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Yes, it's more than a bit like paying indulgences to the church to absolve yourself of sins. That's how a lot of companies can be "carbon neutral" by purchasing offsets and credits. I believe Tesla makes a significant amount of its money by selling these offsets to other companies.

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If sin were a globally distributed problem where:

1. the aggregate amount of sin in the world caused suffering

2. indulgences actually reduced the aggregate amount of sin in the world

then the indulgence system would make perfect sense. I agree there are problems with offsets and many of them aren't credible, but this indulgences metaphor has never made sense to me.

Really? Even though the lithium for Tesla batteries is incredibly damaging to the environment to mine?

Are we all buying into 21st Century Snake Oil here?

It's really not, compared to uh, oil.

And battery recycling technology is always improving. By the time the current Model 3s are retired, the vast majority of Lithium batteries will be recycled into new cars:

> By 2025, it is estimated that about three-quarters of spent electric batteries will be reused and then recycled to harvest raw materials.

https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/the-aft...

There are actual standards for the credits so that people don’t buy snake oil.

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