News on carbon offsets: Do Trees Make It OK to Drive an SUV?

from JoeUser Forums

Probably bad news for the folks that are touting carbon offsets as their own solutions to the increasing carbon emissions that the common folk are told are dooming us all to a future of global warming.

See news article here: (found via IWon.com, originally via AP news, headline is linked)

Do Trees Make It OK to Drive an SUV?

May 28, 1:26 AM (ET)
By MICHAEL HILL

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - If you plant some trees, is it OK to drive an Escalade? The question isn't as silly as it sounds. People worried about global warming increasingly are trying to "offset" the carbon dioxide - the leading greenhouse gas - they spew into the atmosphere when they drive, fly or flick on a light. One idea popular with the eco-conscious is to have trees planted for them. You get to keep driving and flying, but those trees are supposed to suck in your trail of carbon.

Whole forests have been funded by tree-loving celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and Coldplay, and more modest packages tailored to typical consumers are proliferating.

But some researchers say planting trees - while a good thing - is at best a marginal solution to global warming. Still others decry tree planters who continue to jet off to Cannes, drive their SUVs or generally fail to reduce their fuel-hungry lifestyle. To those critics, plantings and other carbon offsets are like the medieval practice of selling indulgences to wash away sins: It may feel good, but it doesn't solve much.

"The sale of offset indulgences is a dead-end detour off the path of action required in the face of climate change," says a report by the Transnational Institute's Carbon Trade Watch.

There's more at the linked article, but I've done my best to make the important statement above incredibly obvious and unmissable.

I'm sure that the AlGores and Leonardo DiCaprios of the world would tell me that highlighted statement is bunk and that they are doing their best to make things better while evil GOP types are trying to destroy ANWR in the search for more oil to burn to fuel their SUVs.  Except.... hmmm, it does seem that many of the people riding around in the SUVs are the same people preaching to everyone else ("Do as I say, not as I do!"), and many of the people that flying around in the big jets, or worse yet the smaller luxurious private jets, to go off to places like Cannes, Aspen, and other places are also the ones that are helping to destroy the planet on one side and then believing that they are making things even by planting a few trees on the other.

I guess these do-gooder wannabes (who primarily seem to want to be do-gooders because of their own guilt over their own excesses) will have to go back to the drawing board.  So much for being 'carbon neutral' there Mr. thousands of dollars worth of electric bill for the big mansion AlGore.  Same for you DiCaprio.

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3,407 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top

If you are too lazy to click the link and see the rest of the article, then I suppose you might miss this information that is also buried there-in:

There are other potential problems, however. Some researchers suggest forests in the snowy North might actually increase local warming by absorbing sunlight that would otherwise be reflected into space. And dead, decaying trees release some of that captured carbon back into the atmosphere.

Maybe most importantly, some researchers say it's simply not possible to plant enough trees to have a significant effect on global warming.

Michael MacCracken, chief scientist at the nonpartisan Climate Institute in Washington, said tree-planting has value as a stopgap measure while society attempts to reduce greenhouse gases. But University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver fears tree offsets could steal the focus of a problem that requires technological advances and behavioral changes.

"The danger is that you could actually think you're solving a problem," Weaver said. "It makes you feel good. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy, like changing a couple of light bulbs. But the reality is it's not going to have a significant effect."

Pretty much that entire section is important enough to have bolded here, so I've not emphasized it more than what you've seen above.

Just be sure you get the main point -- unless things changed drastically in regards to *NOT* producing the carbon emissions to begin with, then you won't be making a dent in your impact by paying someone to plant trees for you, or by planting some trees and plant life yourself.

There are no simple solutions.  There is no magic bullet.

Until we stop burning coal and oil and consider and follow through on building more Nuclear power plants, or perhaps Wind based power generators, we aren't going to be making much difference.  Why not Solar?  I have nothing against Solar power and would like to see more of it used but I'd have to point out that in generating the solar power cells we typically use more energy and produce more nasty byproducts than what we can offset and get back in any reasonable period of time.

Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top

There are other potential problems, however. Some researchers suggest forests in the snowy North might actually increase local warming by absorbing sunlight that would otherwise be reflected into space. And dead, decaying trees release some of that captured carbon back into the atmosphere.

I already cited that part.  But it is so often overlooked by the religious zealots of GW.

One thing that has not been factored into the equations of the GW religiouos is the capacity of the earth itself (forget the sun for the moment) to wreck more havoc than man can even dream of doing.  Just a few thousand years ago, the earth went through a convulsion so severe, that scientist believe that only a few thousand humans survived the era.  And man was not the cause.

We are over due for another massive burp by the earth.  And man is powerless to do anything about it.

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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
You know what amazes me about the carbon emissions debate? While we're all condemning big SUVs and trying to save energy there are millions of fires in Africa, India and the under-developed countries that spew carbon into our air--yes, not just their's. How do you reconcile a situation like that?
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
I drive an SUV, and I don' care...lol! As Brad has repeatedly said, it's not what you drive, it's how you drive it. And I have calculated my mileage based on driving habits and I do not use any more fuel than a two car family living in the suburbs of a major city driving two hybrids.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top

The problem isn't necessarily the SUVs, though I still see plenty of people driving them around with just the driver on board, doing a pretty good clip (speeding) on the expressways.  I'd hazzard a guess that they're getting about 12 - 14 MPG (for the Expedition types).  If they had a load of people in the vehicle and/or were not driving 30 miles in each direction, it might not be that bad.  As things stand, for most of the SUV drivers their habits are nothing but excess.

The problem is absolutely one where anyone that thinks that they can offset their behavior by applying feel good measures, including planting trees, and then assuming that they've done all they can and/or needed to do.

The Hollywood types are jetsetting around the world, showing off their movies, raving about the latest products they have created and then they come on the TV and tell us all that we need to do more (witness DiCaprio's speechifying at the Academy Awards this past year).  Are they really doing more if they're leading to the burning of hundreds, if not thousands of gallons of fuel for the planes they are flying around in?  How about some of them setting examples by flying *commercial*, back in the coach section.  Oooops, can't do that because they might be recognized, or worse yet for them, not recognized.

Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
I have 2 SUV's at home, a '92 and a '94 Ford Explorer. I average about 20 to the gallon but I only use mine to go to work which is just 15 minutes away and my wife uses hers for work which is a bit far but we also use it to go places which is not much since we always broke, lol. I want to get rid of my truck, but have not found the time to do it and would need to get another vehicle before I do, which I have no money for. It's all too confusing.

It's a shame when people would rather act as if they found a way around a problem as oppose to fixing the problem itself. In the end all they do is give an excuse to keep doing wrong things and you know what happens when people get use to doing this, it just gets worse and worse as tme goes by.