How the Nature Conservancy, the World's Biggest Environmental Group, Became a Dealer of Meaningless Carbon Offsets 53
An anonymous reader shares a report: At first glance, big corporations appear to be protecting great swaths of U.S. forests in the fight against climate change. JPMorgan Chase & Co. has paid almost $1 million to preserve forestland in eastern Pennsylvania. Forty miles away, Walt Disney has spent hundreds of thousands to keep the city of Bethlehem, Pa., from aggressively harvesting a forest that surrounds its reservoirs. Across the state line in New York, investment giant BlackRock has paid thousands to the city of Albany to refrain from cutting trees around its reservoirs. JPMorgan, Disney, and BlackRock tout these projects as an important mechanism for slashing their own large carbon footprints.
By funding the preservation of carbon-absorbing forests, the companies say, they're offsetting the carbon-producing impact of their global operations. But in all of those cases, the land was never threatened; the trees were already part of well-preserved forests. Rather than dramatically change their operations -- JPMorgan executives continue to jet around the globe, Disney's cruise ships still burn oil, and BlackRock's office buildings gobble up electricity -- the corporations are working with the Nature Conservancy, the world's largest environmental group, to employ far-fetched logic to help absolve them of their climate sins. By taking credit for saving well-protected land, these companies are reducing nowhere near the pollution that they claim. [...]
By funding the preservation of carbon-absorbing forests, the companies say, they're offsetting the carbon-producing impact of their global operations. But in all of those cases, the land was never threatened; the trees were already part of well-preserved forests. Rather than dramatically change their operations -- JPMorgan executives continue to jet around the globe, Disney's cruise ships still burn oil, and BlackRock's office buildings gobble up electricity -- the corporations are working with the Nature Conservancy, the world's largest environmental group, to employ far-fetched logic to help absolve them of their climate sins. By taking credit for saving well-protected land, these companies are reducing nowhere near the pollution that they claim. [...]
Printing carbon credits (Score:5, Informative)
nothing works so we should do nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
This article may be true. It's hard to tell. The fact that companies would be trying to greenwash their image is not only believable, but it's the most likely path for ANY company.
Could Nature Conservancy have been taken to the cleaners on this by soul-less executives ? certainly.
It's also possible this is an effort to make sure that anything that's done that might actually help, acquires the stink of not helping. Then when the next idea comes along for reducing CO2, you make sure and spout a lot of "stories" about how it doesn't work and it's not helping.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Then we can get back to the usual attitude of we shouldn't even bother trying. That's the real end game, to make sure we don't even try.
This is a more subtle, and effective campaign than fighting directly. Again, in this instance it might be true, but the sociopaths in charge are certainly looking to make sure that "we don't even try" is the first go-to idea.
Tired Refrain (Score:1)
Yours is a tired refrain. The simple fact of the matter that do anything is not a logical or reasonable course of action.
"Pour money down the toilet! It's better than doing nothing at all." It is a willfully ignorant fallacy.
Many times it IS better to do nothing at all!
Instead of try anything at all! Let's sit and try thinking of a solution that might work and when it's pointed out that it won't work, try thinking some more. There's no environmental benefit to trying any and everything, when it's not a reas
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Could Nature Conservancy have been taken to the cleaners on this by soul-less executives ?
RTFA. It is the other way around. The Nature Conservancy is the one selling indulgences and ends up with all the money.
The way these environmentalists are exploiting naive multinational capitalists is appalling.
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The way these environmentalists are exploiting naive multinational capitalists is appalling.
I've never met a multinational capitalist that doesn't also have a strict supplier qualification system in place. If the multinationals are being exploited they are being done so willingly. They are not free from blame, in fact their lack of due diligence should be called out while they are advertising how "green" they are by moving money around.
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The way these environmentalists are exploiting naive multinational capitalists is appalling.
Yes, won't someone think of the capitalists? Raping the planet without repercussions is a god-given right!
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Um, no, The Nature Conservancy is doing exactly what it's meant to do. It's taking money off corporations to buy ever more land to guarantee it's protection.
What exactly is the problem with that? It's literally doing it's exact job - obtaining money from corporations to protect forests.
If corporations want to pretend they have green credentials by giving money to a charity to literally buy forests to guarantee their protection then what's the problem here exactly? The only controversy seems to be a claim th
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That's not the message I got. The message I got is that JPMorgan should reduce their energy consumption instead of buying some imaginary carbon offsets.
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The message I got is that JPMorgan should reduce their energy consumption instead of buying some imaginary carbon offsets.
Or there should be more accountability for the carbon offsets.
TFA lists some particularly egregious projects, but the Nature Conservancy preserves a lot of wilderness and most of the money they receive for offsets is well spent.
Keep in mind that JPMorgan is doing all of this voluntarily. They have no legal obligation to either offset or reduce their emissions. So if they start taking flak for their donations to TNC, those donations may just stop. Could they do better? Sure. Are they doing more than mos
Re:nothing works so we should do nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
The title suggests that this is all that they do, and that these investments are worthless rather than merely inadequate. Neither thing is true.
Many non profits are simply jobs programs (Score:3)
Jobs programs for the mentally deficient children of the wealthy, used to give some veneer of respectability to their over privileged lives. And of course, these non profits are also, as shown here, used to provide cover for the businesses they own and run. Need to excuse your climate crimes? Just ask your cousin in the Nature Conservancy! Need to cover up your human rights abuses? Buy yourself a non-profit to "certify" your operations as economically just and humane.
Our whole system is just gangsters running rackets on top of scams on top of outright monstrous, inhumane crimes.
Re:Many non profits are simply jobs programs (Score:5, Funny)
Jobs programs for the mentally deficient children of the wealthy
Not everyone can get a job as a Slashdot editor.
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Wicked!
These are actual projects of value (Score:5, Informative)
Form the article:
The additional revenue from the carbon-offset program helps them take better care of the land, plant more saplings
Ok, so maybe that land was not going to be logged anytime soon.
But planting more saplings ALSO increases the CO2 uptake of the forest. And a well-managed forest is going to be healthier, grow better and as a side effect ALSO absorb more CO2.
So it seems like even in the case they chose to cherry-pick, the extra funds are still going to reduce CO2.
Other places the Nature Conservancy buys land to very directly prevent things like complete teardown for development. On the whole the system they have does work, better than most.
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To make room for the saplings means cutting trees down. The lumber industry knows this, and I suspect that they do more to sequester CO2 than these con artists.
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>But planting more saplings ALSO increases the CO2 uptake of the forest.
Trees have been growing on their own for millions of years. They don't really need our help to replant themselves in the vast majority of cases. If its a suitable environment, trees and plants have a way of getting there all on their own. This is actually worse than doing nothing as it takes energy to transport the saplings to the site anyway (yes this is a rounding error).
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Trees have been growing on their own for millions of years.
The world has been turning for millions of years without people pumping CO2 into the air. One thing is damn clear nature alone can't fix the problems *you* are creating. You being a human here that is contributing to climate change if by no other means than wasting electricity telling the world of your ignorance via a slashdot post.
This is actually worse than doing nothing
It's demonstrably not, quit talking out of your arse.
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Trees have been growing on their own for millions of years.
The world has been turning for millions of years without people pumping CO2 into the air. One thing is damn clear nature alone can't fix the problems *you* are creating. You being a human here that is contributing to climate change if by no other means than wasting electricity telling the world of your ignorance via a slashdot post.
What on earth does that have to do with planting trees that would have grown anyway? A pointless solution is worse than nothing. Want to help? Great, then do things that reduce mining and fossil fuel extraction. Or switch to nuclear and fix the problem entirely. To be able to help, you first have to know how. Planting trees is nothing but pointless virtue signalling.
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But planting more saplings ALSO increases the CO2 uptake of the forest.
Maybe. Unfortunately, in the long run, trees don't help at all to take up CO2. On time scales of > 100 years, that is. Trees die and decompose, in which process the C gets reintroduced into the atmosphere mostly.
Also, to make room for the trees to grow, you do what?---right, you cut down trees. Maybe that happened already a while in the past, but the fact remains.
Trees *could* help, but you'd need to grow them, cut them down and then keep the lumber in a way that prevents decomposition and burning fo
Re:These are actual projects of value (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe. Unfortunately, in the long run, trees don't help at all to take up CO2. On time scales of > 100 years, that is. Trees die and decompose, in which process the C gets reintroduced into the atmosphere mostly.
Most of the carbon is sequestered in the soil, so long as the decomposition occurs aerobically. That's why most rainforest and jungle doesn't sink as much CO2 as other kinds of forest, it's too wet.
Trees *could* help, but you'd need to grow them, cut them down and then keep the lumber in a way that prevents decomposition and burning for the next 100'000 years. Are you aware of any project like that? I am not.
Japan is buying redwoods, coating them in tar, and sinking them...
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Japan is buying redwoods, coating them in tar, and sinking them...
Interesting. Googling that, I found this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/t... [forbes.com]
The above article talks about 2000 to 3000 year old trees taking up 250t of carbon. So that is 100kg per year per tree.
Another article I found talks about a ballpark of 10t C sequestration rates per hectare per year: https://academic.oup.com/fores... [oup.com]
Do you have any specific references for the Japan project you're mentioning?
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Do you have any specific references for the Japan project you're mentioning?
I don't, and maybe it's over now. I don't think it was meant as a carbon sequestration project, just as a way to store the wood for later. I'll check around more later for a cite.
Nature Conservancy is a little sketch (Score:3)
Back in the early 2000's and then again in 2007 [salon.com], and finally getting caught up in #metoo in 2019 [politico.com], they've had scandals.
Yep (Score:2)
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revenue neutral carbon tax is the only reasonable solution
Why does it have to be revenue neutral? maybe in Europe, but in America, our 'carbon tax', which is the gas/diesel tax, is way to low to even pay fully for the roads. We need to raise this slowly while paying for infrastructure.
Re: Yep (Score:4, Informative)
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The point of a carbon tax is to add in the cost of externalities.
I know what the point is, I'm saying that it's impossible to internalize the external. We can't make the external internal any more than we can turn left into right, light into dark, or sweet into sour. Carbon taxes only help in lowering the barrier to alternatives if there is an alternative, or the carbon tax is large enough to make a dent in whatever cost barrier that might exist to those alternatives. Raising the price of gasoline isn't going to make all that many people choose to take a bus, ride a b
Re: Yep (Score:2)
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Keep expecting more and bigger government to solve your problems, see how that works out for you.
carbon offsets are a joke (Score:3)
The world needs to focus on simply stopping BUILDING NEW COAL PLANTS [cnn.com], and even all nat gas plants. Offsets will not work.
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The world needs to not "simple stop {insert single thing here}." What should be overwhelmingly clear to everyone who isn't blind deaf and dumb is that no single thing is going to save us / the planet.
We need to stop building new coal plants.
We need to stop using so much energy.
We need to stop building wasteful inefficient shit.
We need to reduce primary material usage (looking at you Amazon, I don't care if your cardboard is recycled, there's far too much of it in your packaging).
We need to replant trees.
We
Cheating offsets (Score:1)
Not exactly how these "off sets" work. (Score:3)
These forest offsets work very similarly to wetland offsets. If you want to develop a piece of land in a way that requires you to impact a wetland, one of the ways that you can do that and get a permit from the ACoE is to purchase wetland offsets from a wetland bank. (This is a very expensive mitigation strategy and it's a last resort). Now, the way these banks work is that a property is deed recorded as a wetland bank, and by doing this the property owner forgoes their own rights to develop the property forever. The incentive to do this is that the property owner can now sell what are essentially sin indulgences to the land to other organizations. These wetland banks are generally higher quality habitats than what is being traded for.
The forest offsets are similar. It's not exactly correct to say that the forests were "already protected". They were protected with the understanding that the property owning organization could sell the credits.
Cutting down trees is a good thing, if... (Score:1)
There's nothing wrong with cutting down tees. There's experts that can show just how much CO2 can be sequestered in lumber from sustainable forestry and lumber production.
If people are just going to push over trees to name the streets they put in their place after them then that might not be great. Cutting down trees is required to maximize the amount of CO2 taken out of the air. But it takes planting more trees and not just burning the trees that were cut down in a power plant. Biomass power is stupid.
Amazon is announcing they will be carbon-free soon (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon is announcing they will be carbon-free soon.
The sad part is that they are merely buying carbon offsets, not actually running their data centers on renewables.
It's greenwashing just like Google and everyone else.
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If the carbon offsets purchased directly get invested in initiatives that sink a comparable amount of carbon then it's not "greenwashing". The problem here is people taking the money without making said difference.
Walt Disney has spent hundreds of thousands (Score:2)
Headline troll (Score:2)
where’s the beef? No story. Just some loose generalizations around the obvious.
Millions ... hundreds of thousands ?! (Score:2)
None of the monetary amounts seem meaningful in any way coming from billion dollar _profit_ corporations.
Misers'r'us
The real culprit (Score:1)
The real culprit here is not The Nature Conservancy, or even the corporations taking advantage of carbon credits. It's the insane system of carbon credits in the first place. This whole system was devised in the first place to allow corporations to pretend that they were doing something, er, for a price of course.
Carbon credits are an example of bad social engineering which creates all sorts of perverse incentives and essentially normalizes fraud, while actually accomplishing next to nothing other than mo