Comments on: Is your couch a carbon offset?

By: Kim Henderson

Kim Henderson — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:19:31 +0000

I came across this discussion while researching carbon credits. It’s worth noting that the person responsible for the whole idea of carbon credits is the late Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron, and the poster child for corporate greed. I don’t think he invented carbon credits out of a genuine concern for the environment.

By: The Understory » Greenwash of the Week: Bank of America Offset Credit Card

The Understory » Greenwash of the Week: Bank of America Offset Credit Card — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 01:16:08 +0000

[...] Well, everytime you make a purchase you earn points, but instead of using the points to get airline tickets or electronics, MBNA buys carbon offsets. [...]

By: The Understory » CA oil refinery agrees to $10 million offset deal

The Understory » CA oil refinery agrees to $10 million offset deal — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 20:18:27 +0000

[...] I’m generally not a fan of offsets. I’ve written about it before, our friends at Grist have had a raging debate on it, and I’ll spare you by not totally [...]

By: The Understory » Environmentalism for Billionaires

The Understory » Environmentalism for Billionaires — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:26:53 +0000

[...] are trying to cash in on the public’s growing environmental awareness. We’ve discussed carbon-offsets, plug-in electric vehicles, agrifuels, and how big lumber companies want us to eat trees for [...]

By: Dr. Glen Barry

Dr. Glen Barry — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 18:18:16 +0000

In a related matter, it is time for RAN to clarify how they can both “promote sustainable logging” while “preserving endangered forests” (both statemens made on home page at http://www.ran.org). You cannot both protect and log ancient forests, you are confusing preservation with conservation. What is RAN’s policy on FSC approved logging of ancient forests, and the recent string of scandals in this regard?

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 00:07:57 +0000

I read recently in Power Engineering (May issue, I think), an editorial in favor of a carbon tax instead of cap and trade. Power Engineering is a trade magazine of electricity producers. They are very much in favor of coal, and generally bad-mouth wind power, biomass, or whatever alternative energy they might bring themselves to print one article about. One point they bring up is that with a tax, we could all save money. If tax revinues go up from the carbon tax, we should get a reduction in our payroll taxes to compensate. They recommend that the two issues be linked in the same bill. With a cap and trade system, the polluters are still paying, but public programs wouldn’t be paid for. One problem with the tax is that it cannot guarantee a certain reduction, and would be hard to pick the right number to get the target amount of reduction. I think the combination thin would be good. the government should sell or auction a certain number of credits, which can then be traded, and use the money for good programs, like research on alternative energies. I think the government should buy productive farmland near cities before it gets turned into houses, so that local sources of food still exist when we don’t have enough oil to import it from 1000 miles away. I think that’s another subject though.

By: Doris

Doris — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:13:07 +0000

I don’t have as much to say as the others but I must say that the candidates for presidency are using this idea to alleviate the problems concerned with the questions of pollution. Sen. Edwards uses cap, auction and trade. Like Adi says, It could be worse, but still it’s making it easier for the big companies to pollute.

By: Suzz

Suzz — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:53:50 +0000

Seeing all these mitigation plans and debates over it makes me think that we need a real environmental leader. Someone who can stand up and convince people that we don’t have to make decisions that are mainly focused on our economics. Economics and environment cannot be allied. Short term solution is a long term problem. I wasn’t impressed with Al Gore’s documentary as it was full of facts and figures only. What about those people living in the slums in poor countries. How are they being affected now? We have been talking about reducing, recycling and reusing since the Brundtland Commission but things have gotten worse because it was again centered on Environment and Economics. So is the Earth Summit. It is pretty obvious why US hasn’t made any commitments to Kyoto Protocol – because US doen’t want to compromise its economy for environment.
We need to rise to a new level of consciousness. We should be willing to downsize our needs and that will bring a downsize in our scale of economy too. Why do we have to drive our car everyday to work? Because that is how our modern society is built. Basically, our system of economies is very ill.

By: Adi

Adi — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 04:39:12 +0000

Oh I would definitely support a carbon tax above anything else too. I guess I just wanted to convey that cap and trade in and of itself isn’t necessarily a horrible option – the devil as they say is in the details. Another serious strike against a trading system is that it is likely to be an administrative nightmare. Matt I like the way you frame a carbon tax in your comment. I’m definitely going to file those talking points away for future reference!

By: Matt Leonard

Matt Leonard — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 00:35:21 +0000

I agree – an auction system is FAR better than a giveaway system. But Luke hits the nail on the head. Companies will do whatever is the cheapest – if it’s cheaper to buy credits than reduce emissions – they’ll do that. If reducing is cheaper than buying credits on the market – then they’ll do that. But both scenarios will effect the supply/demand of credits, so the price can fluctuate wildly.

So the uncertainty over the cost differences between reducing your emissions and buying credits means companies are more likely to make small, incremental changes that aren’t big risks. But making the big long-term investments and overhauls we need to get off fossil fuels are going to be too risky for companies to undertake.

A carbon tax (across all industries!) would be much simpler to implement, would be fair across all industries, and give companies a long-time frame to budget and plan with. The tax could increase over years too to encourage bigger cuts, and long-term investments would be clearly smarter for companies – and bring about the big changes we need to stop climate change.