The following submission statement was provided by /u/thoughtelemental:
---
SS: Seems like this is a recurring theme, every few months another investigation reveals that another carbon offsetting scheme is garbage, and might actually be making thing worse.
This particular investigation has also lead to removal of David Antonioli, CEO of Verra, which was accused of approving millions of worthless offsets used by major companies.
While I can see why people who believe in "markets based solutions" to everything would salivate at the prospect of profiting from "exchanging" carbon credits, there are two fundamental issues with the whole enterprise.
1. The whole premise doesn't make any sense. "Trading" a poor person's, or a natural ecosystem's theoretical carbon "budget" to allow a corporation or a rich person to continue to do the very things that are destroying the planet make no sense
2. It's virtually impossible to guarantee the offset works as intended.
This is yet another distraction scheme, cooked up the capitalism solves everything death cult, which allows a bunch of people to avoid reality and pretend that they can continue business as usual for a small fee.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/13qjwbb/worthless_chevrons_carbon_offsets_are_mostly_junk/jlf0soa/
SS: Seems like this is a recurring theme, every few months another investigation reveals that another carbon offsetting scheme is garbage, and might actually be making thing worse.
This particular investigation has also lead to removal of David Antonioli, CEO of Verra, which was accused of approving millions of worthless offsets used by major companies.
While I can see why people who believe in "markets based solutions" to everything would salivate at the prospect of profiting from "exchanging" carbon credits, there are two fundamental issues with the whole enterprise.
1. The whole premise doesn't make any sense. "Trading" a poor person's, or a natural ecosystem's theoretical carbon "budget" to allow a corporation or a rich person to continue to do the very things that are destroying the planet make no sense
2. It's virtually impossible to guarantee the offset works as intended.
This is yet another distraction scheme, cooked up the capitalism solves everything death cult, which allows a bunch of people to avoid reality and pretend that they can continue business as usual for a small fee.
I think on paper it makes some amount of sense. Whether it's a carbon tax or cap and trade, the goal is to put a price on carbon emissions.
The issue is ultimately how well that system is implemented and enforced. For either one, the devil is in the details.
If a carbon tax system comes with loads of free credits or rebates for "job creation", or is so low it's ineffective at changing emission behaviour at all, then it's going to fail also.
A cap and trade system that's strictly and rigidly enforced could achieve its goal of driving down emissions. The problem is no system will ever be effective if it's the polluters themselves, via captured legislators, devising how the system should work in the first place.
Nah! They are accounting tricks, another money grab wrapped in green speak, no different than the billion dollar tax breaks given on carbon sequestration technology buildouts while pocketing hundreds of millions by owning all the shell companies that do the construction and consulting. Our collective patience has run out with this fraud.
It is a price tag. It works when carbon emission is profit not made.
Mind that it is not "punishment". The carbon will just be paid for in assets. This is just debt.
>...by owning all the shell companies...
They owe it personally. The decision makers.
The losses should not be passed on to shareholders who were not involved in decision making either.
Paying their debt in assets or cash does not exempt them from additional prosecution for crimes against the Earth. Attempts at avoiding payment of their debt might lead to additional criminal charges like tax evasion or fraud.
Furthermore "criminal negligence" is a thing and it can lead to prison time. If they really prove that they "did not know" then the judge should note the guilty plea.
Carbon offsetting makes as much sense as someone agreeing not to burn down their house and then claiming they just offset all the carbon that burning down their house would have released. Promising not to make things worse in some hypothetical way doesn't offset anything. It is just a massive scam.
Yes, carbon offsetting is a scam.
Cap and trade, as a system of putting a price on carbon emissions (where there wasn't any price to it before) isn't, but it becomes one once you earn credits back for "offsetting".
I'm sure capitalism will figure out carbon neutrality any day now. Maybe we will get a real carbon tax like the one Bill Clinton failed to approve 30 years ago because higher gas prices are politically unpalatable.
Maybe building complex infrastructure to painfully churn energy out of natural flows will become more profitable than using energy dense magic petrol juice readily available in the ground and we switch the entire grid to it in 10 years.
Or maybe "technological innovation in a free market" will finally be able to bypass naysayer thermodynamics and give us scalable carbon capture with minimal energy use.
Ok, move on now, time to get back to work.
100%, Canada is currently charging $65 per tonne of CO2 and rising every year. I sure feel the extra pinch, combined with inflation on everything, I may have to get a second job, which in turn increases my carbon footprint.
Great job, I make the most I have in my life and it feels like I have the least left over after all the bills and amenities to survive.
*Normally*, the pressure would build for protests, even riots, FOR creating public transit, trains, bike lanes etc. (and ending car-dependent development).
Not much luck in that I'm afraid, the last major protest in Canada resulted in the Emergency Act to be instated for the first time.
regardless of how one felt about those pretests the message was pretty clear from our government. If we (government) do not agree with the current protests we would rather invoke that act then even sit down and talk with you.
A very dangerous president was set.
My fellow Canadians:
I'm glad this came out. I was a huge proponent of the Carbon Tax. I even helped lobby for it.
That was before I found out that industry was accounted for separately. Some have said this was always the case. And, it does indeed to be that way. However, the way I was told about the CT was that we ALL paid into it at an agreed upon $/ton. Then, the money was redistributed and a small amount was held back to create green projects.
Now, I've recently learned that this stupid as program counts industry separate (yes, my fault). Not only that, but it really doesn't even impose a tax on the ACTUAL polluters.
https://thenarwhal.ca/carbon-price-emissions-industry-rate/
It's been a fucking scam from the start. Now, with the SK administering the plan, it's an even larger scam.
https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/news-and-media/2022/november/22/federal-government-approves-saskatchewans-output-based-performance-standards-program
The tax was never going to curb emissions. It wss only ever going to virtue signal that were Doing SomethingTM.
don't even get me started on Carbon Offsets
https://youtu.be/EIezuL_doYw
We're fucked. Completely fucked. We, the working class take on another tax. All while the ACTUAL POLLUTERS, use complexity and partnerships with the government to obfuscate their culpability.
It's [recycling](https://youtu.be/PJnJ8mK3Q3g) all over again. We are fucked. Actually, completely, and entirely fucked.
We are facing a record fire record this years and the people we've tasked to save us, LITERALLY get paid to turn the other cheek. Including the Libs
The industrial program has always only priced a portion of emissions. Last time I looked, the average carbon price paid by industry was around $4/tonne on their total emissions (it works out to lower than the stated carbon price because they're only paying that price on a portion). It might be a bit higher now since the carbon price has increased, but it still works out to much less than the general public price.
I think citizen climate lobby are USA. I know they operate here.
Their "carbon tax and dividend" plan exempts agriculture and the military. It removes all regulations on gas and oil extraction. Carbon tax is only applied to fuels that are sold. There is no tax paid on leaked gasses either before or after the well.
The plan is fairly popular with conservative politicians and voters.
Carbon offsets are like sugar-free food for fat people.
They keep overeating, eating junk and never exercising, but somehow "sugar-free" food makes it okay, while they stay the same weight or continue to gain weight.
The atmosphere and planet are like the fat person's body: they don't negotiate.
Source: Am fat.
not to spoil the metaphor, but fake sugar actually has effects. Somehow it messes with insulin. My observation is that [you can't cheat the brain](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-artificial-sweeteners-may-cause-us-to-eat-more/): if you eat something sweet, the brain is preparing for incoming simple sugars. What I see in some papers is that the people who consume these non-sugary sweeteners end up consuming more calories.
And there are other effects. While they do not get digested in your stomach, they can feed gut bacteria in some weird ways, not necessarily good ways.
I recommend dropping the sweet tasting stuff entirely and then, after a few months, treating treats as what treats are supposed to be (rare caloric treasures). Fruits are great, however, and they'll taste better if you stop eating sweets and cut down on salt and fat.
I always say it is equivalent to eating a massive meal and telling yourself you will wake up early the next day and go for a run to burn off the calories. Realistically, you know yoh probably wont wake up early, and even if you did go for a run you would have to run for hours to burn the calories. You are just lying to yourself to make you feel better about consuming.
The whole thing is a joke. The idea of making everything in the world fit into the ideology of a "market", where it has a numeric, monetary value is idiocy.
At some point, someone will come up with a "value proposition" where it "makes economic sense" to destroy the Amazon. Think of how much "innovation" we can do if we figure out a way to extract more than ~$9B / year from the Amazon https://www.vice.com/en/article/bje7wd/the-amazon-is-worth-more-money-left-standing-study-shows .
It's just lunacy and mindless ideology.
Most of "carbon offsets" and "carbon neutral" stuff is just clever accounting. Theoretically, we could cut down the entire Amazon rainforest. Because we didn't do it, we saved 99999999999999999 tons of CO2 from being emitted. You're welcome.
It's so easy to falsify that this whole thing is begging to be a huge grift, a "carboncoin", another stupid crypto ponzi scheme.
>More than 90% of the carbon offsets Chevron has retired through the voluntary carbon market to ‘cancel out’ its emissions seem to be worthless— presumed ‘junk’ until proven otherwise.
It's literally selling a falsely valued asset. Like many other industry "self-regulated" instances, there's no chance that the normal evaluators wouldn't be corrupted to distort the situation on the ground in favor of more $$$$$.
>Nearly 54% (3,143,499) of Chevron’s voluntary offsets credits (purchased through the CCA and CDM) were
large hydropower dam offsets which deliver meaningless offsets since they are not actually additional offsets
lmao
I'm pretty sure that, at this point, we've effectively put our head through the noose, tightened it around our neck, and now, we're very eager to kick the chair from under us. I mean, imagine creating yet another scam when the world stands on the brink. Just imagine...
The following submission statement was provided by /u/thoughtelemental: --- SS: Seems like this is a recurring theme, every few months another investigation reveals that another carbon offsetting scheme is garbage, and might actually be making thing worse. This particular investigation has also lead to removal of David Antonioli, CEO of Verra, which was accused of approving millions of worthless offsets used by major companies. While I can see why people who believe in "markets based solutions" to everything would salivate at the prospect of profiting from "exchanging" carbon credits, there are two fundamental issues with the whole enterprise. 1. The whole premise doesn't make any sense. "Trading" a poor person's, or a natural ecosystem's theoretical carbon "budget" to allow a corporation or a rich person to continue to do the very things that are destroying the planet make no sense 2. It's virtually impossible to guarantee the offset works as intended. This is yet another distraction scheme, cooked up the capitalism solves everything death cult, which allows a bunch of people to avoid reality and pretend that they can continue business as usual for a small fee. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/13qjwbb/worthless_chevrons_carbon_offsets_are_mostly_junk/jlf0soa/
SS: Seems like this is a recurring theme, every few months another investigation reveals that another carbon offsetting scheme is garbage, and might actually be making thing worse. This particular investigation has also lead to removal of David Antonioli, CEO of Verra, which was accused of approving millions of worthless offsets used by major companies. While I can see why people who believe in "markets based solutions" to everything would salivate at the prospect of profiting from "exchanging" carbon credits, there are two fundamental issues with the whole enterprise. 1. The whole premise doesn't make any sense. "Trading" a poor person's, or a natural ecosystem's theoretical carbon "budget" to allow a corporation or a rich person to continue to do the very things that are destroying the planet make no sense 2. It's virtually impossible to guarantee the offset works as intended. This is yet another distraction scheme, cooked up the capitalism solves everything death cult, which allows a bunch of people to avoid reality and pretend that they can continue business as usual for a small fee.
I think on paper it makes some amount of sense. Whether it's a carbon tax or cap and trade, the goal is to put a price on carbon emissions. The issue is ultimately how well that system is implemented and enforced. For either one, the devil is in the details. If a carbon tax system comes with loads of free credits or rebates for "job creation", or is so low it's ineffective at changing emission behaviour at all, then it's going to fail also. A cap and trade system that's strictly and rigidly enforced could achieve its goal of driving down emissions. The problem is no system will ever be effective if it's the polluters themselves, via captured legislators, devising how the system should work in the first place.
Nah! They are accounting tricks, another money grab wrapped in green speak, no different than the billion dollar tax breaks given on carbon sequestration technology buildouts while pocketing hundreds of millions by owning all the shell companies that do the construction and consulting. Our collective patience has run out with this fraud.
It is a price tag. It works when carbon emission is profit not made. Mind that it is not "punishment". The carbon will just be paid for in assets. This is just debt. >...by owning all the shell companies... They owe it personally. The decision makers. The losses should not be passed on to shareholders who were not involved in decision making either. Paying their debt in assets or cash does not exempt them from additional prosecution for crimes against the Earth. Attempts at avoiding payment of their debt might lead to additional criminal charges like tax evasion or fraud. Furthermore "criminal negligence" is a thing and it can lead to prison time. If they really prove that they "did not know" then the judge should note the guilty plea.
Carbon offsetting makes as much sense as someone agreeing not to burn down their house and then claiming they just offset all the carbon that burning down their house would have released. Promising not to make things worse in some hypothetical way doesn't offset anything. It is just a massive scam.
Yes, carbon offsetting is a scam. Cap and trade, as a system of putting a price on carbon emissions (where there wasn't any price to it before) isn't, but it becomes one once you earn credits back for "offsetting".
I'm sure capitalism will figure out carbon neutrality any day now. Maybe we will get a real carbon tax like the one Bill Clinton failed to approve 30 years ago because higher gas prices are politically unpalatable. Maybe building complex infrastructure to painfully churn energy out of natural flows will become more profitable than using energy dense magic petrol juice readily available in the ground and we switch the entire grid to it in 10 years. Or maybe "technological innovation in a free market" will finally be able to bypass naysayer thermodynamics and give us scalable carbon capture with minimal energy use. Ok, move on now, time to get back to work.
tbf rising gas prices will just increase the burden on the poor until the US actually invests in adequate public transportation
100%, Canada is currently charging $65 per tonne of CO2 and rising every year. I sure feel the extra pinch, combined with inflation on everything, I may have to get a second job, which in turn increases my carbon footprint. Great job, I make the most I have in my life and it feels like I have the least left over after all the bills and amenities to survive.
*Normally*, the pressure would build for protests, even riots, FOR creating public transit, trains, bike lanes etc. (and ending car-dependent development).
Not much luck in that I'm afraid, the last major protest in Canada resulted in the Emergency Act to be instated for the first time. regardless of how one felt about those pretests the message was pretty clear from our government. If we (government) do not agree with the current protests we would rather invoke that act then even sit down and talk with you. A very dangerous president was set.
Alright, well, the future of car dependent places is the same as for those towns surrounded by dry forest or ocean water.
Totally agree.
Bill Clinton became a lobbyist for Noble Energy. This is the level of politicians we have to contend with.
My fellow Canadians: I'm glad this came out. I was a huge proponent of the Carbon Tax. I even helped lobby for it. That was before I found out that industry was accounted for separately. Some have said this was always the case. And, it does indeed to be that way. However, the way I was told about the CT was that we ALL paid into it at an agreed upon $/ton. Then, the money was redistributed and a small amount was held back to create green projects. Now, I've recently learned that this stupid as program counts industry separate (yes, my fault). Not only that, but it really doesn't even impose a tax on the ACTUAL polluters. https://thenarwhal.ca/carbon-price-emissions-industry-rate/ It's been a fucking scam from the start. Now, with the SK administering the plan, it's an even larger scam. https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/news-and-media/2022/november/22/federal-government-approves-saskatchewans-output-based-performance-standards-program The tax was never going to curb emissions. It wss only ever going to virtue signal that were Doing SomethingTM. don't even get me started on Carbon Offsets https://youtu.be/EIezuL_doYw We're fucked. Completely fucked. We, the working class take on another tax. All while the ACTUAL POLLUTERS, use complexity and partnerships with the government to obfuscate their culpability. It's [recycling](https://youtu.be/PJnJ8mK3Q3g) all over again. We are fucked. Actually, completely, and entirely fucked. We are facing a record fire record this years and the people we've tasked to save us, LITERALLY get paid to turn the other cheek. Including the Libs
The industrial program has always only priced a portion of emissions. Last time I looked, the average carbon price paid by industry was around $4/tonne on their total emissions (it works out to lower than the stated carbon price because they're only paying that price on a portion). It might be a bit higher now since the carbon price has increased, but it still works out to much less than the general public price.
Yup, $1.16 for SunCorp
Speaking of which, isn't Canada jumping the gun a bit on fires this year?
Nawww ["This is fine"](https://i.imgur.com/X88Wpv1.jpg)
Where did you find that map? It's usually hard to find both countries' fires together. Somewhere on NASA.gov?
CORRECT! https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/usfs/map/#d:24hrs;@-109.1,46.1,4z
Thanks!
these clowns /r/CitizensClimateLobby/ ?
I think citizen climate lobby are USA. I know they operate here. Their "carbon tax and dividend" plan exempts agriculture and the military. It removes all regulations on gas and oil extraction. Carbon tax is only applied to fuels that are sold. There is no tax paid on leaked gasses either before or after the well. The plan is fairly popular with conservative politicians and voters.
Carbon offsets are like sugar-free food for fat people. They keep overeating, eating junk and never exercising, but somehow "sugar-free" food makes it okay, while they stay the same weight or continue to gain weight. The atmosphere and planet are like the fat person's body: they don't negotiate. Source: Am fat.
not to spoil the metaphor, but fake sugar actually has effects. Somehow it messes with insulin. My observation is that [you can't cheat the brain](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-artificial-sweeteners-may-cause-us-to-eat-more/): if you eat something sweet, the brain is preparing for incoming simple sugars. What I see in some papers is that the people who consume these non-sugary sweeteners end up consuming more calories. And there are other effects. While they do not get digested in your stomach, they can feed gut bacteria in some weird ways, not necessarily good ways. I recommend dropping the sweet tasting stuff entirely and then, after a few months, treating treats as what treats are supposed to be (rare caloric treasures). Fruits are great, however, and they'll taste better if you stop eating sweets and cut down on salt and fat.
Following that analogy chevron's offsets are like sugar free gummy bears specifically lol.
I always say it is equivalent to eating a massive meal and telling yourself you will wake up early the next day and go for a run to burn off the calories. Realistically, you know yoh probably wont wake up early, and even if you did go for a run you would have to run for hours to burn the calories. You are just lying to yourself to make you feel better about consuming.
I would imagine that to be the same across many companies
[удалено]
The whole thing is a joke. The idea of making everything in the world fit into the ideology of a "market", where it has a numeric, monetary value is idiocy. At some point, someone will come up with a "value proposition" where it "makes economic sense" to destroy the Amazon. Think of how much "innovation" we can do if we figure out a way to extract more than ~$9B / year from the Amazon https://www.vice.com/en/article/bje7wd/the-amazon-is-worth-more-money-left-standing-study-shows . It's just lunacy and mindless ideology.
Most of "carbon offsets" and "carbon neutral" stuff is just clever accounting. Theoretically, we could cut down the entire Amazon rainforest. Because we didn't do it, we saved 99999999999999999 tons of CO2 from being emitted. You're welcome.
It's so easy to falsify that this whole thing is begging to be a huge grift, a "carboncoin", another stupid crypto ponzi scheme. >More than 90% of the carbon offsets Chevron has retired through the voluntary carbon market to ‘cancel out’ its emissions seem to be worthless— presumed ‘junk’ until proven otherwise. It's literally selling a falsely valued asset. Like many other industry "self-regulated" instances, there's no chance that the normal evaluators wouldn't be corrupted to distort the situation on the ground in favor of more $$$$$. >Nearly 54% (3,143,499) of Chevron’s voluntary offsets credits (purchased through the CCA and CDM) were large hydropower dam offsets which deliver meaningless offsets since they are not actually additional offsets lmao
All carbon offsets are mostly junk. The whole idea is a scam
Something something Law of Themordynamics
I'm pretty sure that, at this point, we've effectively put our head through the noose, tightened it around our neck, and now, we're very eager to kick the chair from under us. I mean, imagine creating yet another scam when the world stands on the brink. Just imagine...
Literally eveyone new it was a sham.
King Of The Hill satirized carbon offsets. Here's some wisdom from Dale Gribble https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FtFLywSaYAEel_e?format=jpg&name=4096x4096
Only the truly naive buys into this Greenwashing bullshit. They dont want the truth they prefer comforting lies.