The Carbon Offset “Smokescreen”
According to a report in the Financial Times:
Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on “carbon credit” projects that yield few if any environmental benefits…
The FT investigation found:
■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.
■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.
■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.
■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.
■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.
Aw, so what? If it makes you feel better…
So does that mean that Al Gore is using WAY more energy than I am and NOT getting anything for his mystical ‘carbon offset credits’?
Shocking. Oh, wait. No it’s not. Next we’ll find out that Terry McAuliffe owns one of these companies and is getting crazy rich off it and screwing people but the press will fail to report on it. A lot like WorldCom.
Beyond that, Greg, if AGW advocates like Al Gore really believe their own cause, they need to stop contributing GW gases first hand, not pay someone else to do it for them, where it may or may not get done or the reduction would have happened anyway.
Carbon credits were already silly. Second hand conservation to slow a probably non-existant phenomenon (AGW). And now the system of carbon credits may be riddled with fraud? We have hit the height of silliness.
In the end, this whole thing is going to give environmentalists a black eye. Which is unfortunate because there are other reasons than global warming fevah to reduce air pollution.