141–150 of 227 posts
I've been wondering how the various companies that have CO2 offset programs do it; whether it's credible or not.
If anyone from Stripe is reading - is it possible yet for me to simply donate money to the portfolio you’ve assembled without running a business? We purchase monthly offsets now and I’d love to switch to funding direct carbon capture (and will happily spend more).
I'm surprised to not see these investments directed towards the voluntary carbon market, in which projects such as those REDD+ certified achieve more than 10X higher efficiency, with significant co-benefits in biodiversity and support to the local communities (here's an example I give often: https://standfortrees.org/ ). It looks like the projects were chosen through the biases of Silicon Valley, chosen to be futuris…
There is a distinction between carbon credits and negative emissions. I wouldn't say these projects are bias towards silicon valley style there is simply a growing acceptance that nature based solutions - whole undeniably important and essential - are simply not enough. They are cheap but slow. Trees can be wiped out with wild-fires releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere. Negative emissions technologies such as bio-o…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, simply crush billions of tons of olivine and move it to a beach. Weathering olivine doesn't scale, because you need so much. It involves hitherto unprecendented amounts of quarrying and then transport. The quarrying would destroy massive amounts of habitat. After the waves do their trick, near-shore habitats would be devastated because the entire ocean floor is covered in olivine. I am a former geophysicist by th…
Once people realize the true impact of climate change they are going to be desperate enough to attempt anything that even shows a tiny glimmer of hope. The only problem is that some people pretend that this glimmer is a guaranteed solution.
These kind of pie-in-the-sky things takes money and attention from real solutions that work. They are false hopes that make people complacent and the problem seem less urgent, thinking that we'll tech our way out without fundamental changes to how we live on this planet.
Is there anywhere I can credibly pay any reasonable amount of money to offset my CO2 emissions? I would be willing to pay a monthly salary for this, if the effect can be demonstrated to be sustainable and permanent. I've been wondering how the various companies that have CO2 offset programs do it; whether it's credible or not.
Carbon capture is necessary in the long term, for particular emissions that are hard to avoid (like specific industrial processes and parts of agriculture). But while we're still pumping out emissions that can be easily and cheaply displaced today, like coal and gas fired grid electricity, then the money being spent on carbon capture is being spent terribly ineffectively. And globally, we don't have the time or money…
When it comes to long-term technologies, they just don't become ready when you need them. We need to start investing in them today so they're ready when we need them to operate at scale.
One thing to consider is that "carbon capture" can be a good stopgap approach to long-term energy storage. For example, use the extra sunlight in the summer to run carbon capture, and then on shorter winter days burn fossil fuels.
I am curious to know what the business case looked like to get "climate" added as a feature to the product roadmap in a for-profit company.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>carbon removal . . . smells of indulgences Do you believe a religious metaphor to be useful for understanding climate change? Do you believe adding CO2 molecules to the air to be intrinsically sinful with the result that no amount of subsequent removal of CO2 can wash away the sin?
Well, indulgences are basically fraud and CO2 offsets that do not materialize are also fraud. The problem isn't on the buyer side. It's that the seller is inherently going to break his promises and defraud you for a penny.
But my main point is that global warming is eminently amenable to technical solutions similar to how for example putting humans on the moon was eminently amenable. Not all societal concerns are so amenable, but for those that are, it seems to me very suboptimal to resort to analogies with religious concepts in public discussions of the concern.
My first comment has a score of -4 now by the way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can only hope that those driving the division (older people) will be dead soon, so that the younger generations who are by and large more eco-friendly can get on with the difficult work that needs to be done. Its past time for the old, rotten way of thinking to be plowed under.
I'm not entirely convinced older people are driving the division.