Shock: Carbon Offests A Fraud

I'm reading it, but the words just don't seem to make any sense together.

Al Gore? Lying? Hypocritically using 50 or more times the energy of an average person in America (who himself is already using 4 or 5 times the energy of the average global citizen), then inventing some bullshit about a "carbon offset" to justify his gluttous Appetite For Destruction?

The world just doesn't make any sense if this is true.

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.

Please, please, please don't tell me that Al Gore, Sheryl Crow, and Laurie David will actually be forced to make genuine lifestyle sacrifices, not with sham "carbon offsets" but with actual, verifiable reductions in the amount of travel they take and the square footage of the homes they own and heat (not to mention all the property they own)!

It just doesn't seem fair that they should have to give up an iota of glamor and convenience. They're the lucky ones -- Life's Winners.

I just don't think I can go on living if these people have to actually live as if they were merely lower upper class rather than upper upper class.

The Ramifications: All this time Al Gore has been telling us we must act now -- and act dramatically -- to save the Earth.

His idea of acting dramatically to reduce CO2 output was to spend a couple of grand a year to offset all the serious carbon dioxide produced by jet setting everywhere, driving everywhere in SUV's, maintaining a home that uses 20x the energy of the average American home (not to mention his villas, pied a terres, and use of other swanky friends' vacation homes, all the while his own houses were still being heated).

So, if I'm to understand this, one cannot live like a multimillionaire -- and a particularly carbon intensive multimillionaire at that -- and counter all the horrible damage being done to the world by ponying up a mere $2000 or $3000 a year?

Really?

Baffling.

posted by Ace at 05:18 PM

| Access Comments