Investment or Con?

We believe that everyone should invest and save up for their future. This is common sense. However, some (who are greener than green) frown on this thing called "offsetting" as they believe it is used as an excuse for 'business as usual'.

Through 2006 and 2007 the angry protests of the greens grew louder and louder. The allegations went to odd lengths. Various pundits paraded scientific studies suggesting the Trees don't absorb Carbon and we were better off adopting tracts of existing mature rainforest instead. Had elements of the green movement adopted the junk science of the Climate-Change-deniers? All over semantics?

This argument could easily have damaged tree-planting project funding at a time when the World Watch Institute told us that Forest destruction was a major cause of GHG emissions (20%). The debate continued and was clearly not won. The offset industry shrugged it off and grew stronger and stronger. By 2008 it looked like more moderate views may have started to dominate. Forum for the Future endorse offsetting but only after a program of carbon avoidance, reduction and replacement. The Ecologist magazine likewise concluded, in their May 2008 edition, that readers should "Avoid, Reduce, Replace then Offset". It was mind-numbingly obvious advice that could have been lifted directly from the pages of THIS Web Site. Common-sense may be prevailing.

PCL include Carbon-Offsetting ONLY as a component within our overall program and only AFTER you have powered-down, recycled and substituted. Offsetting is not an excuse for not cutting back. No step of the program can stand by itself. You must try to all, eventually. As revealed in our write-up on Personal Carbon Trading there is no real difference between offsetting and carbon-trading. They only influence the behaviour of society if they become expensive and non-voluntary.

How Much Should I Invest?

When we calculate how much we should invest we meet controversy. For it is precisely this point that the cynics pour cold water on the idea that how much you invest should be linked to how much Carbon your produce. Well, yes, but this is a little unfair to the tiny minority who are, essentially, taking on a voluntary form of self-taxation. Anyone conscious enough about their Carbon Footprint to actually go about measuring it is probably unlikely to ONLY offset. Hence we choose to be less cynical.

IF YOU choose to directly link your emissions of Carbon to the amount you pay in Carbon-negation then you are linking your self-tax to your pollution. The more you pollute, the more you pay. This is a great form of motivation to reduce your pollution. If this works for YOU then great! You have our fullest support. However, invest wisely.

Investing Wisely

The second major criticism of offsetting has been that the schemes are fraudulent. There are two basic types of offsetting:

• Carbon Sinks

• Technology Transfer

The first is about Carbon Sequestration. This mostly means planting lots of trees. The second has to do with replacing other people's technology with low carbon alternatives. There is nothing wrong with these principles.

Where we have landed in trouble is with our economist's ideas of parcelling up little chunks of offset and trading them on the open market as part of the Kyoto accords. Impersonal Carbon Trading has lead to absurd abuses. It has been possible for money to be made by the unscrupulous simply by getting paid so that they don't switch to higher-carbon technology. This is obviously wrong. Avoid this and invest wisely.