Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 233 posts

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

#201

Post by wildrhythms »

TexanFeller wrote: post #198
SamBam wrote: post #168

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…

Start buying reusable and BIFL goods and avoid everything disposable. It's expensive, but worth it for more than the planet. We need to have a lot more focus on the reduce and reuse components of the solution. Most of what we Americans buy is cheap disposable nonsense that shouldn't exist.

You say the disposable nonsense shouldn't exist, so wouldn't a better legal solution be lobbying to better regulate the facilities where these harmful pollutants are originating from?

My cynical outlook is that the organizational behemoths with millions of funds to throw around buying carbon credits do not want to bolster regulatory mechanisms, even in other sectors, for fear of their own sector becoming more regulated. There is a conflict of interest there.

And I don't particularly buy into the 'let's all individually make better choices' solutions either. Has consumer-side activism ever worked? On the other hand, look at the effects of historic crackdowns like the Montreal protocol regulation of chlorofluorocarbons and The Clean Air Act and its ban of leaded gasoline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol#Effect

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States)#...

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

#202

Post by MagnumOpus »

cogman10 wrote: post #192
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strengths are that it's simple, hard to game, and doesn't harm ordinary people because the average person gets a refund of 100% of the money. (It's also somewhat progressive because people with more money tend to emit more carbon and so pay more tax, but only get the same refund.) The main "weakness" is that it imposes significant costs on existing fossil fuel operations. Oil and coal companies would lose billion…

The other weakness is you can game it with international trade. Produce a good in a country without the carbon tax, repackage it in a country that doesn't keep good origin manifests, lie about doing that, then send it to your destination on a solar powered boat (or whatever has the lowest carbon footprint). We see the same game being played with slavery and child labor. Pick a favorite brand, add "slavery" and you'll…

Which is why you have to pair carbon taxes with some sort of carbon import tarrif. The EU/EEA (who have high and increasing domestic carbon prices) have now created the legislation to introduce one - though it will be phased in very slowly over the next decade:

https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/carbon-border-adjustme...

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

#203

Post by Aerroon »

palata wrote: post #195
SamBam wrote: post #168

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…

> Direct CO2 removal (Climeworks). Seems like a drop in the bucket, but feel like this tech needs to grow. I kindly disagree, and I think it is extremely important to understand that. This tech is fundamentally flawed and completely misses the point: climate change (hence CO2) is only a symptom of our biggest problem. Our biggest problem is abundant energy: 1. Because we have access to a lot of energy, we transform t…

>It does not mean going back to how people lived in the Middle Age.

It basically does though. The clever technology that allows you to have a smaller carbon energy footprint usually just outsources the cost to somewhere else.

There's just no way I can see how people would have anywhere near today's quality of life without the corresponding energy consumption. Number one reason would straight up be political. You're going to have to curb a lot of freedoms from people to do it and they will have a reduction in quality of life since you will never be able to understand what's important to them.

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

#204

Post by Aerroon »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #17
Explore3003 wrote: post #6

The money going towards carbon offsets would be better spent on lobbying in favor of carbon taxes, and establishing Enhanced Weathering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering

> lobbying in favor of carbon taxes This is deeply unpopular with the electorate, and for very good reason. When the only "solution" to "fighting" global warming is to levy more taxes on the middle class, increase food and construction costs, and cripple developing nations' ability to build industry -- when elites fly around the world on private jets (that spew more CO2 in 6 hours than I will create in 10 years), and…

Many other countries already have excise taxes on things like gasoline though. Gasoline costs more per liter/gallon in Lithuania even though people earn 2-3x less money.

I think this is part of the reason why the EU economy is pretty stagnant, but it is livable. Unfortunately, it also shows that it doesn't make people cut back too much on gasoline use.

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

#205

Post by jug »

dusanh wrote: post #193
pkphilip wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy some land in a cheap rural place and fill it with fruit trees and contribute that towards the community each year. That will sequester far more carbon and help the environment more than contributing funds towards these sorts of programmes - and you will likely build up some immovable assets over time.

Or buy some land and leave it alone, let nature do it's thing. Sadly this is not possible as in most places there is legislation in place that prevents you from "mismanaging" land like this.

I just realized how much I'd like to see a website summarizing legislation for various countries in the world, and venues into purchasing land for the respective locations. I want a hometurf.eco :)

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

#206

Post by TexanFeller »

wildrhythms wrote: post #201
TexanFeller wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Start buying reusable and BIFL goods and avoid everything disposable. It's expensive, but worth it for more than the planet. We need to have a lot more focus on the reduce and reuse components of the solution. Most of what we Americans buy is cheap disposable nonsense that shouldn't exist.

You say the disposable nonsense shouldn't exist, so wouldn't a better legal solution be lobbying to better regulate the facilities where these harmful pollutants are originating from? My cynical outlook is that the organizational behemoths with millions of funds to throw around buying carbon credits do not want to bolster regulatory mechanisms, even in other sectors, for fear of their own sector becoming more regulat…

I'm all for regulating production of non-reusable nonsense. Coke is not a necessary product, there is no reason to allow them to produce single use aluminum cans. Coke should be a syrup mixed with carbonated water at the site of consumption. This is a real solution I could get behind and take seriously. By contrast I find mainstream environmentalism with the regulating plastic bags and straws and supporting "recycling" a virtue signaling joke and can't stomach supporting it.

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

#207

Post by dependsontheq »

fsn4dN69ey wrote: post #184

It's interesting, because there is indeed a system in the EU known as carbon allowances. While everyone and their dog can buy offsets, allowances exist in the EU and California (I think?) which are a legal mandate that firms must purchase which are necessary to pollute. There's even tradeable products based on this, and the market seems healthy enough. Offsets are definitely a scam, but I'd love to hear anyone else's…

It worked, it partly financed Tesla for several years.

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

#208

Post by palata »

Aerroon wrote: post #203
palata wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Direct CO2 removal (Climeworks). Seems like a drop in the bucket, but feel like this tech needs to grow. I kindly disagree, and I think it is extremely important to understand that. This tech is fundamentally flawed and completely misses the point: climate change (hence CO2) is only a symptom of our biggest problem. Our biggest problem is abundant energy: 1. Because we have access to a lot of energy, we transform t…

> It does not mean going back to how people lived in the Middle Age. It basically does though. The clever technology that allows you to have a smaller carbon energy footprint usually just outsources the cost to somewhere else. There's just no way I can see how people would have anywhere near today's quality of life without the corresponding energy consumption. Number one reason would straight up be political. You're…

First, it is important to realize that it's not a choice, really. Fossil energy is not unlimited. Either we start preparing for that, or it will happen and we will be unprepared (which will be worse).

> There's just no way I can see how people would have anywhere near today's quality of life without the corresponding energy consumption.

I think that there is a lot we can do without changing the quality of life.

First, we don't need to take the plane for a weekend trip, and for professional reasons many times it can be solved with a video call. My grand parents and even my parents did not fly nearly as much as I did, and I wouldn't say they were living in the Middle Age.

Then we don't need to eat meat. Not so long ago, again, people were not used to cheap meat like today in many places in the world. And pretty clearly, meat is less efficient to grow than plants.

I grew up in a world without smartphones, and I don't feel like I live much better today. Do we really need to swipe TikTok over 5G whenever we have a few minutes (or much more) to lose? Do we really need to have 50 machines running a 1h build on the Cloud for every single commit we push? Do we really need generative AI? I literally lived without it my whole life.

I grew up in the 90s/2000s, I wouldn't call that Middle Age. Many things today are more efficient than they used to be, the problem is the rebound effects. I would argue that we could do a lot already without altering our quality of life in any meaningful way (we would just need to change some habits, like losing 3h on social network everyday).

Of course that's not enough, we need to do a lot more, and that will be more painful. But if we don't manage to start with the part that is not painful, how will we ever get to the next part?

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

#210

Post by willcipriano »

VintageCool wrote: post #174
SamBam wrote: post #168

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…

Donate to aspiring Democrats running for state legislatures in blues states with red State Legislatures or split governments. > Back in 2019, [David Roberts] wrote for Vox that there is one weird trick states can use to ensure good climate and energy policy. That trick is: giving Democrats full control of the government. It has worked in California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Massachusetts, N…

> Donate to aspiring Democrats running for state legislatures

So they will blow up a natural gas pipeline and cause the largest release of greenhouse gasses in human history?

How about so they can fly private and scold poor people for not caring about the environment enough?

Would be better off buying the carbon credits.

Post reply on HN