Climate & Energy

Trees should play a bigger role

atree4 After reading the recent posts by Romm, Stein, and Roberts, I have concluded that carbon offsets are a pretty good idea if properly implemented. Once government regulations have been established (and enforced), consumers should be able to buy with greater confidence. As it stands today, you are taking a small risk that your purchase may not actually result in CO2 reductions. So, if you are going to buy them, do your homework first.

I also don't see why an individual should do everything reasonably possible to offset carbon emissions that are under their direct control before buying offsets from a third party. Individuals are just as likely to screw up as a third party. For example, putting solar panels on my house might not reduce emissions if my power comes from hydroelectric. I might have had more impact buying green power. Dumping my Prius and riding a Seattle Metro bus might actually increase my CO2 emissions (Seattle Metro buses get about 38 MPG per passenger on average last time I checked).

Biodiversivist Cities

As Long As the Sox Are OK

Study says climate threatens Northeast icons like lobsters and foliage Imagine the Northeast without lobsters, snow, cranberries, and colorful foliage. Without that, you’d have — what, white churches and crusty old lumberjacks? But all those natural icons are at risk from climate change, says a report the Union of Concerned Scientists put together with scientists […]

Grist staff Climate & Energy

Consumers are stingy about buying new energy-efficient appliances

We've been meaning to replace our furnace -- an old oil heater that was converted to gas back in the '70s -- for years. It's big, it's ugly, and worst of all, it's inefficient. So we pay much more for heat than we'd like, even in Seattle's relatively mild winters.

gas furnace But new furnaces don't come cheap. In fact, some back-of-the envelope calculations a few years back convinced me that it could take nearly a decade before the savings on our gas bills paid for the up-front costs of a new furnace.

In theory, of course, that's still a pretty good investment. After 10 years, we'd stop paying for the furnace, and it would start paying us.

But in practice, we never seemed to be able to save up the cash. Maybe it's my upbringing (my dad was hilariously stingy), but I hated the thought of going into debt, and paying interest and financing costs, just to buy an appliance.

On reflection, though, the fact that we waited to buy a high-efficiency furnace proves one thing: I'm a dolt. You see, if I had financed the furnace -- i.e., bought it on credit, or taken out a homeowners loan to pay for it -- the amount that we saved on utility bills each year would have just about equaled our annual payments. Which means that I could have had a nifty, high-efficiency furnace years ago, without paying a bit more for heat (utilities + financing costs) than I did with our old clunker. Less climate-warming emissions, no extra costs.

Clark Williams-Derry Climate & Energy

A new Pardoner’s Tale?

David objects to calling offsets indulgences.

In contrast, the actual offset purchasers I've met -- via the internet or in the "real world" -- tend to be environmentally concerned and engaged. They view offsets as something they can do in addition to other things they do to lighten their footprint.

This is disingenuous on two levels.

First the indulgence metaphor is primarily aimed at CDM and JT under the Kyoto treaty, where offsets are legally permissions to emit. An offset that is less than 100 percent perfect in that context is very like indulgences at their worst; net emissions are higher than they would be without the offset.

Offsets under Kyoto are imperfect indeed. About 20 percent of CDM credits under Kyoto consist of F5 gas reductions -- which would be fine, except that a lot of poor nation factories increased their production of those gases in order to then reduce their production and sell the credits. And F5 gases are not the only problematic CDMs that have been sold. Incidentally, as Kyoto ceilings are lowered, CDM is being increased. A great deal of lobbying is taking place to lower CDM standards. Certainly I don't see any signs they will be made stricter.

Gar Lipow Climate & Energy