• TigrisMorte@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Carbon offsets are to preserve existing forests that would otherwise be cut down for lumber or reward a company for spending more to use nonpolluting tech. So, swing and a miss.

    • nautilus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Carbon offsets are to preserve existing forests that would otherwise be cut down for lumber or reward a company for spending more to use nonpolluting tech. So, swing and a miss. a scam made up by BP to shift the blame for climate change from big oil to the individual. So, to use your own words, a swing and a miss on your part.

      https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(21)00233-5

      https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study

      https://direct.mit.edu/glep/article-abstract/14/1/59/14640/Counting-Carbon-The-Politics-of-Carbon-Footprints?redirectedFrom=fulltext

      https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham

      • Turun@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        The carbon footprint is bullshit, yes.

        But carbon offsets are basically what the European emission certificates are. I pay you money so I can emit more Carbon. You get money for not emitting Carbon.

        With the caveat that the emission certificates are actually enforced and lead to a reduction in carbon emissions, while private carbon offsets are sold by companies that may or may not ensure that the specified amount of carbon is actually offset.

    • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I know you said you don’t want to watch videos where people explain the problems with carbon offsets while citing sources, but for those that do want to know, here’s another video: The Carbon Offset Problem - Wendover Productions

      There are little regulations surrounding who can sell offsets meaning many companies vastly overstate their offsets (typically the ones selling the cheapest offsets, which are typically the ones major corporations buy).

      Even legitimate companies can overestimate how much help they’re doing by accident. Say a company pays to plant an entire section of forest. It’s calculated that section of forest will absorb 10 tonnes of carbon over 20 years. Nice! A year later that section of forest is destroyed in a forest fire. Does the company that bought the offset need to pay to replant it? Nope! They still get to say they bought 10 tonnes of carbon offsetting even when that’s objectively wrong.

      The video I linked also talked about a company that tried to improve energy use in developing countries. Most places burn wood for cooking but often do it in open air. That’s really inefficient! So this company provided efficient wood ovens to these communities (by charging others for carbon offsets). They then calculated how much carbon they’ve reduced, only to find out that these ovens increased the amount of wood burned since the communities loved using them so much! However, once again everyone who bought the offset still gets to claim they reduced carbon!

        • puppy@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Unlike other websites the climate town cites sources. You can go fact check. And he’s an actual degree holder in climate science

          “I am not listening to counter arguments made by a knowledgeable person in the domain who provides evidence and source, even though they are quite literally INFORMATION”

          Talk about naive indeed.

            • puppy@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              His citations are links to scientific publications. What do you think a proof/evidence is? I am not sharing “trust me bro” videos here.

              Did you go through the video and found a morsel of untruth? Care to share so that me might also learn what you obviously know that we don’t?

            • puppy@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Lectures from MIT and Harvard are on YouTube.

              “oh no! MIT/Harvard are a bunch of influencers. We better stop listening to them”.