Putting some of my money where my mouth is, yesterday I gave my second (tax-deductible) contribution to LiveNeutral to offset my annual household greenhouse gas pollution, as calculated from the number of miles driven on our 2000 Subaru Forester, the number of kilowatt hours summed from last year’s ComEd bills, and the number of therms in my North Shore Gas annual summary. LiveNeutral is one of a number of greenhouse gas pollution offset providers, some nonprofit, some commercial, which allow individuals to purchase credits which fund renewable energy, carbon sequestration, and other projects which proportionately compensate for one’s own emissions. LiveNeutral buys credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange, while other providers sponsor their own greenhouse gas pollution offset programs.
About all this act does is greenwash me for another year. Such voluntary programs, however noble, will not solve the likely growing climate crisis. Only when the cost of such greenhouse gas pollution is built into the price of energy through mandatory caps on emissions will reductions significant enough to stem global warming occur.
I applaud your purchase of carbon credits, because it’s more than most of us do. Those who are actively reducing consumption and emissions, like you, are nearly achieving neutrality.
The concept of carbon credits has always seemed a bit strange to me, because we are still emitting, but just paying to compensate for it.
What strikes me as an unfortunate and unintended consequence of this is the ability for people who are not reducing their emissions to assuage their guilt.
A recent “year in review” article in Isthmus magazine pegged it for me.
Al Gore won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, a Nobel Peace Prize and everything else except Dancing With the Stars. There was some brief embarrassment when it was reported that his house uses 20 times as much energy as the average American abode. Environmentalists explained this away by resurrecting the medieval church’s practice of selling indulgences, which they renamed “offsetting carbon credits.”
Indulgences seem to be an apt analogy- the rich, who consume the most, can pay off their guilt while not substantively reducing their consumption.
BTW, the rest of the article is an entertaining read, too.