Can industrialized nations save the world with a plan to offset their carbon emissions by paying developing nations to stop cutting down their forests? Can eco-conscious photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand offset his carbon emissions by killing a Frenchman? Do carbon offsets even work at all? [%comments]
Carbon Offsets: More Questions Than Answers
TAGS: environment, pollution
and 
. You can also watch it on 
King of the Hill touched on this in the episode “It’s Not Easy Being Green” A very truthful episode about the realty of carbon offsets.
“It’s nice to see you think you’re doing something to help”
Sounds like indulgences from Rome
Good question!
Actually, cutting down forests and turning them into charcoal, then plowing the charcoal into agricultural fields, appears to be a very good way to remove carbon from the atmosphere, while improving crop yields without fertilizers.Some energy can be taken from the charcoal-making process, but it is unclear if this would be economical.
A much better way is to avoid having children (oops… I said it), since a first-world child adds a million kilograms of CO2 to the atmosphere. But the United States is tied for second-to-last place in infant mortality with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia, so it looks like we are doing our share.
I am still amazed that people are only afraid of carbon pollution. Nitrogen is the one we should worry about. There is more of it (both as a percent of atmosphere and its growth as a pollutant is faster), we do know that carbon can only make it hotter; we can still breathe with more carbon in the atmosphere (we do not know if we can with more nitrogen). As for having fewer childeren, the only arguements that have slowed our pollution involve developed nations having kids. If there is no market for a product (baby toys) in 40 years, the firms making that baby toys can and will care less about the enviornment and meeting demand now than having a long term strategy. The results will be baby’s toys in the next few years with far more plastic than they do now.
In a very simplistic way, trading carbon offsets is more akin to trading the contents of your home septic tank for a price. Very unlikely this plan will work – here is why: while ‘pure’ economists may believe so, looking at it from a human behavior point of view, I believe it will have other unintended consequences. I believe that Obama’s plan would be a nice bonus to his business friends and raise the overall price of goods & services to consumers.
Don’t pay for carbon offsets, get them for free:
http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com
I just got 14 billion.
Cap and trade legislation has worked. It worked in the US to help deal with acid rain. Under a cap and trade system the US cut SO2 emissions by 41% from 1980-2000.
The real question is whether a cap and trade is more effective at its stated goal of climate change than a carbon tax. A carbon tax is less likely to be gamed by politicians and easier to enact but is more politically challenging to pass.
I write about this on my blog: http://ecoequilibrium.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/carbon-tax-vs-cap-and-trade/
We all have a responsibility to measure our carbon footprints and reduce them as far as we can. Unless we want to stop using fossil fuels altogether, we will all continue to have a carbon footprint. Carbon offsets help us to address this on a global basis by matching your CO2 emissions with projects that are designed to reduce or remove the same amount.
http://www.carbonadvicegroup.com/uk/