Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by foota » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:10 AM UTC

Sytten wrote: post #155

I get similar a similar vibe about carbon credits than I got with crypto currencies / NFT. I am wondering if the SEC is going to look into them at some point and treat them a unregistered securities fraud.

I don't think they're similar, are they? Securities are about investments, whereas carbon credits are "consumed"?

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

#162

Post by _madmax_ » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:11 AM UTC

You can expect this kind of dishonesty and self-serving politics for as long as we tolerate climate change induced disasters and its consequences on the human kind.

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

#163

Post by reilly3000 » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:12 AM UTC

> “These carbon credits are essentially predicting whether someone will chop down a tree, and selling that prediction."

I struggle to think of an expletive that works here. The people of the UK are providing welfare to companies for what? Not cutting down trees that don’t exist?

The article later goes in to say researchers found evidence that 6% of the credits are having the intended effects.

The malignancy of the authors of this program is astonishing.

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

#164

Post by jakeinspace » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:13 AM UTC

Every corporation that has advertised itself as being carbon neutral should be accountable to class action suits for false advertising. I’m sure most are careful enough to specify exactly what they mean by carbon neutral in fine print though, so they’re probably safe.

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

#165

Post by abalaji » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:21 AM UTC

What we need are measured carbon credits that are past-looking... i.e. this device or plant captured x tons of carbon

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

#166

Post by efitz » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:30 AM UTC

Carbon credits and offsets of all flavors are a scam.

I just searched Google[1] for "carbon credits scam" and the first several entries were from Vox[2] (it's complicated), WaPo[3] (it's a scam), GreenPeace[4] (it's a scam), the Guardian[5] (scam), and Center for American Progress[6] (we need new oversight to curb fraud).

These are hardly right-wing or climate skeptics. I am very inclined to believe them; I believe that con artists are gonna find a way to game any new financial system to their own advantage.

Personally, as the market is so abstract and as verification is often difficult, I don't see an effective way to remove the fraud from such systems. Granted, I am no expert in carbon trading, but the abstractness seems like a fraud magnet.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=carbon+credit+scam

[2] https://www.vox.com/23817575/carbon-offsets-credits-financia...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2023/04/17/carbon-offs...

[4] https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/50689/carbon-...

[5] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/23/australi...

[6] https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-cftc-should-rai...

[ed] added line feeds to fix run-ons

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

#167

Post by staplers » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:32 AM UTC

turnsout wrote: post #152

At this rate, we'll be able to make every company carbon neutral by 2030 without making any actual changes to the environment! Go capitalism!

You mean making "while making monumental changes to the environment"

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

#168

Post by SamBam » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:32 AM UTC

If you had $5000 that you wanted to use to fight climate change, and you wanted to have it have a bigger multiplying effect than your own personal consumption (install heat pumps, get electric car, etc.), where would you put that, given that most carbon credits seem to be scams?

That is, what's the least-scammy carbon credit, and/or place of concrete change?

Places I donate to, but wonder how much the effect of each is:

* Climate charities focused on legislation (EarthJustice, Clean Air Task Force, EDF, NRDC)

* Direct CO2 removal (Climeworks). Seems like a drop in the bucket, but feel like this tech needs to grow.

* Goldstandard.org Carbon Credits. May be just as scammy, but appears to be direct gifts to green energy projects in developing world. (Of course, maybe they would have gotten the money anyway.)

What are other people's thoughts?

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

#169

Post by shaunxcode » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:33 AM UTC

turnsout wrote: post #152

At this rate, we'll be able to make every company carbon neutral by 2030 without making any actual changes to the environment! Go capitalism!

And when it all goes to shit they can blame it on a flakey excel formula.

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

#170

Post by motohagiography » Tue, Aug 29, 2023, 2:35 AM UTC

Sytten wrote: post #155

I get similar a similar vibe about carbon credits than I got with crypto currencies / NFT. I am wondering if the SEC is going to look into them at some point and treat them a unregistered securities fraud.

I like how the people who say the cryptocurrencies millions of people actually want and use are ponzi scams, but don't apply the same standard of reasoning to carbon credits that nobody wants, and for which organic demand is zero.

Carbon credits are just nihlist virtue tokens that spread viral malignant bureaucracy. It's a made up thing to insert party faithful into organizations to "manage," this pretend virtue money.