DuckDuckGo Is Now Carbon Negative | Hacker News Reader

DuckDuckGo Is Now Carbon Negative

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It's great that they're measuring but claiming to be carbon negative by purchasing offsets is quite a stretch. It really dilutes the true meaning of it. Also, the offsetting markets are very murky indeed. In many cases, offsets are IOUs that haven't been realised yet. Also, offsetting credits often come from projects where you can't even know or guarantee the lifetime effect of the projects, like reforestation - who guarantees that those projects will be around in ten years?

Yeah, it kinda seems like buying offsets does nothing to actually reduce real Co2 emissions and its more "fund a project that aims to maybe, possibly, sometime in the future reduce Co2 emissions"

I think these projects are worthwhile, and do need investment, but carbon offsetting seems like a disingenuous term to use here. Especially if the stuff that is funded doesn't even work out.

Agreed. I actually made a quick edit to include that, and then saw you made the same point.

It's what companies always mean when they write about carbon offsetting. I don't see the problem tbh. Buying offsets drives up the price of these offsets and that in turn spurs investment in less carbon intensive alternatives.

You are right, every business should be working to minimise the impact they have rather than offsetting it. Carbon free is better than carbon neutral[1], of course, but ultimately you can't be entirely carbon free. Running servers, moving bits around the internet, and just running a business uses CO2. To try to offset what you can (and more in the case of DDG!) is still a positive climate action.

[1] Carbon free means not causing carbon to be released; carbon neutral is offsetting the carbon that's released by capturing it somewhere else.

The other issue with offsetting is that it's an easy trick to wash over any increases in carbon output. Outputs increased by 50% in a year? Just offset more. The aim should be to minimize output as much as possible, rather than brushing it under the rug of questionable offsetting.

You've said everything I wanted to say.

I therefore pledge to reduce my carbon footprint to zero for 300 years after my 120th birthday.

Indeed, it dilutes at best.

We're to expect that, as demand increases, whoever is selling the negative carbon will eventually double-sell the same negative carbon.

I suspect that whoever is buying has no way to check.

The offset credits are gold standard credits that have to remove the carbon with in a set timeframe of their existence, be audited, and have a positive human impact.

For each credit worth of carbon DDG activities do, they are offsetting 1.25 credits worth of carbon through purchasing those credits.

But, further still they are then buying additional credits through startups that actually remove carbon from the air and sequester it, as it outlines in the article.

This is fantastic news and a model for others to follow. Going to scope 3 ("indirect emissions from making products and services, e.g., from purchased materials, business travel, etc.") really is going above & beyond what other businesses are doing - and not only that, they're even offsetting 125% AND donating the same amount as a "promise bank" to buy carbon capture tech when it's available.

Couldn't be prouder to be a DDG user.

Carbon offsets are sadly hopeless. Let's plant more trees, look the carbon is now tied in nice biomass. Few short decades later: Oops, an entirely predictable fire just released all that carbon back into the atmosphere.

That assuming the tree planting is done correctly, and does not lead to unhealthy fire prone over density, in the chase for an extra buck. Like every financialized enterprise in the history of the world. No, the tree planting people are good people and would never do something like that.

At best these programs are forest preservation programs. That is they attempt to keep the carbon in the forest instead of blowing the forest up for short term economic gain. That is good, we need more of it. But it is disingenous to call them 'carbon capture' and the end result 'carbon negative'.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/27/wildfires-rage-carb...

https://carbonplan.org/research/forest-offsets

For fun, check the effect of the Oregon 2020 Lionhead fire on one of these projects. The fire absolutely dwarfed the carbon offset project, and killed half the trees therein.

https://carbonplan.org/research/offset-project-fire

Seems you didn't read the article, as they expressly aren't planting trees nor is the offsetting what makes them carbon negative.

The offsetting is one thing but they are also funding credits to startups that physically remove carbon from the air and sequestering it in these carbon capture programs.

Cool!

Since DDG uses Bing does this factor in the carbon emissions of Bing?

This is called carbon footprint laundering.

From the article, they say that they are Going Carbon Negative. But they are not there yet (because it is technically not feasible yet). A more accurate title would be: "DuckDuckGo Is Going Carbon Negative"

I love financial engineering stuff like this that leaks out into more 'real world'/physical things (being not a finance professional). DDG has purchased so much carbon footprint offsetting whatevers that it's 'carbon negative'... it is... funding (in carbon allowance) 'carbon positive' companies? I'm (hopefully) obviously joking - you can plant lots of trees without saying 'its ok to burn more coal now' - but it's fun to think about isn't it.

Usually, rather than just planting trees, carbon offsets do things like replacing inefficient equipment or processes in developing countries. There's a lot of low hanging fruit that can be decarbonised / reduced significantly with a little bit of investment.

Over time these low hanging fruit will all be picked resulting in an increase in the cost of carbon offsets.

Oh sure, trees is just the dumb go-to example/explanation for whatever reason. I don't think that changes my point there though? You can also do more of 'replacing inefficient equipment or processes' without it excusing some new extra pollution or whatever as though a zero-sum 'carbon neutral' is what's ultimately desirable.

I just think it's fun to think of DDG in this scenario looking at it like Oh we bought too much carbon offset, now we're carbon negative, we have a nice lot of negative carbon on our books, instead of issuing bonds let's raise some cash reducing our negative carbon assets.

Its completely impossible to have any business that is carbon negative. From the person working there that exhales carbon dioxide all days long to every physical items and energy that was somewhere involved in the creation and operation of the business, has releases carbon dioxide and will release more when its decommissioned.

If it would be carbon negative show me where it removed CO2 from the air and how it is stored now "forever".

This is just a climate indulgence scam.

>If it would be carbon negative show me where it removed CO2 from the air and how it is stored now "forever".

If you read the article you'll note that they are specifically doing that in partnership with Stripe's climate program which funds startups who do, at signifgant cost, physically remove the CO2 from the air and sequester it.

redefine scope -> define how to measure emissions estimating emissions offsetting emissions hmm where is the step for limiting emissions or better yet reducing emissions... guess it is easier to pay someone for projects that hopefully in future offset emissions at global scale and pat yourself on the back.

Nice

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