Hacker News Reader

Comment by what_ever | Hacker News Reader

I don't get the analogy - could you explain more?

Disc: Googler.

I rephrased my comment (hopes it help). Another mediocre analogy on the subject that you may find both relevant and funny:

"I spread germs all over town today but I bought coronavirus offsets so we’re all good". via https://twitter.com/WeiZhangAtmos/status/1245890907511181312

Isnt this effectively what all governments are doing?

Paying people to stay home so that other people with essential roles can carry on with less chance of spreading covid?

No. That would be the case only if essential workers were using their government-issued permit to go to night clubs without mask nor physical distancing, and pretend to not spread germs because others are staying at home.

Hrm, that's not a bad idea. Perhaps if we use the market to fix the pandemic. The Invisible Hand covering your mouth when you sneeze.

As far as I can tell the only problem with offsets is that it's difficult to account for. If you buy offsets for 1 ton of carbon, it's difficult to ensure that the offsets represent carbon that would actually be added to the atmosphere if not for that funding. Is your comment just extreme pessimism about the efficacy of the auditors or are you remarking that one can't offset their carbon (i.e., co2 isn't fungible)?

I don't think the analogy works; what would a coronavirus offset be?

Google's energy consumption to make goods is zero. Achieving similar zero carbon foot print is next to impossible for lower profit margin fertilizer production. ( i.e. third world countries, as a whole, are working at quite less profit margins, and because of that, have trouble achieving similar zero carbon footprint. Ultimately All the profits are moving to west.

Weird time to flex, right?

Here's why offsets are bullshit. Imagine that I go and plant trees every weekend, because I like them and because I don't want to see my world burn. I'm planting trees, everyone is happy. One day, someone contact me and say "I like your work! Would you like to receive 50 cents for every next tree you plant? I want to support you. Just print a paper certifying that I'm supporting your work". I can't refuse that offer, right? I'm getting paid to plant trees! My new treelover friend is happy too: he's saving the world, and he can travel all over the world without remorse, since he's offsetting his flights.

Your analogy misses a critical component: Your 50 cent stipend is typically attached to doing more than you were doing before.

And while the point of your analogy is clear, your neighbor could only travel the world without remorse if they fund a huge number of new trees.

Offsets are not as illogical as you make them sound.

>typically attached to doing more than you were doing before.

I'd love to read the details.

Here [0], Easyjet pretend to be offsetting 100% carbon emitted during their flights: https://www.easyjet.com/fr/developpement-durable

Where are the huge Easyjet forests? Planted just so the rich can fly?

I'm sure they have some kind of contract, somewhere, but I can't verify that. And of course any "new" tree can be attached to an offset, that isn't the problem. How can a third-party says that this tree wouldn't have been planted otherwise, when whole world has no choice but go greener/cleaner? All those who make genuine efforts would be stupid not to take the cash (prisoner dilemma). Carbon offsetting is buying time to slow down changes in devastating behaviors.

Are you being willfully obtuse or do you seriously believe the only way (or even the most effective way) to lower carbon emissions is by planting trees?

He's saying when companies buy carbon offsets, they're potentially just giving money to people who would've planted the trees anyway.

Right, but (1) there's no evidence to support this, the whole point of offset certification is to prevent this sort of fraud and (2) there are lots of more effective carbon offset initiatives than planting trees, so of course we shouldn't expect to see massive new EasyJet forests.

You have accidentally made a point in favour of paying for planting trees while from the tone of your post the reader is lured towards the conclusion that it's somehow bad.

To be clear, this isn't an indictment against carbon offsets, it's an indictment against fraud, because your hypothetical carbon certifier is committing fraud. Carbon offsets are supposed to represent a decrease in emissions or sequestration that would not otherwise happen without that funding. A proper example would be funding someone to go around $somePoorCountry (where wood fuel is common, highly polluting, and bad for respiratory health) and replacing their wood-burning stoves with electric stoves, and then revisiting that country every few years to make sure those new electric stoves are still in use.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com