?

Re:Bullshit

[Mashiki]

Why do people continue to link to the IPCC? When the scientists themselves continue to leave because data is being rubber stamped instead of being peer reviewed. My personal favorite is when scientists from different fields do research on non-specific areas and it's rubber stamped. Well I suppose it makes for good money, well that and it's lovely circus effect. We all love a good circus.

Lets not forget that global warming is an industry now, don't support it? You're not going to get tenure, funding and you're just going to be a broke sucker working out of your garage if you're lucky.

You want sources do your own research. It's out there, stop looking for the rubber stamps.

Re:Bullshit

[Shivetya]

I can easily ignore the global warming is caused by man fanatics by looking at average temperature charts by simply going back a thousand years. I can also ignore them for the last ten or so years as average temperatures have gone down. Yet if I bring it up I am bound to get shouted down or told I am ignorant of some previously not mentioned study that has a bullshit agency behind it with an official sounding name.

The fact is, temperatures do matter regardless of how isolated the locale is. Why? Because it goes to show that any measurement that does not take into fact changes which fall outside the accepted model are invalid themselves. Sorry, but we cannot ignore data about temperature spikes on either side. It just doesn't work that way.

It really comes down to one thing, whom does it benefit if one side is right versus the other? Who is making the real money on this? I will answer that, the environmentalist have been essentially taken over by big money. It wasn't too long ago when most corporations ignored "green" or offsets or whatever, but once they found how to make money on it they were more willing to play ball. Go look at the majority of people pontificating we are the cause then look to where they make their money, either direct or indirect, I am quite sure you will find out that their view is what it is because it supports their lifestyle, which usually expends so much resources to be contrary to everything they preach but damn if they don't have one thousand exceptions as to why "they" are allowed such. (then throw in the thousands of supporters who don't know the difference between Celsius an Fahrenheit and you get cult like followings and logic)

Re:Bullshit

[indifferent children]

I don't think anyone knows for certain, and if there is someone out there who's done the science properly and has proof, they'll have a tough time being identified through all the BS on both sides of the argument.

And that is what the oil companies purchased when they funded research to cast doubt on climate change. They shouldn't get any credit for original thought, though; the tobacco companies did this dance for decades, casting doubt on both lung cancer causation, and nicotine's addictiveness.

Re:Bullshit

[Grym]

The problem with this issue is that a great number of people fundamentally misunderstand the methodology of Science. The fact that so many have referenced "The Scientific Method" as if it is some sort of hard-and-fast rule that applies to the daily lives and work of research scientists in any field is quite telling. That notion is naive and absurd. The Scientific Method is merely a grade school-level thinking exercise meant to exemplify a systematic approach to understanding the world. Saying you can't trust the work of a scientist who doesn't follow the Scientific Method would be like saying "You can't run a football without an I formation." Neither of those statements makes any sense. The only difference is that most Americans know a thing or two about football and would laugh off the latter as sheer ignorance but, when it comes to the former, because they themselves are ignorant, they silently nod their heads in agreement.

"Are you really claiming that only someone with specialised experience in physics is qualified to point out errors in the arithmetic in a physics paper? ... If the body of 'knowledge' you call science is characterised by testing propositions for truth by polling workers in a certain field on their opinion, rather than by rigorously testing the logical consequences of those propositions against empirical data, it is neither scientific nor is it knowledge."

This is the essence of the problem, the modern form of anti-intellectualism at its most narcissistic. To the poster, the "Scientific Body of Knowledge" is just an informal opinion poll of eggheads, so where should his opinion come in? And what do eggheads know anyway? Why, the problem is probably in their arithmetic somewhere... If only someone with commonsense, such as himself, were to look at it, they would spot error immediately, but he has better things to do. Climatologists should just go back to chasing butterflies in fields or whatever is they do and leave him and his way of life the hell alone.

-Grym

Re:Bullshit

[scot4875]

Great point, but where are all these simple arithmetic errors that you've spotted?

Oh, you haven't found any? All you have are vague accusations that the scientific method isn't being followed?

--Jeremy

Re:Bullshit

[Roger W Moore]

There is no consensus: just plain wrong

An interesting link but your second link contains a substantial list of names who do not agree with the majority opinion. I would make a clear distinction between majority and consensus. As a non-expert it concerns me that there is such a long list of apparent experts who disagree with the majority opinion. Looking at my own field you would certainly not be able to find such a list of people who disagreed with the existence of, say, quarks. Perhaps a concensus is forming but it seems premature to say that there is one.

In addition these people are not making crazy-sounding arguments. For example I understood that the CO2-temperature relationship from ice samples now showed that the temperature rose BEFORE the CO2 level rose. I've yet to hear of any explanation as to why it is this way around (from either camp). There also needs to be some explanation of the causes of past sudden drops in temperature e.g. the little ice age in Europe that caused famine, froze the Thames etc. in medieval times. If we cannot explain that, before there was any industrial pollution, then how can we claim to know what is causing the current rise? ...and if you can explain these issues convincingly why do you let the media get away with not covering the counter argument?

You are right that the problem is my lack of expertise but producing a plot showing forcings or other model derived data is not convincing unless you can first convince me that you really can model the climate accurately....and given the apparent huge variation in models from different experts that seems unlikely.

In summary I would say that, on a balance of probability, it seems more likely that we are significantly affecting the climate than not. So I would mark it as cause for concern and something we should certain aim to avoid where possible. However the current proposed action is that we need to spend billions and billions of dollars, completely rearrange our economy etc. etc. To argue for that much upheaval you need a rock solid argument not a balance of probability argument, much like you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt to send someone to prison...and as long as there are a reasonable number of experts making (to the non-expert) logical, reasoned arguments against the majority opinion there will probably always be reasonable doubt, at least for non-experts.

We put up solar panels

[ducomputergeek]

I'm not sure about carbon neutral, but we've seen a our power bill go down by 90%. Still, it will take about 4 - 5 years to recoup the investment, but if you view it as a sunk cost, it's freed up a lot of cash flow.

Re:We put up solar panels

[vvaduva]

I am curious, is there a way to calculate the carbon emissions created by the manufacturing, transportation and installation of the panels or have you only done the financial cost/benefit analysis for the project? And if there is a way to calculate it, what are the benefits, if any?

This is a serious question btw.

Re:We put up solar panels

[ducomputergeek]

We didn't even bother to consider it because we didn't do it to be "Green". We did it because we had the cash on hand, the tax write off for the investment expired in December, and by switching to solar we freed up enough money to pay for another developers salary.

Carbon neutrality is a joke anyway

[dgatwood]

The whole concept is junk science. It's basically saying that you can urinate in someone's swimming pool if you filter an equal amount of salt out of the ocean.

The real world doesn't work that way. In the real world, local effects are just as bad as global effects, and there's no guarantee that opposite local effects in two places will ever actually cancel each other out. It's a nice way to help people feel good about themselves, but in the grand scheme of things, it is naive to think that carbon offsets, no matter how large, can undo the damage of the carbon you shouldn't have emitted in the first place....

Re:Carbon neutrality is a joke anyway

[FooAtWFU]

That's ridiculous. Unlike noxious-fume pollution, no one is in the least bit worried about the "local effects" of carbon dioxide. It already makes up billions of tons of atmosphere. It only does "damage" in the aggregate. The aggregate is all that matters.

Re:Carbon neutrality is a joke anyway

[EbeneezerSquid]

Except for the fact that CO2 is a very poor Greenhouse gas (how's the weather by the way? Love that Global warming, don't you?). A far, far superior greenhouse gas is even more common, and when CO2 gets filtered out, it get's replaced with this gas.

Noone mentions it though. Why? Because the Gas which is four to eight times more efficient at reflecting sunlight out into space is O2.

Oxygen

Here's an idea - Let's ban the release of Oxygen into the atmosphere! Maybe get some of the green-peacers out of there boats and start them on burning down forests! /sarcasm

Re:Carbon neutrality is a joke anyway

[sexconker]

Get the fuck out of here with your logic and science. These have no place in a discussion about the environment!

Re:Carbon neutrality is a joke anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

From wikipedia:

Although contributing to many other physical and chemical reactions, the major atmospheric constituents, nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), and argon (Ar), are not greenhouse gases. This is because homonuclear diatomic molecules such as N2 and O2 and monatomic molecules such as Ar have no net change in their dipole moment when they vibrate and hence are almost totally unaffected by infrared light.

Re:Carbon neutrality is a joke anyway

[dwarfking]

When did CO2, which is an absolute necessity for the foliage that covers this planet, become a pollutant? Without CO2 we have no plants. Without plants we have no food and less oxygen. Do we consider Oxygen a pollutant as well?

Re:Carbon neutrality is a joke anyway

[jcr]

When did CO2, which is an absolute necessity for the foliage that covers this planet, become a pollutant?

When Al Gore found it convenient to do so.

-jcr

Re:Carbon neutrality is a joke anyway

[evanbd]

Too much oxygen is bad for you. Too little is also bad. The fact that some CO2 is a necessary component of our atmosphere has very little bearing on whether some larger amount is better, worse, or about the same. There are a *wide* variety of substances that are important in small amounts and problematic in large amounts. It seems reasonable to consider them pollutants if they're man-made and at problematic levels.

Re:Carbon neutrality is a joke anyway

[TapeCutter]

"When did CO2, which is an absolute necessity for the foliage that covers this planet, become a pollutant?"

About 200yrs ago, when we started burning coal in sufficient quantities to significantly alter the composition of Earth's atmosphere.

Define: pollutant - "A resource out of place, that causes unwanted or undesirable changes in the environment."

Modern day Indulgences

[gatkinso]

And nothing more.

Spend the money by planing some trees.

Re:Modern day Indulgences

[jmccay]

Well, planting the trees would work better. ;) Anyways, if you want to spend the money, spend it on planting tree, bushes and anything else that can consume greenhouse gases in cities and other Urban environments--like on top of buildings in New York City. Scientific American did an article (this) on it, or if you prefer this article from wikipedia. This would be more productive than falling for Al Gore's scams!

Re:Modern day Indulgences

[TooMuchToDo]

Or buy renewable energy credits:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Energy_Certificates

Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), also known as Green tags, Renewable Energy Credits, or Tradable Renewable Certificates (TRCs), are tradable environmental commodities in the United States which represent proof that 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity was generated from an eligible renewable energy resource.

Much less ambiguous then a "carbon credit".

Offsets are marketing tools

[Anonymous Coward]

Bought by companies who want a good image. That's about all they are good for.

More of a scam, not so much a fix.

[CannonballHead]

If it were just a volunteer program, that might be one thing. Giving money is another thing. I have heard that they like building rainforests with the money, too, which I have also heard are NOT the best thing for producing oxygen and eating CO2...

Re:More of a scam, not so much a fix.

[reginaldo]

Maybe they should stop building rainforests and start growing rainforests. That's probably the problem, cement trees are not very good at respiration.

Re:More of a scam, not so much a fix.

[jcr]

Plants consume CO2 during the day, and release CO2 at night, in a process called respiration.

They are truly carbon neutral : )

Nope. They don't release as much as they take in. The carbon they absorb from the air gets combined with water and nitrogen and ends up as sugars and proteins.

-jcr

Re:More of a scam, not so much a fix.

[TheRaven64]

I don't know where you heard this. Plants respire all of the time, absorbing O2 and generating CO2 (excuse the lack of subscripts on Slashdot). If they didn't, they would die very quickly. When they are being hit by light, they also photosynthesise and turn CO2 into O2 and sugars, usually absorbing more CO2 than they generate with respiration. These sugars are turned into starch for storage and broken down to build more bits of plant. Plants remove carbon from the atmosphere and build it in to their bodies. A significant proportion of the mass of a growing plant is carbon it has absorbed from the atmosphere.

Plants are only carbon neutral if you count the time after they have died and been broken down by bacteria or burned.

Cheat Neutral

[svnt]

My favorite commentary on carbon offsetting is Cheat Neutral

Brilliant way to make a statement. Yes, it is real. No, the creators don't keep the money. No, I'm not involved with the company/website.

FTA:

[CaptainPatent]

as some recipients of offsets say the results of their sustainable efforts would be achieved regardless of any one company's investment.

That's not true, those recipients wouldn't get filthy rich without company investments!

The Solution

[rlp]

The government just needs to enact two laws to solve global warming:

1) Ban all e-commerce
2) Mandate a one thousand year document retention period

All government and commercial transactions will be done on paper drastically increasing demand. Paper companies will chop down trees to make paper and then plant new ones that will pull carbon dioxide out of the air. The carbon in the form of paper will be sequestered by the document retention requirement. Problem solved.

Oh yeah, and to speed commerce we can build a network of pneumatic tubes.

Something similar for unfaithful boyfriends...

[adamofgreyskull]

CheatNeutral. Enjoy!

Oh yes, the old Catholic model.

[gandhi_2]

Carbon Indulgences. I sense an Environmental Protestantism coming on.

Not that easy

[Moraelin]

Sorry to piss on someone's cult of the hunter-gatherer utopia parrade, but it didn't work that way.

Pre-historic hunter-gatherers caused the extinction of thousands of species and, for example, all the mega-fauna in the Americas. There are whole species, e.g., the mammoth, for which you can trace its shrinking habitat historically and it looks damn suspiciously like the opposite of the pattern of human spread. Yes, there were environment factors too, which probably were already making it harder for them to thrive, but nevertheless, wherever the humans went, the mammoths soon went extinct.

That's just one species out of _thousands_.

Hunter-gatherers in North America used "buffalo jumps" to herd whole herds of buffalo off cliffs and then eat the resulting mess of meat. They only got all in touch with nature when that source of food started to not be enough.

(And even then, an animist's idea of harmony with nature is giving back to the _spirits_, not to nature itself. If you hunt bears, you give offerings and prayers to the great bear spirits, whose job is to make sure you get plenty of bears to hunt. It was a pretty damn human-centric view of the world. And if they get to be scarce, then you just need to pray more and appease the spirits better, not, say, give the bears a fucking chance to repopulate.)

Humans are a pretty scary predator. Most other predator have 1-2 species of prey they depend on, creating equilibrium cycles. When the rabbits depopulate, some of the foxes starve too and don't breed as much either, giving the rabbits a chance to rebound. And viceversa. Humans have no such balancing factors. If the population of dodos drops, the humans still survive on fruits and other animals, and keep on hunting the dodos into extinction. And sometimes keep on hunting them just for fun, trophies, proof of manhood, or whatever. The hunter-gatherers did exactly the same too. Why do you think they had those feather headdresses, or wolf skins, or whatnot? To show how great hunters they are, even if they didn't actually need to eat that animal.

So measuring the ecological impact just in carbon is misleading at best, and freaking stupid at worst. Hunter-gatherers caused mass extinctions.

Re:Not that easy

[jcr]

Pre-historic hunter-gatherers caused the extinction of thousands of species and, for example, all the mega-fauna in the Americas.

They also routinely set fires in forests and grasslands. As it turns out, that's not a bad idea if you want healthy forests or prairies.

-jcr

Re:Not that easy

[Repossessed]

So humans killed off every single dire wolf, but left the smaller but otherwise near identical North American wolf packs, and every other major predator in the area, alone?

That is bullshit, pure utter bullshit. Mastodons and mammoths died out at the same time despite being on other sides of the planet from each other. The mega fauna also went extinct at the exact same time, in places where humans had been around for 50,000 years (and had actually caused some extinctions when they showed up). This was a global event, carbon dioxide levels dropped, it got cold as hell, plants died, and anything that was too big starved.

Get fat and sequester carbon...

[aurispector]

Now THAT is how the real world works. Congratulations on making a sound investment. Carbon trading is so obviously a useless bullshit scam. The real damage done is in the fact that people think it actually works and hence ignore other actually beneficial measures.

I'd love to do a parody website about the environmental benefits of obesity. After all, human fat is a fairly dense hydrocarbon. The fatter you become, the more carbon is sequestered. Imagine the environmental benefits if everyone in the US gained 30 lbs! A billion pounds of carbon sequestered! Woo-hoo!

Re:Get fat and sequester carbon...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Note that in the "real world" of which you speak, the reason it was economical for GPP to put up solar panels was because of the tax writeoff -- i.e., governments setting environmental policy. Imagine that.

Re:Get fat and sequester carbon...

[Muad'Dave]

After all, human fat is a fairly dense hydrocarbon.

I got the creeps when I ran across the section of the CRC regarding the composition of various fats. One was labeled 'Depot Fat', and gave the fractions of its various constituents. Depot Fat is people!!! Ewwww!

Being what could be generously called 'Portly', I've always wondered how long I'd burn if you stuck a wick in my tummy and lit it.

Some Credits are More Equal than Others

[KnightNavro]

Some credits are better than others. There are several verification programs in existence. In the USA, I am most familiar with the Chicago Climate Exchange and the California Climate Action Reserve (CCAR). A lot of projects would have occurred anyway due to profitability or regulations, and GHG credits from these projects are junk. Preserving a piece of forest in a desolate valley nobody could profitably harvest or installing a landfill gas flare where carbon has become too expensive should be considered "business as usual," but unfortunately some accreditation agencies and verifiers don't consider "business as usual" and say there is a reduction anyway. These credits are a scam perpetrated by the seller, the verifier, the accreditor, and sometimes the buyer.

There are some projects that generate real reductions. For example, capture or methane from manure lagoons or landfills where it is not required by regulation and is not less expensive than carbon treatment or the planting and preservation of trees in an area that would otherwise be harvested. These credits are real reductions.

The problem is the layman has no idea where their credits are coming from. I'm in the industry, and I can't always tell you the value of a credit.

The Indulgence of Global Warming Religion

[geoffrobinson]

Global Warming has all the elements of caricatures of religion.

Sin? Carbon.

Original Sin? Capitalism/Industry.

Which leads us to carbon offset. Yes, just like Roman Catholic indulgences. Except they produced something useful. The Sistine Chapel.

Re:The Indulgence of Global Warming Religion

[kaos07]

Right, because "sin" is "all the elements of religion". On that logic you could pretty much call scientists proclaiming the dangers of lung cancer as a religious cult.

Equating decades of scientific research to a story tale about a Jewish carpenter and his drinking buddies is ridiculous.

Overthinking anything

[dmomo]

Is what will cause the over intelligent person to fail. No matter how much time you spend analyzing some decision, there will be even more to consider. You will never know for sure what the best option is.

It comes down to "stupid" and seemingly "irrational" reasons that make us finally decide.

This:

These Corn Pops are cheaper... but I get more Oz. per Dollar if I buy the more expensive ones... but I may not finish the bigger box... but if I get the small box, I might have a surplus of milk. Oh.. I could buy the smaller milk. Oh wow. The value of the quart-sized milk drops dramatically from that of the Gallon size. Ok. I will rule out milk as a deciding factor...

Or this:
These corn pops look good. Big box or small? I'm not that hungry now, which has nothing to do with anything... but small box it is.

I guess it's a matter of choosing your battles. In general, I believe that if we mean well and make honest decisions, on average we will do better. Not always, but it will tend towards better. Do try.. but do not kill yourself. The returns on worrying will likely diminish as you sit there.

If everyone TRIED to be conscious of energy waste, I feel pretty confident that the net payoff would be worth it. Again, only go as far as is reasonable. Yes. That's a subjective thing. That's one thing "Humans" are skilled at. Subjectivity. It's an important part of what makes us intelligence. Call it your heart or your gut. It's smarter than the credit we give it.

The inexact science of everything

[philspear]

(Kind of an off-topic rant, mostly because I'm seeing a lot of responses saying "See?!? Global warming is clearly crap because it has holes, now leave my diesel-powered hummer alone")

When did people start thinking science was easy and could ever provide a simple answer to anything? At best you get vague general theories, and usually know at least a few big exceptions prior to the theory being written down. And that's when the theory applies to something that is entirely academic. When it has serious economic implications, how clear a picture do you think is going to develop?

Maybe we do need to start adding "just a theory" to evolution taught in high school, and add it to everything else taught in science as well.

It's important to point out the holes in any theory, to critique buisness practices and government regulations, and avoid the harms that global warming could bring about, but resist the temptation to think in terms of black and white on such complex issues.

Carbon-Credits are not all a scam

[ZiggyM]

Ok, most comments are heavily critizising carbon credits, so, risking being bashed, I will write a little about the goods of carbon credits, from a perspective of a peruvian citizen. First, of course its not the ideal solution. Many in slashdot want either ideal or nothing. The best solution is for factories to stop polluting. However, in the real world, this is not currently achievable, as most of us continue to buy products that we ask those factories to make for us. Factories are just the intermediaries, we are the ones that demand more stuff. if you really want *factories* to stop polluting, *stop buying* their stuff, reduce, reuse, and recycle, and have less kids. That said, the Kyoto protocol is at least a starting point, which formalized the mechanism for carbon credits. its a way for factories to continue polluting, BUT with two new advantages: 1) Some countries now put a price on that pollution, and factories now must pay for that, or must reduce their pollution. The best incentive is always money. In Europe this does work. And 2) not only do they have to pay, but that money goes towards projects that are good for the environment. As an example, here in Peru where I live, its actually a good business to plant and maintain a forest, because we get $ from carbon credits. This would have been impossible before Kyoto, and I can tell you first-hand that nobody gives a crap here about forests unless they receive some money in exchange, and the government does nothing to stop deforestation, so its left to private business to do something. In fact our rainforest is being heavily devastated mostly by coca plantations that destroy it. At least the carbon credits offset that a little bit. Hopefully as the cost of a carbon credit goes up, so will the business of making and maintaining forests. I also have a lot of criticism for carbon credits, but nobody was saying what its good for, so I had to.

Old news

[pjbgravely]

I always wondered what the motives for claiming that CO2 causes global warming. I figured it must be power or money.

After reading this article I finally figured out it was power.

What's old is new again.

[nsayer]

How are these different from the indulgences the Catholic church used to sell?

For those unclear on the concept, the church used to sell certificates that granted time off from purgatory for your sins. To make a long story short, the unscrupulous sale of these are one of the big ticket items in the list of thesis that Martin Luther pinned up to the church door, which led eventually to the protestant reformation.

Re:A first post should be more like this

[hairyfeet]

While i would agree with you, you really have to remember that there is some really strong groupthink going on here at Slashdot sometimes. Not to mention the sockpuppet brigade. While I don't really care for all the "nigger nigger nigger" that seems to have become a part of EVERY SINGLE DISCUSSION here on Slashdot, I personally think it is better to put up with them than deal with the real possibility that real comments will be deleted simply because they went against groupthink.

And now I would like to address the "nigger nigger nigger" trolls directly. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid your trolling simply doesn't measure up to the high standards we have here at Slashdot. You see, unlike at digg or fark, we here at Slashdot have a rich tradition of truly great trolling, and because of this we try to attract only the best and brightest of the trolling community. Our trolls have gone on to lead very rich and lucrative careers in exciting and rewarding fields such as shills for Microsoft and Comcast management. Who do you think came up with the "Vista Capable" program? That's right, a former Slashdot troll!

So please, in the future put more care and thought into your trolling. Remember that you are walking the path blazed by such luminaries as the GNAA and that you stand beside such greats as the shit eater troll and the ASCII goatse guy. So in the future try to remember the greats that came before you along with your trolling peers and live up to their high standards. Maybe if you troll hard you too will join the greats and have your portrait in the trolling hall of fame!(Currently located in the mens room of the Hooters restaurant in Paramus,NJ) Thank you for your time and may you have a successful career trolling here at slashdot!

Re:Really?

[Entropy2016]

Despite its relatively small concentration overall in the atmosphere, CO2 is an important component of Earth's atmosphere because it absorbs and emits infrared radiation at wavelengths of 4.26 Âm (asymmetric stretching vibrational mode) and 14.99 Âm (bending vibrational mode), thereby playing a role in the greenhouse effect.

So what if it's a small amount of gas relative to the total atmosphere? That doesn't change the fact that its properties with respect to a specific band of thermal radiation are problematic for us.

It's easy to belittle small numbers. But how big of a number representing benzene concentration would you like to be exposed to? How much does it take to give you cancer? I promise you it's a tiny number.

What is relevant is what that concentration of something does. And in the case of atmospheric carbon this is significant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

Scam

[Ferretman]

It should be fairly clear to nearly anybody that the carbon offset stuff is a scam. They're rather like modern day indulgences...