Launch HN: Wren (YC S19) – Offset Your Carbon Footprint

Re:Launch HN: Wren (YC S19) – Offset Your Carbon Footprint by StavrosK on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @07:26PM (#20465072)

Personally, I have three issues when thinking about contributing to charities like Wren:

1) Will my money go where they say it'll go? How can I know that? 2) How do I know that I'm actually helping the environment? How do I know the money doesn't end up in some corrupt individual's pocket at the target country? I know first-hand how some people end up profiting handsomely from subsidies with various tricks. 3) Am I actually offsetting X tons of carbon? How does preservation even offset any carbon, since it's preventing more carbon from being released, instead of offsetting what I did release.

Thanks for the effort, it seems like a very worthwhile cause!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Launch HN: Wren (YC S19) – Offset Your Carbon Footprint by salixrosa on Thursday July 18, 2019 @01:06AM (#20466898)

I think I can answer #3 for you!

Preventing deforestation isn't generally (primarily) about preventing more carbon from being released. The wood probably isn't go to end up in the atmosphere any time soon regardless -- it'll go to building homes, etc. However, each tree chopped down is one less tree doing precious carbon fixing, ie, one less tree removing the atmosphere carbon that was already released.

[ Parent | on HN ]