Greg Easterbrook, whom I respect (even though I don't always agree with him) has an interesting op-ed in today's New York Times on carbon offsets.
He examines the issue and concludes that reducing greenhouse gases will be a boon for developing countries because it will be cheaper for us to pay them to reduce greenhouse gases than for us to.
Some environmentalists think it's unfair that we can pay others for our environmental "sins," but I think this is not a sensible way to view the problem. Greenhouse gases are global, not local, and wherever it's cheapest to reduce them is best, since it's the total in the atmosphere that matters. In addition, why would anyone be opposed to poor countries getting money from the rich countries, who are most responsible for global warming anyway?
But there is a deeper problem.
First, some perverse incentives can leak into such a system. If developing countries realize that they will get paid to reduce emissions then they have the incentive to build dirty plants, or (using Easterbrook's example) leave their garbage dumps uncovered, so that then they can receive money to make them "greener." I think this could be a serious problem and I'm surprised Easterbrook doesn't realize it.
Also, carbon offsets don't get at the heart of the issue, which is the incorrect price of carbon-based fuels and other greenhouse gases. Until we put a price on them that takes into account their effect on climate change, it will be cheaper to build coal plants than wind farms. This is why offsets are at best a very small part of any long-term solution.
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JMG Posted 3:11 am
09 Mar 2007
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China's emissions are soaring because the Chinese economy is nearly three times as "carbon intensive" as America's, burning far more fossil fuel per unit of gross domestic product. Chinese coal-fired power plants are notoriously inefficient, consuming twice as much coal per kilowatt produced as American generating stations. They also run without the elaborate anti-pollution "stack scrubbers" found in Western power plants. And China opens a new coal-fired generating station every week to 10 days.
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Now it's not 100% certain that the entirely irrelevant line about stack scrubbers means that Easterbrook is truly as uninformed as he always appears when peddling his enviro-Pollyanna bs.
So, yes, it's possible that he had a whole paragraph about non-greenhouse gas issues that got deleted, leaving only the topic sentence, which then got merged with the preceding paragraph, which was about greenhouse gases. But the quoted paragraph certainly appears, to judge by its topic sentence, to be about greenhouse gases and carbon intensity, and it suggests that Easterbrook thinks that scrubbers have something to do with greenhouse gases.
Which is about par for him: he learns only the bare minimum needed to make him slightly better informed than a totally uninformed audience and then starts cranking out whatever needed to support the "capitalism solves all environmental problems" position he's assumed.
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Phila Posted 3:15 am
09 Mar 2007
If you were more familiar with his MO, I doubt you'd be surprised by anything he fails (intentionally or otherwise) to realize.
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caniscandida Posted 5:40 am
09 Mar 2007
Is this supposed to mean something? Is this English?
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:50 am
09 Mar 2007
Is that not all offsets are created equal.
In short, the nearer to the equator, the better.
Planting trees in China, North America or Europe would have almost no impact.
Planting them in Canada would make things even worse, by reducing albedo, and trapping more heat than the offset CO2 would.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&am ...
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The real issue with Offsets is that it doesn't promote reductions in carbon emmisions.
All it does is promote a "do no harm" approach.
Meanwhile there's plenty of harm elsewhere being done.
Offsets give a false sense of accomplishment and security.
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:14 am
09 Mar 2007
Planting Trees Helps Fight Global Warming, but Only in the Tropics
More, to-the-point.
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jscorse Posted 2:59 pm
09 Mar 2007
J.S.
htt://voicesofreason.info
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