• pingveno@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Carbon offsets working is when they make it so that producing carbon is expensive enough to change how companies behave. Of course, that could be done better with a number of other schemes like a carbon tax (with or without rebate)

        • Helmic [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          I mean, it works by your logic. Carbon caps are very easy to game and continue to fail to change behavior, as shell companies simply “sell” their credits to others. Meanwhile, sabotage materially - as in not on paper, but physically in rhe flesh and blood world - makes polluting more expensive, because equipment gets damaged, needs repaired, and might not get repaired. Even supressing it isn’t free, because cops and bribes lobbying costs money and as we saw in the 2020 uprisings the cops cannot be everywhere at once.

          Were there a protacted, popular campaign of sabotage that called the state’s bluff, there simply wouldn’t be enough police or resources to actually make any of this profitable. Actual concessions would have to be made by governments and corporations. This is why the state has been so spectacularly violent against climate acticists despite even green scare “ecoterrorists” simply tying themselves to trees - it actually works. The state belongs to corporations and corporations aren’t going to just let us do shit that meaningfully undermines them, if they are actively suggesting the solutions themselves then it’s because they know it won’t require them to do something they don’t want.

        • sammer510 [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          And carbon offsets are really stemming the flow of climate change huh

          Fossil fuel profiteers should be killed if for no other reason than the fact that they deserve it

      • pingveno@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Like what zero carbon economic system? Or is this yet another case where communism just is assumed to magically work?

        • Raphaël A. Costeau@lemmy.ml
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          5 months ago

          When we no longer have an irrational need to increase profits, it becomes much easier to change production lines to emit less and less carbon.

          China, by the way, is the leader in clean energy, despite being the country with the most emissions, which is simply explained by the fact that it was until recently also the country with the largest population in the world.

          CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

  • Turun@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    If hell is real and you get out by praying then this is not a scam. So if climate change is real and it is stopped by emitting less carbon then carbon offsets are not a scam?

    So you are either saying climate change is just something to believe in and therefore carbon offsets are a scam, because they fight a problem that is not real.
    Or you are a religious person and are saying that climate change is real, and that carbon offsets are useful, despite them being clearly a scam.
    Or you are saying that the medieval system was actually a scam, because the monks did not pray as they said they would. But then this is actually a medieval meme, criticising monks for knowingly lying to people, and completely irrelevant in modern times.

    • theluddite@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Or they’re saying that regardless of whether or not heaven and hell are real, both carbon offsets and indulgences are a self-serving practice run by corrupt institutions allowing wealthy people to be publicly absolved from the harm they continue to do.

      • soumerd_retardataire
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        1 year ago

        If Good actions → Paradise
        Then Indulgences -(Enables the Church to do)→Good actions → Paradise

        Don’t believe that people in the past accepted things without questioning them.

  • 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”.