Grist | Topics | 106 Results

RESULTS		Results 76 – 100 of 106
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
Carbon offsets and tree huggers Trees should play a bigger role	biodiversivist	13 Jul 2007	Gristmill
After reading the recent posts by Romm, Stein, and Roberts, I have concluded that carbon offsets are a pretty good idea if properly implemented. Once government regulations have been established (and enforced), consumers should be able to buy with greater confidence. As it stands today, you are taking a small risk that your purchase may not actually result in CO2 reductions. So, if you are going to buy them, do your homework first. I also don't see why an individua ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, energy, placemaking (all these topics)

Offset markets A new Pardoner's Tale?	Gar Lipow	12 Jul 2007	Gristmill
David objects to calling offsets indulgences. In contrast, the actual offset purchasers I've met -- via the internet or in the 'real world' -- tend to be environmentally concerned and engaged. They view offsets as something they can do in addition to other things they do to lighten their footprint. This is disingenuous on two levels. First the indulgence metaphor is primarily aimed at CDM and JT under the Kyoto treaty, where offsets are legally permissions ...
Topics: carbon offsets, carbon trading, climate, energy (all these topics)

Should we call them Green 5 now? Pop band Maroon 5 launches 'carbon neutral' tour	Sarah van Schagen	12 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Grammy-winning pop quintet Maroon 5 have teamed up with Global Cool to green their upcoming arena tour in support of their sophomore album It Won't Be Soon Before Long.From the press release:Global Cool will work closely with Maroon 5's production team, management, and the boys themselves to reduce the carbon emissions produced by the world tour before offsetting the remaining emissions that cannot be reduced. For its part, Maroon 5 will donate $1.00 for each ticke ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, green living, music (all these topics)

An observation on the offset debate Many offset critics appear to be shadowboxing	David Roberts	11 Jul 2007	Gristmill
I've been watching the public debate over carbon offsets out of the corner of my eye for some time, and have formed a general impression, which I would like at long last to get off my chest. Offset critics often strike a moralistic tone, comparing offsets to medieval "indulgences." Let's be clear: That rhetorical gimmick makes no damn sense whatsoever. If there really were such a thing as sin, and there was a finite amount of it in the world, and it was th ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, energy (all these topics)

Carbon offsets: The real reasons to avoid trees Trees are good for a lot of things; carbon offsetting isn't one of them	Adam Stein	10 Jul 2007	Gristmill
The first rule of offsets, according to Joseph Romm, is 'no trees.' This is a pretty good rule, as these thing go. The TerraPass offset portfolio contains no tree-planting projects, despite the fact that most consumers love trees and the fact that tree-planting projects are typically cheaper than offsets from renewable energy projects. So if trees are both consumer-friendly and cost-effective, why avoid them? There are lots of reasons, and Romm chooses to focus on ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, greenhouse-gas emissions (all these topics)

PG&E's 'ClimateSmart' offsets are anything but Breaking all the offset rules	Joseph Romm	09 Jul 2007	Gristmill
[Important update to this post here.] One reason I began posting my Rules of Carbon Offsets is a dubious program by the California utility PG&E called ClimateSmart, which is supposed to allow PG&E customers to become 'climate neutral.' This program actually manages to violate rules zero, 1, and 2 all at once! It really makes clear why offsets are bastardized emissions reductions -- and why trees are an especially dubious offset. This picture graces the 'Ou ...
Topics: business, carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, green living, greenhouse-gas emissions, greenwashing (all these topics)

Rules of the road for carbon offsets: A better map Carbon offsets are tricky business	Adam Stein	09 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Joseph Romm has been running a series of 'rules of the road for carbon offsets' on these pages. This is a worthwhile endeavor, and as good of an excuse as any for me to provide some shade and color to the frequently misconceived debate over offsets. Although I mostly agree with Romm's conclusions, I don't think he chose the best route to reach them. My intent is not to rebut Romm's proposed rules -- again, I (mostly) agree with all of the guidelines posted so far, eve ...
Topics: business, carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, green living, greenhouse-gas emissions (all these topics)

Rule zero: Heal thyself Offsets should be the last thing you need to turn to	Joseph Romm	06 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Before you pay others to reduce their emissions on your behalf, you need to do everything reasonably possible to reduce your own emissions first. As the saying goes, 'Physician, heal thyself,' before presuming to heal other people. This rule is so obvious I almost forgot it. And yet many people, including Google and PG&E, don't seem to get it. The whole point of offsets is not to make you feel good, and it's not to allow you to continue polluting as much as y ...
Topics: business, carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, green living, greenhouse-gas emissions (all these topics)

The second rule of carbon offsets: Two rare exceptions to rule one Emphasis on the 'rare'	Joseph Romm	03 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Trees are terrific in every way but one: they make lousy carbon offsets. That was the point of the 'First rule of carbon offsets.' But a number of comments and some media queries have led me include two rare exceptions: certified urban trees and certified tropical forest preservation. The word 'certified' is key in both cases. For these two rare cases, I would allow trees to comprise no more than 10 percent of an overall offset portfolio (which should be heavily weigh ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, greenhouse-gas emissions (all these topics)

The first rule of carbon offsets: No trees A good reason we shouldn't love trees, at least not in this case	Joseph Romm	02 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Everybody loves trees. They are so popular as offsets they even make Wikipedia's definition: When one is unable or unwilling to reduce one's own emissions, Carbon offset is the act of reducing ('offsetting') greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere. A well-known example is the planting of trees to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from personal air travel. But does planting trees reduce global warming? Not in most places on the earth. The Carnegie Institution's ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, climate science, green living (all these topics)

Romm's rules of carbon offsets Taking 'em to the mat	Joseph Romm	29 Jun 2007	Gristmill
The first rule of Carbon Offsets is, you do not talk about Carbon Offsets. Just kidding. This isn't Fight Club, but I do aim to pick a fight with those overhyping offsets. If a smart company like Google can seriously think it can go green by burning coal and then buying offsets and if a smart company like PG&E is bragging about a new program that allows customers to offset their electricity emissions by planting trees (a dopey program I'll blog about later), th ...
Topics: business, carbon offsets, climate, energy, greening biz operations (all these topics)

Native Energy Alaska offsets Legit or not?	Gar Lipow	20 Jun 2007	Gristmill
While writing about medium wind in Alaska, I ran into information that led me to believe there were some questionable offsets involved with the project. More extensive research, including interviews with Brent Petrie of AVEC and Tom Stoddard of Native Energy, have revealed a more complicated situation, one that still doesn't look good to me. Here is what the situation looks like at first glance: AVEC has installed wind turbines that produce electricity for around 15 cen ...
Topics: business, carbon offsets, energy, renewable energy, wind power (all these topics)

We got TRASHed, and angry The Girls of Grist do Sasquatch	Kate Sheppard	29 May 2007	Gristmill
A group of Grist hotties ladies just returned from the Sasquatch Music Festival at the Gorge in George, Wash., where we spent two days volunteering at the TRASHed Recycling Store, sponsored by Global Inheritance, a hip nonprofit based in California that combines creativity, youthful enthusiasm, and activism into unique, progressive-minded projects. They travel around and do activisty things at different events that the yoot flock to, like Coachella, the X Games, and S ...
Topics: carbon offsets, green living, jackassery, music (all these topics)

Clinton foundation energy efficiency plan: An offset by any other name ... New financial instruments may one day plug cities' building codes into global carbon market	Adam Stein	17 May 2007	Gristmill
The William J. Clinton foundation has arranged billions in financing to help a coalition of sixteen cities cut urban emissions by applying a range of energy efficiency measures to aging buildings. Efficiency measures tends to get lumped in under the heading of conservation, but they really deserve to be their own full-fledged category of solutions to global warming. If conservation is simply doing less of a polluting activity, efficiency is doing the same activity with ...
Topics: Bill Clinton, carbon offsets, energy, energy efficiency, green building, placemaking (all these topics)

On the Ball: Booooooog! Well, actually it's about sports	Sarah K. Burkhalter	12 May 2007	Gristmill
The Oregonian brings word of outdoor companies going 'carbon neutral' in the near future. They include roof-rack manufacturer Yakima (aiming to be zero-emissions before this fall), outdoor-gear behemoth REI (planning to neutralize its emissions by, um, 2020), Nike (which already powers more than half of its electricity use through wind energy), and shoe company KEEN. Well-played, outdoorsy folk -- and well-played Oregonian, for not buying fully into carbon offset ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, green living, green products, sports (all these topics)

One and a half cheers for goofy offsetting projects Planktos may be a bad idea, but innovation is good	Adam Stein	04 May 2007	Gristmill
The green blogosphere generally reacted with chuckles or consternation to Planktos' announced plans to dump tons of iron into the ocean to, you know, see what happens. Gar Lipow took the article as another excuse to bash carbon offsets. To follow the logic, you first have to know why anyone would want to dump several tons of iron into the sea. Planktos hopes to demonstrate that seeding the oceans with certain nutrients is a credible way to stimulate plankton blooms. ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, geoengineering (all these topics)

Carbon offsets: A worthwhile gimmick Manufacturing a schism	Clark Williams-Derry	03 May 2007	Gristmill
Carbon offsets, which let you pay some money to help fund climate-friendly projects, got the love-hate treatment in Monday's New York Times. At issue: are they for real, or just some sort of gimmick? By contributing money to an offset program, are you really expiating your climate sins, or are you just buying meaningless indulgences? The article finds lots of quotes from people who are skeptical about offsets. But to me, this is mostly a manufactured contr ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, green living (all these topics)

Polluting to save the planet Putting iron in the ocean	Gar Lipow	02 May 2007	Gristmill
The risky idea of dumping iron into the ocean to promote plankton growth has been around for a long time. The reasoning: more algae blooms, more CO2 absorbed. But many scientists think that by the time the algae dies, rots, and release methane and nitrous oxide, it will worsen the greenhouse effect. Even most supporters think it should be studied before being tried. The IPCC is expected to dismiss this particular idea as speculative and probably counterproductive. But P ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, geoengineering, water pollution (all these topics)

Six months to a trimmer footprint How to reduce your household energy consumption, easy-like	Charles Komanoff	01 May 2007	Gristmill
Last Sunday's New York Times honed in on the dubious practice of Americans buying carbon offsets to brand themselves carbon-neutral. Andy Revkin, the paper's global-warming reporter, quoted me saying, "There isn't a single American household above the poverty line that couldn't cut their CO2 at least 25 percent in six months through a straightforward series of fairly simple and terrifically cost-effective measures." My claim has hit a nerve. Despi ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, energy, energy efficiency, greenhouse-gas emissions, placemaking (all these topics)

From Campus: Getting educated on carbon offsets Some students don't want to go carbon neutral	Nathan Wyeth	01 May 2007	Gristmill
As an undergrad at Brown University and a veteran organizer with the Sierra Student Coalition, Nathan Wyeth has his ear to the ground on campus sustainability issues. In this occasional column for Grist, Wyeth will report on what's afoot at the campus grassroots level and how he and his fellow students are making their voices heard. As of today, 202 colleges and universities have pledged to move toward climate neutrality, or net-zero global warming emissions, with th ...
Topics: campus activism, carbon offsets, climate, energy, green living (all these topics)

Do carbon offsets provide a false sense of security? Dueling assumptions	David Roberts	29 Apr 2007	Gristmill
Kudos to Andy Revkin for giving some exposure to (occasional contributor) Charles Komanoff of Carbon Tax Center fame. Komanoff articulates a common fear about carbon offsets: Charles Komanoff, an energy economist in New York, said the commercial market in climate neutrality could have even more harmful effects. It could, by suggesting there's an easy way out, blunt public support for what will really be needed in the long run, he said: a binding limit on emissi ...
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, greenhouse-gas emissions (all these topics)

Wax on, wax offsets	David Roberts	27 Apr 2007	Gristmill
Gristmill's sizable contingent of carbon offset hataz will find the latest from Joel Makower music to their hatin' ears.
Topics: business, carbon offsets, climate (all these topics)

Clips from Frontline's 'Hot Politics' Video ... on the interwebs!	David Roberts	24 Apr 2007	Gristmill
Hey kids, are you hip to the steez on carbon offsets? Well, check this shizzle out! Here, Christie Todd Whitman talks about Bush and Cheney 'flipping the bird' at the rest of the world (probably the first time this blueblood has ever used that phrase): Here, Frank Luntz continues to fail to realize what a slimy f**king weasel he is: All these clips come from Hot Politics, an upcoming special from the PBS series Frontline. (h/t: TerraPass)
Topics: carbon offsets, climate, climate change mitigation, green living, TV (all these topics)

BusinessWeek: Behind the feel-good hype of carbon offsets, some of the deals don't deliver Among bad deals, TerraPass's methane offset project?	Gar Lipow	22 Mar 2007	Gristmill
In the new issue of BusinessWeek: 'Another Inconvenient Truth?' It warns: Done carefully, offsets can have a positive effect and raise ecological awareness. But a close look at several transactions -- including those involving the Oscar presenters, Vail Resorts, and the Seattle power company -- reveals that some deals amount to little more than feel-good hype. When traced to their source, these dubious offsets often encourage climate protection that would have happened ...
Topics: business, carbon offsets, greening biz operations (all these topics)

Brit's Eye View: What should greens do about air travel? When is it necessary, and what are the alternatives?	Peter Madden	21 Feb 2007	Gristmill
Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe. The Bishop of London recently proclaimed that flying on holiday is a sin, a view that seems increasingly to be shared by greens in the U.K. Our environment minister, David Miliband, castigated Prince Charles for flying to America to receive an award, suggesting that he should have collected it via video-link. Mayer Hillman, author ...
Topics: air travel, carbon offsets, energy, greenhouse-gas emissions, travel, United Kingdom (all these topics)

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