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Comment by kefabean | Hacker News Reader

It does look cool, but I do find the 'Carbon removed' ticker slightly misleading. In what way does this reflect carbon removed? Surely carbon added to the atmosphere is broadly proportional to the total value of sales.

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If I'm not mistaken then this refers to transactions done using Shop Pay which will "remove carbon from the air".

https://shop.app/carbon-removal

Sadly those are almost certainly greenwashing bullshit. John Oliver did a piece on that. Also there was this guardian review that didn't find a single satisfactory project among 50.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/sep/19/do-carbo...

Shopify lists their partners on the page and it seems legit enough, not just "Thanks for the $10, I won't remove this tree on the side of this mountain now".

How about direct air capture, is that also greenwashing? Shopify is simply waiting for the capture plants to go online:

https://news.shopify.com/shopify-purchases-more-direct-air-c...

Yes, afaik, direct air capture currently is miniscule and when it is happening the co2 is sold on the market, where it replaces waste-product-co2, so in the end no co2 is actually removed from the atmosphere.

It's currently in research phase, marketing it as "you can offset your carbon emissions here" is lies.

We currently can't both consume like this and improve the outcome of global warming. The whole idea of black friday goes against such efforts. Attempts to market it otherwise, even if they were credible are greenwashing.

To be frank, it sounds like you're deadset on being cynical no matter what. Shopify has committed to removing carbon from the atmosphere via direct air capture, and that's what their metric is counting. Direct air capture is literally removing carbon from the atmosphere, regardless of what's done with the carbon afterwards.

> Direct air capture is literally removing carbon from the atmosphere, regardless of what's done with the carbon afterwards

Regardless of what’s done afterwards? Sure, if we arbitrarily decide to ignore the full effects of any system we can make all sorts of fanciful claims. That’s not exactly useful, though.

My point was that Shopify is removing carbon from the atmosphere with their DACs. It’s not their fault if someone then purchases that carbon they removed and decides to shoot it straight back into the atmosphere, or whatever it is you’re concerned about, assuming just anyone can even purchase Shopify’s removed carbon. I suppose we can’t be satisfied until Shopify finds a way to remove the carbon and then ship it off of earth entirely using a space elevator?

No they are not, they are paying someone to do it someday. Those someone are shady. No carbon is currently removed from the atmosphere. Even when operational it will be a tiny fraction of what they are causing. It's a marketing stunt with no effect on the climate. In fact it makes it worse, cause people then think it's ok to keep consuming.

Your hypothesis is that it’d be better for the planet if Shopify were to remove no carbon from the atmosphere at all? Society as a whole would check the Shopify BFCM dashboard, see that there is no carbon removal metric, and have some kind of epiphany like “wow, Shopify isn’t removing carbon from my purchases, maybe I shouldn’t spend as much this holiday weekend”?

> Those someone are shady.

What makes them shady? I have a feeling you only think they’re shady because they want to do carbon removal, which you’ve unilaterally decided is ineffective.

It’s 100% false consciousness. The Black Friday consumption is a significant carbon pollution event, but ‘conscious consumers’ (and engineers) appreciate the carbon offset trick.

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