Archive » July 3, 2008

IT'S JUST MY OPINION

By Harris Sherline, Contributing Writing

Phony carbon offsets

Nothing exemplifies hypocrisy better than the behavior of Al Gore in promoting his theories about global warming while, at the same time, using more than 20 times the amount of energy at his home in Tennessee than the average American.

After being criticized for his excessive personal use of energy, Gore and his disciples pointed to his use of “carbon offsets” to neutralize the impacts of his profligate ways, thereby keeping him pure, that is, “carbon neutral.”

Writing in Human Events (“Al Gore’s Hypocrisy a High Cost for Taxpayers”), Amanda B. Carpenter noted:

• “Carbon offsets” is an interesting sophistry that is being used by Gore and others, generally well-to-do liberals, to offset their own so-called “carbon footprint…”

• “A carbon offset service is one arranged with such a provider, that achieves this net reduction through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases. A wide variety of offset actions are available; tree planting is the most common. Renewable energy and energy conservation offsets are also popular, including emissions trading credits.”

Commenting in his Junk Science column, “What’s Your Real Carbon Footprint?” (May 11, 2006), Steven Milloy noted:

• “The notion of a personal “carbon footprint” was created by global warming alarmists to foster a sense of individual accountability with respect to the consumption of energy produced by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. The idea is that the more energy from these sources you use, the more carbon dioxide you cause to be released into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to global warming.”

• “… you can purchase ‘off-sets’ from sellers who claim they will use your money to neutralize or off-set your personal carbon dioxide emissions — by planting trees or supporting wind/solar energy projects, for example.”

• “You’ll still want to hold on to your wallets, though. Those who seek to profit from the carbon footprint concept would have you believe that calculating your [carbon dioxide] emissions is the first — and last — step in discovering your impact on global temperature. But there’s much more to it than that.”

• “… we calculate that the average U.S. household contributes, at most, an infinitesimal 0.0000000000148 degrees Fahrenheit annually to average global temperature — a trivial contribution even when multiplied by the 100 million U.S. households.”

• “Moreover, the carbon off-set hucksters have created such a price scale that if you wanted to purchase enough off-sets at the low-end price of $5.50 per metric ton of carbon dioxide to potentially avoid one degree Fahrenheit of warming based on the average household’s “carbon footprint,” they would reap about $7.04 trillion. An off-set purchase price of $30/Mt-CO₂ makes the price of potentially avoiding one degree Fahrenheit of warming — and their potential gross revenue — a whopping $38.6 trillion.”

• “Land-based temperature data indicate that the average global temperature increased about 0.07 degrees Celsius per decade during 1880-2005. In contrast, when ocean-based measurements are factored in, average global temperature has increased by only 0.04 degrees Celsius per decade.”

• “As a by-product of developing The Real Carbon Footprint Calculator, we calculated that to prevent one degree Celsius of global warming, mankind would need to avoid emitting about 4 trillion metric tons of CO₂ — that would mean no manmade CO₂ emissions for 120 years.”

In short, carbon offsets are just another ruse for picking people’s pockets in the name of saving the planet. As far as I can tell, there is no accountability for how much money is being generated by this hustle or how it is spent. We hear about those caring souls who actually seem to think they are doing something to improve the environment, especially when it’s good for their public image, but we never hear anything at all about how the money is used, who gets it and how much. My sense is that it’s nothing more than another giant scam.

Unfortunately, the problem is the relentless pressure to sell the idea to the public and our politicians, who may do something else stupid, like passing a law or laws to make this foolishness mandatory, thereby creating another huge tax.

The idea that we can actually reduce the total “carbon footprint” of our society to zero is an amazing claim. Think about it. Suppose, as the environmentalists urge, everyone in America paid to do this, would the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere be any less than it is now? Hardly. The only result would be fatter wallets for the recipients of this largesse and less money in the pockets of the donors.