I’ve just discovered CarbonTradeWatch.org, a website critical of carbon trading. There are some thoughtful comments at the site including:
“Many environmental NGOs have negotiated themselves into a corner, which allows little space for effective critique of pollution trading but provides ample opportunities for consultancy work in the carbon economy.
“On the cusp of launching into the second round of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme there needs to be an honest evaluation of whether or not this sort of free market environmentalism is going to prove an adequate response to climate change, or whether it is simply providing business with a cost-effective way of not having to take effective action. (Kevin Smith)
The site promotes a new book, ‘The Carbon Neutral Myth – Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins’ (large 4MB download), with comment that:
“Carbon offsets are the modern day indulgences, sold to an increasingly carbon conscious public to absolve their climate sins. Scratch the surface, however, and a disturbing picture emerges, where creative accountancy and elaborate shell games cover up the impossibility of verifying genuine climate change benefits, and where communities in the South often have little choice as offset projects are inflicted on them.
“This report argues that offsets place disproportionate emphasis on individual lifestyles and carbon footprints, distracting attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken to tackle climate change. Promoting more effective and empowering approaches involves moving away from the marketing gimmicks, celebrity endorsements, technological quick fixes, and the North/South exploitation that the carbon offsets industry embodies.
Book chapters include:
1. Corrupting the Climate Change Debate
2. The Rise and Fall of Future Forests
3. The problems with trees and light bulbs
4. Three Case Studies in the Majority World (India, Uganda andSouth Africa)
5. Celebrities and Climate Change
6. Positive responses to climate change
You can download the book here, it is a large 4 MB file.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
This is a particularly vicious screed.
Looking at the partners of the project is at first bewildering; see http://www.carbontradewatch.org/aboutus/partners.html
They’re many of the usual suspects in the whacko greenie fringe.
This is just an attempt to hijack the fundamentally corrupt carbon trading Ponzi scheme for tiresome neo-Marxist ideals.
The agenda is simple. “Offset schemes are shifting the focus of action about climate change onto lifestyles, detracting from the local participation and movement building that is critical to the realization of genuine social change.”
They really *do* want to micromanage our lives.
And along the way I think they make some valid and important points.
We need to give up on carbon goals. We’ll never meet them. Let’s wait and see what it takes to adapt.
EU likely to miss global warming goal-UN expert
http://www.alertnet.org/printable.htm?URL=/thenews/newsdesk/L02253037.htm
“The European Union is unlikely to meet the goal of a maximum 2 degree Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) rise in temperatures which it views as a threshold for dangerous climate change, a leading U.N. climate official said on Friday.
“‘It clearly seems very, very difficult to limit it to below 2 degrees,’ Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“Former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern, who issued a report last year concluding that it was far cheaper to act to combat climate change rather than suffer the consequences, said this week that the 2C goal was ‘almost out of reach’.”
This book release coincides with a blog post by a Catholic priest at http://home.ix.netcom.com/~stmichael/blog.htm
“The size of your carbon footprint – and, according to global warming’s true believers, the blackness of your soul – is determined by how many and how much of these [carboniferous] evil things you do. But fear not. If you’re rich enough, you can buy your environmental soul clean again by purchasing carbon offsets.”
“Are you an agnostic approaching your golden years and wondering what happens if all that stuff they taught you in Sunday School turns out to be true? Well, fear not. You can purify your soul again buy purchasing St. Michael and Ss. Peter & Paul Moral Offsets.”
“Going to a pipe-fitters convention next month and planning on cheating on your wife? One of our parishioners will agree not to commit adultery for you for a mere $5000.00 per tryst.”
“Purchase your Moral Offsets today and sin with confidence. No sin is too heinous – we guarantee that we’ve got someone here that’s not doing it.”
Any scheme that seeks to reward all new tree growers with carbon credits while at the same time shafting every single existing tree grower on the planet is doomed.
It betrays a level of naievety and lack of the most basic understanding of business and human nature. Who did the IPCC seriously think was going to grow new trees if the existing tree growers are excluded?
It is a business strategy that completely discounts the prospect of repeat business and completely discourages any contribution from the people who are already doing the desired actions.
Can anyone seriously believe that the IPCC is expert in anything? Climate Cretins is the only appropriate term to describe them.
Good post, Schiller. Here we have the green movement, hurtling headlong into the middle ages.
Schillsy can you do us a morals offset quote for pooning right wing sepos, property rights movement nutters, right wing terrorists and treasonists – I need to offset bad. Although do you need to feel guilty to realise the value of a morals offset. What if you’re unrepentant. Luckily I’ve only started pooning since 1990 so I’ll be OK.
Luke,
Once you buy the notion that climate change is a “moral issue,” you of course have to deal with goofy notions like selling indulgences–a practice the Roman Catholics discontinued long ago.
Now, it seems its only the Greenies who have the power to forgive sins–but only environmental sins, and, apparently for a fee.
Since I’m not buying the notion that climate change is a moral issue, I’m not selling forgiveness, either. Sorry. Find a Greenie and buy some penance.
If you insist that climate change is a moral issue, then consider–what do you call those who (ahem) sell virtue for money? The nice word is prostitution.
Now Schiller, there is no need to bring Luke’s mother into this.
Now Schiller, there is no need to bring Luke’s mother into this.
That’s a common error Ian – that’s a Mrs Street Walker you’ve confused with Mrs Sky Walker. But we know that you’re into some weird sick stuff including scrubbers so you would have personal experience in such areas.
Carbon offsetting is a completey unaccountable, financial con with limited effectiveness.
its a convenient invention of the right, for the right, to attempt to buy their way out and divert any negative press now that public opinion in this whole AGW thing is picking up momentum.
sure, gore relies on it too heavily in a personal sense to his detriment, but dont lump blame with the ‘greenies’ – they know this is crock. this is your typical right ‘i can buy my way out of anything’ ploy to be able to continue with business as usual.
anyone, right or left, wishing for a bit of a laugh:
http://www.cheatneutral.com/
fun for all political persuasions!
I don’t recall anyone ever saying creating carbon dioxide is a sin. Next.
Nice rant Julian, however you may have missed a point or two on carbon off-setting. If an industry or facility is an emitter and technology does not exist to reduce the amount of carbon annually emitted, then surely the purchase of an offset is legitimate. Essentially it is one company paying another to reduce their emissions. Whether it takes the form of carbon sequestration or foregone emissions, it is still an offset.
Put it another way. You may have an annual emission budget and after having done what you can to reduce your emissions, given the prevailing economic and technical circumstances , you are still left with some emissions.
This may not sit well with you and your preference is to further or completely reduce your emissions.
Your choices may be to give up the emission activity (lets call it breathing)or pay someone else to reduce their emissions (no I do not mean they should stop breathing). Paying someone for an emission reducing activity (maybe substituting an old technology, high emission,diesel water pump for a new technology, low emissions, water pump) when they do not have the wherewithall to make the change is not in itself evil, nor unaccountable, nor a con.
The made up example that I used should be enough to demonstrate that, given an acceptible set of circumstances, it doesn’t have to be a right wing, con job. BTW offsetting was a product of the UNFCCC and Kyoto negotiators, less of a right wing invention, more of a geopolitical face saver for both left and right.
Cheatneutral.com, very funny indeed, a nice way to take the piss.
All good in theory peter, but the whole concept of offsetting (as opposed to carbon trading which i dont have a problem with) fails for several reasons. While many of australia’s offset programs are done here in australia, the EU and USA are increasingly heading theirs in poorer countries, thereby locking up their land from any agriculture, housing etc while its business as usual back in the EU and USA.
Though we now have several proposals from Japanese consortiums to do their carbon offsetting in delicate areas here – nothing like some Tasmamian blue gum monocultures to dry out the last remaining SA swamp lands, eh?
And hey, even ecosystems being ruined by planting large amounts of the wrong trees aside, there are still limits to the amount of land that can be used for offsetting. Mott could probably use google earth to let you know exactly how much.
Julian,
The flexibility mechanisms contained within the Kyoto Protocol allow for emissions trading,joint implementation, and the clean development mechanism. These mechanisms were put in to ensure that some form of benefit was transferred to developing countries. The EU is the major player in CDM with some interest shown by the US. Frankly having read the criteria for acceptance of CDM under Kyoto it would only be a truly altruistic or heavily subsidised company that invested via this mechanism.
As for last remaining South Australian swamp lands, have a bit of a look at the 1500km of surface drains in the Wattle Ranges. These canals drain naturally swampy land and make them suitable for agriculture. Land owners are levied and the drains are subject to a maintenance program. So is E.globulus the culprit or could it be 1500km of man made drains.
You are correct that there is a limit on the amount of land that can be used for offsets. Both in the practical sense and in the political sense. Politically Kyoto Protocol only allows 2% of a countries emissions to be offset via the establishment of plantations. Something about land poor countries being disadvantaged (bloody Europeans).
As for ecosystems being ruined through the establishment of large scale plantations. It’s a no brainer, any plantation will provide far better ecosystem services than cropping or grazing lands. Both in terms of water balance and flora and fauna habitat.
Whilst it is true that plantations use more water than dryland cropping or grazing, in previously cleared areas the return of trees to the landscape is a small step towards a preclearing hydrological cycle.
Hey even P.radiata provides habitat values where remnant vegetation is located adjacent to or within the plantation. It seems that forest dwelling birds enjoy the remnants as if they were within largge contiguous forests of the same composition. The negative of course is that woodland birds select not to utilise such patches.
Of course these same plantation do have the capacity sequester large amunts of CO2 as well, both in standing timber and in wood and wood products. An offset payment can also provide for the maintenance of this sequestration.
“As for ecosystems being ruined through the establishment of large scale plantations. It’s a no brainer, any plantation will provide far better ecosystem services than cropping or grazing lands. Both in terms of water balance and flora and fauna habitat.”
not neccessarily true at all, and certainly not the case at one particularly large swamp site about an hour south of adelaide: native swamp lands are currently under consideration to become a carbon offset site – tassie blue gums. pity that there has been a program there for the last 5 years to try and protect the habitat of several critically endangered animal and bird species – much of the land has been given over to grazing in the last 150 years.
when the blue gums go in and the swamps drain, its the last we’ll see of the remaining indigenous fauna there.
and i cant say ive seen much life in the p.radiata plantations addjacent to native forests, plantation or natural in SA or Vic. apart from the occasional kangaroo making its way through (cant say ive seen many birds), its immediately aparent how comparitively devoid of animal life and understorey pine plantations are.
One problem with carbon trading and carbon credits is that it is subsidiary to the actual point of the exercise which is to address a claimed warming.
The link between CO2 and increased warming is not directly proportional so it may well be far more contributive to global cooling to simply spread a small sheet of highly reflective material over a piece of tropical ocean in the low cloud zones so the amount of absorbed heat for that small area is changed from 96.3% to 10%.
I don’t have the knowledge to be able to calculate exactly how much tinfoil I would need in the tropics (over a bleaching coral perhaps) to negate the warming of 27 tonnes of CO2 but my partially informed guess would be, not much at all.
If anyone has the capacity to work this out it would make a great post.
When did planting a tree that was cut down last week become a fair replacement for a barrel of fossil oil pumped into the atmosphere last month?
it isn’t a fair replacement.
Ian Mott raises a good point with regard to reflectivity (albedo) in this thread. a study by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory found that planting trees in mid to high latitudes actually contributed to global warming because of the change in albedo that this produces.
it also confirmed that planting trees in tropical rainforests can help to slow global warming.
info available here:
http://www.llnl.gov/pao/news/news_releases/2006/NR-06-12-02.html
so, most carbon credits that use tree planting as a mechanism are a bad idea as regards global warming. of course, these replanted forests may have a positive effect on such things as salination, erosion and habitat destruction so i won’t go so far as to say it is totally pointless overall, but it won’t achieve its intended aim of slowing climate change by absorbing carbon.
however, you may want to paint your roof white. sounds whacky i know, but it has a measurable effect on the summer temperature of your house and increases the overall albedo of the planet (and cut your summer electricity bill!). white paint on you roof will reflect about 70% of solar radiation shining on it. unfortunately, i don’t know how much of the earth’s surface is covered by roofs so i can’t extrapolate that figure into an immediately meaningful assessment of overall effect on the albedo of the planet.
i wouldn’t mind betting that it would be fairly significant though, there are a lot of us and we have a lot of buildings…
Interesting, Anna, where did you get the albedo figure for a white roof?
This raises the interesting issue that we can also contribute by selective location of that white painted roof. If the white roof is in a desert there will be a change from 25% albedo to 70% albedo which means a change in absorbed energy from 75% down to 30%.
Obviously, a white roof in the tropics will deliver much more cooling than a white roof in the Tundra that will have snow on it for 10 months of the year anyway.
By far the best place for a white roof is on a tropical ocean where there is minimal cloud cover. Ocean albedo is only 3.5% so a white roof will bring a change in absorbed energy from 96.5% down to 30% and kick some very serious cooling goals.
And if anyone thinks this is a frivolous option then they should think about what sort of pent up market demand there would be for the right to moor a houseboat on a coral reef.
It would be interesting to work out the spacing required to protect a reef prone to bleaching. In theory, assuming minimal circulation of water, a 100m2 white roof that achieves a 70% reduction in heat absorption, would reduce the temperature of one hectare of reef by 0.7%.
Note that I did not give the answer in degrees. This is because we need to work in absolute temperatures (Kelvin) not Celsius. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin
If someone has a better handle on this I am glad to be corrected but I think this means that an ocean that is 32 degrees C or 305 degrees K will, if temperature is reduced by 0.7%, exhibit a temperature reduction of 2.13 degrees C or K.
And that would be more than enough to ward off a bleaching event over one hectare, possibly two or three. And all other things being equal, (and provided the shadow is not always in the same spot) the bigger the Gin Palace, the larger the area of reef protected.
Now there’s an indulgence for a “Gucci Green”, four months partying on the reef to save a national icon? Do you recon we could sell time shares? Not with the EPA or the GBRA in control.
i originally heard the 70% reflectivity figure in a lecture at uni, but this paper also supports the numbers:
http://www.solacoat.com.au/statistics.pdf
and this product is even better:
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=EC119p12.pdf
not sure if shading the reef would really stop bleaching… as far as i know it is largely to do with increased water temparature overall and changes in water chemistry, and only partly caused by the actual light.
white roofs certainly reflect a fair bit of solar radiation back into space though, no matter if they are in the suburbs, the desert, the tropics or the mountains. and if solar radiation is reflected before being absorbed and re-radiated as radiant heat from the ground/roof/ice/surface, that means less heat to be trapped in the atmosphere.
Good links, Anna. It is not the shading that does protects the reef but the resulting drop in temperature from the shading. Bleaching usually takes place in fairly still waters where the heat can build up. Strong currents tend to mix deeper, cooler water with the surface water which prevents the critical heat extremes.
But in still waters the cool water under the shade would tend to drop to the reef surface and form a protective, slightly cooler layer.
The 100m2 shade with an 86% reflective surface would lower the temperature of the surrounding hectare by 2.6 degrees C so could potentially reduce 5 hectares by 0.5 degrees.
Interesting discussion on albedo, guys.
On the subject of carbon “offsets”… I understand that there are many dubious “carbon offset” schemes out there, but I’m really struggling to come up with a solution to the disgusting amount of CO2 (and other nasties) that I personally pump into the atmosphere by taking far too many flights each year. If carbon trading and/or offsets are not the answer, what am I to do? I can reduce the carbon emissions from the rest of my life pretty much to zero, but the flights I just can’t do anything about. Other than stop flying… but then I’d probably lose my job, and my family + friends, who live on the other side of the world. Hmmm.
Does anyone know if progress is being made with regard to reducing the emissions associated with air travel?