Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Carbon Offsetting

@Peter: aren’t climate change and carbon offsetting closely related? Might be difficult to keep them apart.

EDLE, Netherlands

This thread is about carbon offsetting. The general climate change thread is here

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I agree with Timothy on the “good works” issue but with the condition that unfortunately these days there is a huge amount of “virtue signalling” going on. Therefore, non religious people can/do get their reward “on earth” because they post everything all over Facebook so their 10,000 “friends” can see what marvelous people they are.

I am sure Stacey Dooley thought she was doing a great job boosting her PR halo when she picked up that cute African child. She was then correctly accused or “white-splaining” by a Twitter storm. In addition, lots of celebs will try to do high profile works to get an MBE/ OBE. I admire people who do things in a very low key way where you find out years later what things they did to try and make a difference.

Back to the topic, some of the first carbon trading schemes that came out were scams, however in general I think they are a good idea as the market mechanism should direct the investment to where it captures most carbon for the lowest cost. Things like trees and solar lamps can have a huge positive benefit. Also most money will be end up in developing countries as small investments there yield huge results. You get more bang for your buck installing a solar lamp in a remote off grid location in Africa than trying to do further work trying to clean up the exhaust on a brand new Ford Focus in the UK.

United Kingdom

To be fair from the perspective of having read science and being passionate about the virtues of the OP’s sentiments I have always felt there could be two sides to the debate. I believe there is no doubt the side products of recent human existence (in geological time scales) has contributed to factors that will cause global warming to a substantial degree, BUT we also know the global climate has changed very substantially on numerous occasions WITHOUT knowing the cause. That definitely means we should limit our impact, because it is the only sensible way to deal with events we do not understand. However, ultimately understanding how to better control our climate would seem a more important ulitmate goal. Perhaps, just perhaps, some of the technologies we have been forced to consider will allow a greater degree of control in future – I am very interested for example about the idea of spraying sea water into the atmosphere to cause polar cooling, if this is as cost effective as being suggested. Permanently locking carbon dioxide away, as well as being able to switch to non carbon fuels, would seem equally as important.

We might, we just might, move towards a period of global cooling for reasons we dont understand (perhaps because the sun enters a period of less activity) and out ability to influence our climate in a different way may be equally important.

I think it is best if I avoid religion.

LeSving wrote:

persons who have stopped believing in God, but still act as if they were the purest of the purest

Oooh! Let’s see how far we get on this one before the hammer falls

Of course people who don’t believe in God are better than those who do.

People who believe in God do all their good works for their own benefit, because they believe that their reward will be in heaven, whereas those who do good with no religious motivation are doing it only for the benefit of other people and other species.

EGKB Biggin Hill

LeSving – very well put, thank you.

UK, United Kingdom

Common sense was the first that got lost with the “environmental movement”. Today it is pure heaven for charlatans, opportunists without scruples and quasi moralists (persons who have stopped believing in God, but still act as if they were the purest of the purest).

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

I am surprised my fellows from Northern Europe are so inclined to feeling guilty for your carbon emissions. This Mother Nature stuff I don’t like at all : saying mankind should have zero impact on Earth is impossible, it leads to wishing the end of human life.

Every one of you think about the 3 Chinese and 3 Indians that « compensate » all your efforts in terms of pollution.
We in France still enjoy life a bit, and still have kids.

What do I do personally : keep an old car/ share cars in the family/take the train when possible/ take as little CAT as possible (because I prefer GA ).

LFOU, France

Found this article about the storage of CO2 in forests in what is called carbon sinks. Interesting article.

EDLE, Netherlands

Fuji_Abound wrote:

Playing devil’s advocate why would you do this if you havent (already)
done done and done.
ToniK wrote:
it’s clear where trees end up: firewood
That’s why I also invest into renewable power, so the trees get a chance to stay put for a couple hundreds of years.
Graham wrote:
Not having children.
Having fewer kids is the largest impact overall.
ESMK, Sweden
35 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top