Post A9il0pmAIPfnC6Zbai by jautero@climatejustice.social
(DIR) More posts by jautero@climatejustice.social
(DIR) Post #A9il0lTwGEiVsQ0zcu by pluralistic@mamot.fr
2021-07-26T17:11:58Z
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The theory behind carbon offsets is that markets created the climate emergency, so markets will solve it. It's a kind of high-stakes denialism, like a lifelong smoker switching to "light" cigarettes after learning they have stage four lung-cancer.The climate emergency owes its existence to market doctrine: that firms should manage their affairs to maximize shareholder value, irrespective of the costs that maximization imposes on everyone else. 1/
(DIR) Post #A9il0lwIYnOzINHdpY by pluralistic@mamot.fr
2021-07-26T17:12:11Z
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By that logic, all corporate crime is the result of "poor incentives" - maimed workers, ruined neighborhoods and toxic spills are the results of underpriced insurance, or fines that are set too low. Rather than criminalizing the conduct that leads to these outcomes - shutting down companies that engage in the conduct, holding managers and shareholders personally liable for it - market doctrine insists that we should "rebalance the incentives."2/
(DIR) Post #A9il0mQmjRmwovXzLk by pluralistic@mamot.fr
2021-07-26T17:12:30Z
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Enter carbon offsets: rather than prohibiting the pollution that will render our planet permanently uninhabitable by our species, we make that pollution economically disfavorable, by offering bribes to companies that promise not to pollute.Buy a forest, promise not to cut it down, get a credit. If the credits pay more than clearcutting, the incentives net out in favor of not committing genocide. As the Climate Ad Project puts it, this amounts to a "murder offset."https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy3/
(DIR) Post #A9il0msn3KBqDmeM08 by pluralistic@mamot.fr
2021-07-26T17:12:44Z
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From the start, offsets raised an obvious question: how do you know that someone who pledges not to pollute was planning to pollute? How do you keep the system from turning into a market for lemons? Here's a 2010 article raising those questions:https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/0420/Buying-carbon-offsets-may-ease-eco-guilt-but-not-global-warming4/
(DIR) Post #A9il0nL9LssJdjv0Cm by pluralistic@mamot.fr
2021-07-26T17:12:56Z
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Fast forward a decade. The answers to the questions remain elusive, but the market for lemons is in full swing. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) funds are full of absolute garbage, stuff that doesn't even pass the giggle-test:https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/24/greenwashing/#bargaining5/
(DIR) Post #A9il0noDbo7x5tWDVw by pluralistic@mamot.fr
2021-07-26T17:13:20Z
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Offsets are the worst. Corrupt "charities" like Nature Conservancy make vast fortunes ($932m in 2019) helping the world's worst polluters greenwash their fortunes by offering offsets for set-asides on lands that would never be logged anyway.https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/12/fairy-use-tale/#greenwashing 6/
(DIR) Post #A9il0oHdqPfAZ9HiNM by pluralistic@mamot.fr
2021-07-26T17:13:40Z
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The Conservancy has a history of boasting about its role in burnishing the credentials of sociopaths who want to watch the world burn:"The only problem with tainted money is there tain't enough of it" -Patrick Noonan, Conservancy President, 1973-80Despite that, carbon offsets remain credible, but perhaps that'll change. 7/
(DIR) Post #A9il0onXvnBSA6DC6a by pluralistic@mamot.fr
2021-07-26T17:13:50Z
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After all, Oregon's 400,000-acre (and counting) Bootleg Fire is consuming vast of carbon offset forests, releasing the carbon the public paid logging companies not to release.https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/weather/bootleg-oregon-fire-carbon-offsets/index.htmlOnce that public money was in private hands, it returned to public officials - regulators who oversee Oregon's forests, who "sought to discredit climate scientists and operated as a de facto lobbying and public relations arm for the timber industry" https://www.propublica.org/article/tax-funded-forest-institute-in-oregon-misled-public-may-have-broken-state-law-audit-finds8/
(DIR) Post #A9il0pI26RZPgeTXcm by cwdolunt@mastodon.social
2021-07-26T19:35:21Z
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@pluralistic "Under California Cap and Trade, if your company is looking to offset its emissions, you can still buy carbon credits from the Klamath East offsets even though they're losing trees to wildfires because of how these trees are insured." WTF?
(DIR) Post #A9il0pmAIPfnC6Zbai by jautero@climatejustice.social
2021-07-27T13:15:09Z
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@cwdolunt @pluralistic Carbon credits are fantasy football of climate change.
(DIR) Post #A9il0qswAigUdOkWmm by pluralistic@mamot.fr
2021-07-26T17:13:59Z
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Offsets don't just fail to mitigate the climate emergency - they have a business model: funneling lots of public money to rich people, like the millionaire residents of a gated Pennsylvania estate who got huge tax breaks for their private park.https://www.inquirer.com/business/inq2/pennsylvania-main-line-estate-tax-breaks-20210716.htmlEverything we do to fix offsets just makes them worse: adding complexity to a loophole-riddled system creates more loopholes. We can't save the world and our species with improved murder offsets.9/
(DIR) Post #A9il0sVG9ivteXge9o by pluralistic@mamot.fr
2021-07-26T17:14:03Z
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Image:Cristian Ibarra Santillan (modified)https://www.flickr.com/photos/cristian_ibarra_santillan/49595214931/CC BY:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/eof/