<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Funds for offsets shouldn’t reward past environmental behavior]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by GreenEngineer http://www.grist.org/article/house-carbon-offsets-a-waste-of-taxpayer-money/ Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:05:16 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/house-carbon-offsets-a-waste-of-taxpayer-money/1 value of doing good

As I said in this news thread, additionality is an important test if you're using offsets to justify additional or ongoing carbon emissions.  But just because a project fails the additionality test does not mean that it's worthless.  Conservation payments to farmers for good land stewardship have real value to the ecology, and providing the economic incentive may not make the yes/no difference for that particular farmer but they make the option of conservation stewardship more appealing in general, when a farmer is deciding what approach to take with is land (e.g. plant that extra corn, or not).

If we want to preserve ecosystem services, we're going to have to come up with some way to assign monetary value to those services, and turn that into revenue for those who steward those resources.  The carbon offset model, while a poor way to combat climate change, may be an example of a way to do that for ecosystem services generally.  And the fact that people (and big companies) are willing to pay to support good behavior is encouraging.

]]> value of doing good

As I said in this news thread, additionality is an important test if you're using offsets to justify additional or ongoing carbon emissions.  But just because a project fails the additionality test does not mean that it's worthless.  Conservation payments to farmers for good land stewardship have real value to the ecology, and providing the economic incentive may not make the yes/no difference for that particular farmer but they make the option of conservation stewardship more appealing in general, when a farmer is deciding what approach to take with is land (e.g. plant that extra corn, or not).

If we want to preserve ecosystem services, we're going to have to come up with some way to assign monetary value to those services, and turn that into revenue for those who steward those resources.  The carbon offset model, while a poor way to combat climate change, may be an example of a way to do that for ecosystem services generally.  And the fact that people (and big companies) are willing to pay to support good behavior is encouraging.

]]> Comment #2 by amazingdrx http://www.grist.org/article/house-carbon-offsets-a-waste-of-taxpayer-money/ Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:20:18 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/house-carbon-offsets-a-waste-of-taxpayer-money/2 Carbon trading

Carbon trading will meet the same fate at the hands of unregulated hedge fund trading.  This is a good warning about "free" market solutions to GHG climate change.

Don't fall for more scamming.  Pretending to let markets work.  the only way to get GHG reduction is for government to divert subsidies and tax breaks for multinational oil and energy corporations to incentives for homeowners and small businesses to invest in renewable energy and conservation.

Government must use these reclaimed tax dollars for mass production orders of plugin hybrids, solar panels, wind machines, geo heat exchange heating/cooling systems..  and so forth, for government use.  All made in the USA.  just like WW 2 war production.

Bolster the economy by giving out green jobs.  Revive detroit with green cars.  Revive the manufacturing base.  

Forget "free" marketeerian scamming.  It's a dead end, look what they did in the case of the sub prime mortgage bubble.  No faux carbon trading, offsets are the warning.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

]]> Carbon trading

Carbon trading will meet the same fate at the hands of unregulated hedge fund trading.  This is a good warning about "free" market solutions to GHG climate change.

Don't fall for more scamming.  Pretending to let markets work.  the only way to get GHG reduction is for government to divert subsidies and tax breaks for multinational oil and energy corporations to incentives for homeowners and small businesses to invest in renewable energy and conservation.

Government must use these reclaimed tax dollars for mass production orders of plugin hybrids, solar panels, wind machines, geo heat exchange heating/cooling systems..  and so forth, for government use.  All made in the USA.  just like WW 2 war production.

Bolster the economy by giving out green jobs.  Revive detroit with green cars.  Revive the manufacturing base.  

Forget "free" marketeerian scamming.  It's a dead end, look what they did in the case of the sub prime mortgage bubble.  No faux carbon trading, offsets are the warning.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

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