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.
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".