It's about cleaning up after yourself. Clearly in the case of this machine, whose carbon impact is tiny compared to nearly every other combustion based machinery we use, the intent is symbolic.

> ...that might eventually plant some trees (or use your money to buy/rent fossil-fuel-burning machinery to orchestrate the planting of trees)?

For a reputable carbon offset, those carbon costs are accounted for in the offset, so even with them, it's a net-negative carbon transaction.

> Seems like guilt-avoidance to me.

That's besides the point. If it offsets the carbon produced, then it works, and it doesn't matter what the psychological motivation is.

But I agree that there is a problem with offsets: In a saner world we'd be imposing carbon taxes instead of this, but this is where we are today, with CO2 mitigation effectively taking the form of "donations".

Donating money to some organization that claims they will plant trees to offset some amount of greenhouse gas emissions is a lot like trusting the American Red Cross to build houses and schools after a disaster. You're hoping they do what they promise (and instead of doing that, the American Red Cross billed majority of the donations as "Administrative Fees"[1]).

So, in reality you may or may not be "cleaning up after yourself". Actually, you're not cleaning up after yourself... you're outsourcing that job (and don't actually care if it gets done) so you can feel free to release more greenhouse gases.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-re...

FTFY. The Red Cross is a reputable organisation that does wonderful work across the developing world. The American Red Cross is the corrupt one.

For disaster relief you'll have to find another reputable charity.

Eg:

https://www.redcross.org.au/news-and-media/news/australian-b...

https://reliefweb.int/report/viet-nam/thai-red-cross-society...

If you could show that Cool Effect is BS and there was an alternative that really does offset the emissions, I'd bet these folks would be all for switching.

In my saner world, we wouldn’t have people knowingly create greenhouse gases for a PR stunt (whose only beneficiary is a corporation called Hey).

In this case, I don't think the dumpster fire produces more than a few kW of heat. If it was done inside an office space, it probably wouldn't be powerful enough to heat to room to a comfortable temperature. The server infrastructure required to stream the video most likely produces more CO2 than the fire itself, and I don't usually see an ad on web net saying "we bought carbon offsets to compensate for the greenhouse gases that video produced".

Here there is a visible fire, so people think "OMG, the planet", not realizing that their computer may be connected to a much larger fire in a coal plant.

If you pit climate responsibility against people living their lives, climate responsibility will lose, full stop. In the short term, human beings are the way they are, and you won't be able to change human nature before the climate is destroyed.

People offsetting their consumption is way, way better than people saying "If you just want me to suffer, fuck it. I'm going to embrace being an asshole and do what I want."

For example, I'm going to throw some logs on the fireplace over Christmas. I can either find a way to offset my emissions elsewhere, or just say fuck it, those environmentalists are assholes so screw them. It's probably better for both of us if I donate, because not having a fire is off the table.

So if carbon offsets don’t work well (which I think there is also significant skepticism about), then the net effect here is negative. On balance, it’s probably positive but I don’t think you can make a blanket assertion that skepticism here is counterproductive — it seems quite warranted.

Wikipedia article on rebound effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebound_effect_(conservation)

You could also, you know, not burn firewood? There’s a reason no home built in the last 20 years in many states do not have wood-burning fireplaces.

You're making things worse.

So, from one fellow environmentalist to another, keep it to yourself, for the good of the planet.

> You could also, you know, not burn firewood?

You apparently missed where he literally said:

> > because not having a fire is off the table.

I guess it’s every man’s right to burn a barrel of diesel in their yard “for the traditional effect” or whatever, though, and that’s why 2020 will be looked back at with fond memories before you know it.

a) Offsets don't do what they claim to do, as in the earth in the universe where you give the offset has the same carbon problem as the one in the universe where you don't make the offset, or

b) Offsets are bad even if they do work. There's something morally repugnant about them even if logically they are moral.

From your wording and most of the responses I assume you hold a, but the tone and comparisons to indulgences, etc. make me think you actually (also?) hold b?

I personally hold the contrary opinion to b, but I'm not sure about a) so I'm always a little skeptical of the companies claiming to use carbon offsets. But the problem is definitely one of technology (measuring and holding people accountable to the offsetting) rather than an inherent philosophical contradiction in the concept of offsets.

Offsets are a promise to get rid of carbon for a price. There is a strong incentive to cheat and make the promise, collect the money, then do less than you promised to do. No matter what accountability mechanisms you create, eventually someone will fail to be completely honest, and will deliver cheap offsets as a result. The result is good prices. Eventually the failures of the market to actually deliver on their promise will become a scandal, but those scandals take a long time to materialize so we won't hear about it for a long time.

Which means it might or might not work, and we probably won't hear much about it if it doesn't.

Making this less hypothetical, go read https://features.propublica.org/brazil-carbon-offsets/inconv... for some investigative reporting on how often carbon offsets aren't actually doing what is promised.

The result? In the two large scale programs that have evaluations, the results were that 85% of efforts undertaken under the Clean Development Mechanism were likely ineffective, and 75% of those under Joint Implementation likewise were.

And yet, despite documentation of how ineffective those programs are, do you hear a lot of public scandals about ineffective carbon offsets?

Between perverse incentives and the history of failure, I do not expect future programs to do better. Nor do I expect to hear much about the failures that I think are going on.

Additionally, the 3x funding suggests they are aware that an offset project has some inherent inefficiency.

For clarity: I think they probably do work and there’s value there, but I think there are good reasons to be skeptical and evaluate carefully.

https://ptbs.typepad.com/penn_teller_bullshit/ep_606_being_g...

It's basically this millennium's version of the Catholic Church's indulgences.

> There is evidence for global warming, though there's considerable reason to believe this is simply part of a natural cycle. There is some evidence that humans may contribute at least a bit to the change (though many sources suggest that human pollution is insignificant compared with forest fires, volcanos, etc.).

This is underhanded, weasel-word denialism. "Many sources suggest" my ass... Let's not give any credibility to this kind of bullshit.

Great magicians, but dishonest skeptics.

Glass too.

In that episode, they mainly point to paper and plastic recyclables as being net societal losses in 2003 when the episode was filmed. They only talk about metal and glass briefly, because it's pretty apparent that it is efficient to recycle metal and glass.

For what it's worth I don't actually think you are being dishonest, just hyperbolic.

The show pretends to be just about calling out "bullshit", but sprinkles in a lot of politics and opinions.

You mean I can just take a book from a bookstore, depriving others of the chance to read it, and it's somehow "OK" because I paid money to some organization that might eventually use it to print another copy?

Stealing books from a bookshop - ILLEGAL.

Pumping CO2 into the air and contributing to the global ecosystem's destruction - LEGAL.

The airshed is, of course, indifferent to our financial games...

Now, if it actually works to change your behaviour so that you don't emit as much carbon because you can profit on the difference, well, hey! That's a good thing! But I don't think most industries can just stop on a dime and pivot like that.... it may provide incentives in the long term, or it just might end up with all the costs passed back to the consumer, who may or may not actually have a choice where to spend their money. This is basically the worst case scenario, where it just ends up being a financial game and doesn't improve anything. I hear that the solution in this case is just to ramp it up higher so that it eventually forces people to demand change; but they might just demand a change to the tax if no other options are forthcoming.

There's also the matter of catabolic processes, i.e. where something that emits less carbon is only financially feasible because of subsidies / taxes / etc. and in reality does not make economic sense to do. Any energy-generating technology that is not actually profitable without this is arguably taking in more energy than it produces, in the form of the externalities needed to enable it (i.e. fossil fuels that go into the building and maintenance of green energy projects).

Isn't that what 99% of people, companies and governments are doing anyway? Doing things that look or sound green, while (voluntarily or not) ignoring the actual damage we're doing.

For example, my country banned plastic bags on the supermarket and everyone rejoiced, but no one has any intention to talk seriously about environmental problems. It's all a bunch of empty slogans and feel-good discourse.

1. the aggregate amount of sin in the world caused suffering

2. indulgences actually reduced the aggregate amount of sin in the world

then the indulgence system would make perfect sense. I agree there are problems with offsets and many of them aren't credible, but this indulgences metaphor has never made sense to me.

Are we all buying into 21st Century Snake Oil here?

And battery recycling technology is always improving. By the time the current Model 3s are retired, the vast majority of Lithium batteries will be recycled into new cars:

> By 2025, it is estimated that about three-quarters of spent electric batteries will be reused and then recycled to harvest raw materials.

https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/the-aft...

I had no idea this was really what everyone was talking about with carbon offsets.

> You pay some other organization some amount of money,

contradicts this:

> and now you get a free pass

and you aren't allowed

> to do whatever you want.

You pay for a specific amount of carbon offsetting, so you don't get to claim carbon neutrality if you exceed the amount you offset.

Of course given that this is all voluntary someone could lie, but that would be asshole behavior, and if you did it at scale (i.e. if a corporation lied about it), you would be discredited - in reputation and potentially be facing civil lawsuits.