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Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

arstechnica.com

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Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#111

Post by machina_ex_deus »

tito wrote: post #97
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #95

You know what actually needs an investment? Climate models which are completely shit right now. It's actually preposterous that there are trillions of dollars worth of decisions in ESG and climate credits and government incentives while the science behind this is supported by old fortran code that has terrible quality and can't give reasonable predictions. We have trillions of dollars chasing predictions of code bare…

Say more about this! Let's say you had $100B to build better climate models over the next 5 years. Where would you spend it? My general sense is the models are good enough to tell us that a) things are headed in the wrong direction and b) we're really far off from a solution. Generally in agreement with you but I haven't researched deeply about what's needed on more modeling and how to prioritize.

You need at least two completely independent teams who don't see each other's code so you'll have a rough idea how much developer bias is responsible for the signal. Right now they are all copying code from each other, a single error in these and all the climate models are effected. Replication here should mean different scientists writing different code arriving at the same estimates.

It needs to be open source, and it needs to be way more organized, no physical constants which aren't constant or which have bad precision or which have different values in different parts of the code.

Actual error modeling built in or at least a way to measure and quantify the accuracy.

Some models only use CO2 input for radiation and not for many other parameters that depend on CO2. Because the code is a mess and constants that shouldn't be constants are all over the place. And getting "constants" right is even more important than having high resolution to the simulation.

Getting real physical data to replace all the ad hoc constants is extremely important. And validating the correctness of the cloud modeling with real world data is also important.

And you can't write huge spaghetti code, it needs to be readable and comprehensible to someone other than original programmer so that people can validate the assumptions.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#112

Post by twoodfin »

transcriptase wrote: post #101
twoodfin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and thus it’s highly motivating for every link of the supply chain to figure out how to exploit low- or no-carbon energy sources.

Which might work in other countries with a different climate, geography, and population density but until electric tractor trailers or teleportation become a reality it’s just increasing the cost of living for everyone who already can’t afford to “invest in green solutions”. Unfortunately our current government doesn’t realize that they’re not comparable to California.

Carbon emissions produce externalized costs or they don’t. If they do, it’s the proper role of government to internalize them while ameliorating any inequitable transition costs.

Everything else is green theater.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#113

Post by [deleted] »

transcriptase wrote: post #62
jfim wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A carbon tax just puts a price on carbon emissions. So if the guy bikes to work and doesn't buy gas, he's not paying taxes on carbon emissions, while the CEO in a private jet pays more. If the carbon tax proceeds are redistributed, the guy in the kitchen comes ahead, actually.

Everything in the modern world has the oil/energy needed to create it baked into the price. Implementing a carbon tax that increases that cost along every step of a supply chain increases the price of everything, not just gasoline. See: Price of groceries (and all other CPG) in Canada. People will blame the retailers and lazy headlines about record profits, but if you look at their actual margins, the value of CAD, a…

[deleted]

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#114

Post by emodendroket »

InexSquirrel wrote: post #57
emodendroket wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's assuming the afforestation is even helpful and not one of the various examples of incentives for planting trees leading to work that's actually doing more harm than good.

That's an interesting comment. I hadn't really ever considered that afforestation might be a bad thing - always just assumed "more trees = good". In what sort of examples would it be a bad thing? Trying to create forests in places that naturally weren't forests in the past?

Right. For instance, one story I read concerned disturbing grasslands in order to plant more trees — foolhardy because grasslands themselves are excellent carbon sinks and the trees would take a long time to be comparable. Others concerned trees being planted with little possibility of survival. I believe the first was in China and the second in Turkey if anyone wants to dig through news archives and try and find these stories again.

Obviously the problem here is people just setting “trees planted” as the metric because it’s easy to count and creating perverse incentives.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#115

Post by emodendroket »

tito wrote: post #93
emodendroket wrote: post #54

Or perhaps they're doing exactly their job but their job is not actually what it purports to be. It seems a bit like a modern-day version of indulgences.

I appreciate this comment. It's possible they're doing exactly their job but that it's not a job we need done. The job we need done is rapid decarbonization. So how do we do that?

That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I feel like the biggest obstacle here is that any invocation of shared sacrifice or giving up forms of convenience, even fairly minor ones, prompts howls of indignation. Maybe we’re just doing some things we can’t do going forward even if it was comfortable to be able to do so.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#116

Post by bradgessler »

I’m looking forward to the day where the problem is framed as “we need to learn how to control our climate” and become a Kardashev Type 1 Civilization.

I’ve found when I’m around people on either side of the climate change issue, they agree it’s a worthy goal to try to control and harness all of earths natural phenomena.

It might take hundreds of years, thousands of years, or maybe we never get there, but it seems like a good goal.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#117

Post by snapplebobapple »

tito wrote: post #98
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #3

> From project implementation until 2020, those 18 projects were expected to generate up to 89 million carbon offsets to be sold in the global carbon market. But researchers estimate that only 5.4 million of the 89 million, or 6.1 percent, would be associated with actual carbon emission reductions. It sounds like a massively fraudulent market with little actual oversight.

I think that's an acceptable conclusion. So then, what's next? We need to rapidly decarbonize the economy. Current solutions aren't working great, so how do we do it?

Change zoning and a bunch of other regs to promote Netherlands style building and transport, rather than the ugly arse parking lot carbonized death culture we have now, invest heavily in developing cost effective nuclear (get that regulator out of the way of change), invest in fusion and reprocessing nuclear fuel research for medium to long term, start pumping out small nuclear plants from factories that can be put on the grid at strategic places to limit transmission build out need and limit losses of one of nuclear design we have now by going mass produced, not worry so much about our co2 outout for the next 3 decades it takes us to build all this, then start capping carbon out put hard

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#118

Post by ip26 »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #88
ip26 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the big problems seems to be simply getting supporters to agree on what to do with the money. There are plenty of supporters who staunchly insist the money must be used exclusively for miscellaneous social justice causes.

Give it directly back to the people. Do not allow them to spend it on anything, not even to fund the (hopefully small) beaurocracy necessary to implement the tax.

I agree with you. Trouble is, they don’t, and thus the issue can’t present a united front, and it doesn’t get anywhere.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#119

Post by akomtu »

tito wrote: post #98
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #3

> From project implementation until 2020, those 18 projects were expected to generate up to 89 million carbon offsets to be sold in the global carbon market. But researchers estimate that only 5.4 million of the 89 million, or 6.1 percent, would be associated with actual carbon emission reductions. It sounds like a massively fraudulent market with little actual oversight.

I think that's an acceptable conclusion. So then, what's next? We need to rapidly decarbonize the economy. Current solutions aren't working great, so how do we do it?

Any real solution would throw a wrench into the engine of our economy. The US is the biggest consumer, so the US gov could demand each product to be stamped with a manufacturer id, and charge the manufacturer for proper disposal of the thrown away items. Most of the manufacturers will leave the market and go bankrupt, because they produce junk, often intentionally. Think of all those washing machines with cheap plastic bearings that wear out precisely after the warranty expires. Whatever products are left will be rock solid and too expensive for most americans, who will join the manufacturers to end the "manufacturer id" law.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#120

Post by asu_thomas »

tito wrote: post #98
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #3

> From project implementation until 2020, those 18 projects were expected to generate up to 89 million carbon offsets to be sold in the global carbon market. But researchers estimate that only 5.4 million of the 89 million, or 6.1 percent, would be associated with actual carbon emission reductions. It sounds like a massively fraudulent market with little actual oversight.

I think that's an acceptable conclusion. So then, what's next? We need to rapidly decarbonize the economy. Current solutions aren't working great, so how do we do it?

You have to end capitalism, and anybody taking this stuff seriously knows that, and they knew carbon offset nonsense was fraudulent the entire time. It was painfully obvious. So what's next? Another fraudulent scheme, because the only other option is socialism.
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