The lamestream media told you:
More people are buying “carbon offsets” to undo the “carbon footprint” of their activities, like wedding parties, air conditioning and movie production. The popular new “offsets” will help save the planet. Go out and buy some today!
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Science behind “carbon offsets” does not exist, and a quick survey of websites selling undefined but expensive “offsets” look suspiciously like snake oil sales. Movie producers and Al Gore have announced multiple purchases of the new “product.”
Experts agree it might attract great attention and become a resource for people in all sorts of endeavor, if a foundation, or website, or whatever, actually provided meaningful calculations on carbon footprints. The Uninvited Ombudsman has noticed that current “news” relies on adjectives instead of numbers or measurement.
Such as: How many trees remove how many car exhausts over what time frame; how much CO2 daily sunlight releases from the ocean (the largest source of atmospheric CO2 by far) with a bar graph showing variable solar output which changes daily; how much CO2 a non-driver releases daily by breathing or while exercising at a health club; global CO2 output by people sleeping nightly; how much petroleum is consumed in planting, fertilizing, tending, harvesting, processing and delivering the meal you had for lunch, or that peach from Peru.
Colombia Journalism Review is currently debating whether greenies are right that numerous small farms and people traveling there would consume less energy that huge farms with well-placed supermarkets, but no one knows.
Lamestream news outlets have adopted footprint-offset speak as part of their environmental beat, with no sign of critical thought evident.
5 Responses
The effect of Carbon offsets will be to depress the ability of the very poor countries to ever compete with the rich ones. It will institutionalise poverty around the third world. Fat cats will sell, to whom? Other fat cats who pollute and can afford to buy the offsets to continue polluting. It sure as hell won’t be the poor folk burning dung in their homes who will be able to afford to buy offsets.
Posted on August 26th, 2007 at 8:57 am
In other news-
All daily and weekly printed news and entertainment media have been banned.(except “Get Fuzzy”)
All gum’mint ” reports” have been restricted to electronic media. ONE COPY!
All academic “new studies that show…” must also be exclusively electronic. Peer review on Wikipedia only!
All tax forms are to be printed on rapidly biodegradable hemp paper with carbon based ink.
All electric motors must be “brushless”, and, like all rechargeable batteries, be suitable to use nuclear generated electricity.
I claim eligibility to receive cash “carbon credits” for the plethora of agenda driven
“news”, science, and trade publications to which I no longer offer even a cursory review .
Posted on August 26th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Carbon offsets allow the elite sniveling liberals to maintain their ridiculously extravagate lifestyles while forcing the little people to cut back thereby supporting the Al Gore and hollywood lifestyles at a more reasonable price. Al is always thinking of others. He is just that kinda guy.
Posted on August 27th, 2007 at 9:06 am
What is missing in the scientific discussion of carbon offsets is a recognized standard unit of measurement, so that we can make meaningful comparisons of different “footprints.” I am here to save the day by proposing such a standard: the “CF”, also known as the Cow Fart. We are all familiar with the contributions of bovine flatus to our growing greenhouse gas problem. Therefore, we only need to develop a table of equivalencies in order to compare your carbon footprint with mine. For example, how many Cow Farts does it take for Algore to flit around in his private jet for a day, and how does that compare (in the same units) to the power consumption of John Edwards’ mansion? Carbon offsets could then be priced in terms of “dollars per Cow Fart.” The universal standardization of all emissions in terms of the CF would be a great job for the UN. It might help keep them out of trouble.
Posted on August 27th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Vegetarians eat plants, which pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. Omnivores eat cows which contribute greenhouse gases. In other words, vegans hate the earth, and meat-eaters are the saviors of us all.
We need to go out and grill us up a passel of carbon offsets, what do you say?
Posted on August 28th, 2007 at 5:02 am
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