Sometimes it’s better to laugh than cry, and believe me, the reality that we might rely on carbon offsets as a primary means to reduce our global warming emissions is enough to make me weep. The situation is so absurd that Greenpeace this week launched thecroc.org, a satirical look at how carbon offsets could undermine both U.S. legislation and the U.N. climate negotiations by giving big polluters a giant loophole to continue dirty business as usual.
Carbon offsets often do not deliver promised results. Offsets from forest projects are especially unreliable because the deforestation they are supposed to stop in one area can easily move elsewhere. The use of these sorts of offsets would not only give big polluters a giant loophole, it could actually increase global warming pollution.
In addition, as carbon credits are paid for and traded under a new cap and trade system, low-quality offsets threaten to corrupt those new markets. Cheap offsets could literally act as “sub-prime” carbon credits, creating huge financial risks. This risk was demonstrated yet again this week when the U.N. actually shut down SGS UK, one of the world’s leading carbon offset accreditation firms, after it was unable to show that its staff had thoroughly vetted offset projects.
The SGS embarrassment was a blow to backers of offset schemes and it should be a wake up call to policymakers as they work to craft new climate agreements both here and internationally. The ACES bill that cleared the House earlier this year has up to 2 billion tons of offsets available per year.
Because the situation is so ridiculous, Greenpeace had a bit of fun and developed CROC, a fake government agency that confers the benefits of carbon offsets to the average citizen. Users can get credit for doing some good for the environment, which they can use to do some thing bad to it, just like corporate polluters do. Check out the PSA above and follow CROC on Twitter!
Hi Matt,
Thanks for this post. Wondering if you, or any of your contributors here, would be willing to post something concerning Green Ethics on a collaborative blog I manage. I couldn’t find your email, which is why I’m leaving a comment. Please email me if you want to know more – Dear30pov@gmail.com.
Thank you! And feel free to delete this once you’ve read it.
-lee lee
To heck with you and the rest of the non-believers out there. Offsets are great for the climate.
Just ask Congressman Rick Boucher. As a friend of polluting industries, the press asked him why he voted for the climate bill in Congress. And his answer was pretty freakin’ awesome. He said the 2 billion tons of offsets in the bill “means an electric utility burning coal will not have to reduce the emissions at the plant site. It can just keep burning coal.”
There you go!
And don’t go questioning the quality of offsets out there. These are not your daddy’s offsets. Your daddy probably never even bought offsets in his life. These are new and improved, extra special quality set up by really super smart guy offsets. There may have been a few bad offsets out there last month, but the ones we’re going to make in the future are gonna be super solid. You have my word.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article6832259.ece
If you actually read some of the glossy reports out there or went to some pricey offset conferences or were paid by an organization pushing offsets, you would understand that you are wrong.
Matt, you are way over the line my friend.
Offsets are the best way to help the climate. Why? Because they’re cheap, inexpensive AND cost effective. Boo-yah. That’s a triple-whammy.
Don’t worry your tree-hugging head about the quality of offsets. Oh sure, there have been a few problems with offsets currently like the suspension of the world’s largest offset validator last week, but the offsets we’re going to make in the future are Not Your Daddy’s Offsets (NYDO). Instead of being like the offsets of today, the NYDOs of the future will be new and improved with extra special super smart people designing them. They will be way smarter than you. And all the problems will go away. We just about ready to perfect this stuff. You’re gonna love it. I promise.
If you read the glossy brochures, went to fancy offset conferences or worked for an organization that promotes offsets (like CROC) you would know how wrong you are.
I feel sorry for you because you are so naive.
Sincerely,
Carl Cordova, CROC Public Relations Czar
Yes, I think we should give our taxes to the politician who promises to lower the temperature of the planet Earth and plow my driveway for our 7 months of snow cover like last winter, and the winter before that and the winter before that……..
Maybe some humour really IS needed for you warmies to realize the truth and that is how history will laugh at the very thought of catalytic converter gas, plant food and the building block of life that it is, yes CO2, was going to kill our planet, (“catastrophic climate crisis”-IPCC, NASA), at some unknown point in the future, for sure, maybe, could be, possibly………! And we called this and precaution and correlation science? And we believed politicians who promised to lower the temperature of the planet with our tax money.
“Yes, we must sacrifice ourselves. We will do it one by one by using an organically grown hemp rope to hang ourselves as it is earth friendly and recyclable. Our bodies will be burned by the surviving scientists with clean burning biofuel from organically grown corn, up in the tropical Arctic former tundra soil enriched with the bodies of dead polar bears.
Our poor helpless 5 billion year old planet that we created and maintained has now got cancer and it is our fault and we must do ourselves in to please the climate gods of science. Praise be to the science and the scientists and the IPCC bible.
Our planet was delicate and fragile and we let it all go to smithereens.
Please punish us science gods. We ask you to please leave only the science gods alive to repopulate our sick planet with the finest specimens of dwarf, low impact on the planet females. Yes, we can make the sky bluer and the grass greener.
Ug! Pass the coconut.”
What a great website Greenpeace has created! Planting trees to offset emissions, haha, what a joke!
This generation of politically correct and obedient boot lappers look up to a fat politician who promises to lower the temperature of the planet earth with their tax money. If these are activists, try being rebels and challengers instead of proping up this doomsday dogma like a bunch of 1939 Greenzis.
Preserve, protect and respect our planet, not spread this silly fear all the time the world is ending. Can you be responsible enviros.
This is hilarious! Thanks Matt!
Try the Global Warming Standup Comedy thread ATtILA:
http://www.topix.com/forum/news/global-warming/TPK1T48AE5VSD60N3/p82#lastPost