Investigation: 78% of carbon offset projects globally are “likely junk“

Complicated solutions are, well, complicated. How do you know that doing x results in less net emissions? Action x is, very likely, part of a graph that starts at one point on the globe and spreads all over. Is it possible to honestly tally emission effects?

What about the "side effect" of economic growth?

If company Y produces vehicles that emit CO2, and CO2-emitting vehicles are taxed, company Y will transition to electric vehicles which, for the sake of exposition, let's really believe don't produce CO2. But now company Y can contribute to economic growth, for example by selling trucks that can transport more goods at no "environmental cost", other than the environmental cost of the goods themselves (e.g., imagine the trucks are transporting coal, meat, or people), the cost of making and maintaining the roads, etc.

Generally, if GDP grows a factor of z in a certain time-period and CO2 emissions are reduced by a factor of w per unit of GDP in the same period, then as long as z / w > 1, CO2 emissions increase.

In my opinion, the best solution for Earth is to reduce GDP units while also trying to reduce CO2 emissions per GDP units. The best solution for people is to keep economic growth unchecked. Since the two things are incompatible, Earth and people should part ways.

I looked into Wren and others a little while ago and raised my eyebrows when I saw that all that was needed to completely offset my impact on the environment was a tiny sliver of my income! I don’t recall the exact number but it was under $60/mo.

That’s it? For my travel, growing and shipping and refrigerating all of my food, digging up and purifying all the special metals in my devices and appliances, throwing all my waste in a landfill?

It just doesn’t add up. If net zero were that cheap and easy, it wouldn’t be a problem.

It seems like they’re selling a way to feel good about yourself without a real lifestyle change. Having said that, though, I do get the impression that the proceeds are put to good use.

A bit off topic.

What kind of garbage is this site? There's no way to go back. It pollutes the whole history. I can go back up to the last 15 visited sites and all of them are this site.

Did you find any schemes where you were satisfied they were genuine? I'd love to know where I could donate money where I could be confident it genuinely had an impact

Step 1 - buy something “full of carbon” or potentially “making carbon” (like a future cow farm)

Step 2 - get paid for “offsets” not to do that thing that you never did