Neutrality, Inc.
A piece in the Christian Science Monitor examines the business of carbon offsets and its role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and finds that, while the market is fraught with complications and ripe for fraud, almost everyone agrees that a) offsets get people to think about their carbon output and that b) offsets translate to more money for the development of alternative energy.
While those outcomes are unambiguously good, however, there are still some caveats. As the Sierra Club's Dan Becker stresses, it's important that offsets not be seen simply as a license to pollute. And, ulimately, offsets are no subsitute for legislation which would establish the social costs of carbon emissions across the board.
In the meantime, carbon offsets do gets things moving in the right direction. And when Al Gore -- the man who gets credit for making "carbon netural" part of the American lexicon -- was in San Francisco last month for the Sierra Club's energy panel, he strenuously defended offsets. Quoting the vice president from memory, I believe his exact words were: "Don't let anyone tell you offsets are a waste of money. Without offsets, we'll never get there."
To delve deeper into the subject and learn more about the business of offsets and see a Consumer Reports-sytle ranking of carbon offsetters, download this report (pdf) from Clean Air/Cool Planet.
While those outcomes are unambiguously good, however, there are still some caveats. As the Sierra Club's Dan Becker stresses, it's important that offsets not be seen simply as a license to pollute. And, ulimately, offsets are no subsitute for legislation which would establish the social costs of carbon emissions across the board.
In the meantime, carbon offsets do gets things moving in the right direction. And when Al Gore -- the man who gets credit for making "carbon netural" part of the American lexicon -- was in San Francisco last month for the Sierra Club's energy panel, he strenuously defended offsets. Quoting the vice president from memory, I believe his exact words were: "Don't let anyone tell you offsets are a waste of money. Without offsets, we'll never get there."
To delve deeper into the subject and learn more about the business of offsets and see a Consumer Reports-sytle ranking of carbon offsetters, download this report (pdf) from Clean Air/Cool Planet.
1 Comments:
Tom Arnold from TerraPass called my attention to Dave Roberts' take on the report over at Grist. Dave seems to have some valid criticisms. For starters, he thinks it's too early for such a pat assessment of the offsetters and finds rankings pretty worthless. But he goes deeper than that into nuts and bolts stuff like 'Additionality.' Anyway, worth your while if you're reading the report and want another take. Thanks for the heads-up, Tom.
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