Cargon Offsets for us?
 

I'm not sure I understand how this "carbon trading" thing is supposed to work but it looks like a big corporation can pollute as long as it pays for some trees somewhere. Why can't we car free organize and market our car free ness to polluters? The whole thing seems like a scam if only corporations and not individuals can sell their "rights" to pollute. Or is their a way I can sell my "right" to drive a hummer and crank the AC? I'm always up for a cash flow increase.

You mean like have someone pay me to bike? I'm down with that!

Sign me up please.

Carbon Trading and Carbon Offsets are 2 different things
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_trading

Offsetting is voluntary & is largly contracted by companies attempting to "green" their image. Lots of rich yuppies in big SUV's also buy "cabon offsets", and get a bumper sticker, to prove they're green at heart :)

Trading is a government-run program with emissions "credits" companies get dependant on a bunch of things.

both have their proponents & detractors. fwiw, my company has 20,000 employees, many of whom travel a LOT, and the company buys carbon offsets to cover 100% of it. the company also uses trees as part of the raw material, and grows something like 120% new trees for the ones used.

cheers

Oh, I was confused. So why wouldn't your company or a rich yuppie pay me for my offset? I could put an odometer on my bike to prove how many car miles I'm saving. I still don't get it, we who are solving the problem are being sidelined in the money department.

It wouldn't work. Trees actually sequester carbon, removing it from the atmosphere. Planting a tree offsets carbon emissions from a given source so there is no net increase in carbon emissions. You don't remove any co2 from the atmosphere when you ride your bike. You just prevent it from being released by not driving a car.

Trading involves caping overall carbon levels and allowing participants to trade their credits under this cap. Each source of carbon would get an allocation of credits to use or trade (sell). More of a market-based approach.

I did the 1-ton challenge a few years ago, and tried to sell my reduction on ebay, mostly as a joke. I got no interest :(

So is the title of the thread a typo or a pun? Even if it's a typo, I like it!

+1

Actually trees (and other plants) sequester carbon for a limited time. After the plant dies, the carbon is often re-emitted to the atmosphere. Only if the dead tree is buried and converted to petroleum or coal will the carbon be sequestered for a geologically significant period of time. (oh! I guess plant carbon is also sequestered as peat, like your user name.)

Burning gasoline in a vehicle engine re-emits carbon that was sequestered millions of years ago. Planting a tree will offset that for only a short time, in most cases. However, never burning the gasoline in the first place means that it can stay sequestered for millions more years. That means that us cyclists, by not burning gas at all, are much more effective than all the trees that all the carbon offsets can buy.

So most definitely we should get a cut of the offset action!

Like acroy said, it is voluntary. You can do it too. Find a site you like and donate. I've given to carbonfund.org. There are many other options if you are concerned about the sequestering problem with trees.

I know that riding a bike is an awesome way to reduce carbon, and that a lot of people worry about fraud with carbon offsets. But I decided to give anyways because I've started to believe that doing nothing at all is worse than getting ripped off trying to do the right thing.

There are still plenty of other things we can all do if anyone doesn't believe in offsets.

You're missing the point. We don't want to pay for carbon offsets. This is America. We want other people to pay us. For riding our bikes.

Now, to make this work, do I need to threaten to not ride my bike if they don't pay me?

Actually there was a "proposal" that was presented as a possible future scenario, IIRC it was on the BBC. Where every person on the earth is issued carbon credits. How you use those credits is up to you. Once they are gone you will have to swap or purchase more. So say you start the year with 10,000 credits in your carbon account, you ride a bicycle all year long you would spend few if any credits however someone that drove a gas-guzzling SUV would spend theirs in a matter of months.

Aaron:)

Something more plausible would be a fund to be used for painting bike lanes or creating bike paths, something that would encourage more people to get out of cars and thus reduce carbon.

Other ideas for the money: bicycle safety programs, awareness programs, TV commercials, etc. Probably lots more from someone with a brain bigger than mine, but it seems like it could be a feasible venture.

Ok, math majors, let's figure out how much we should be getting.

To start off, "Gasoline has an energy value of 33,000 kCal per gallon, and it produces 25 pounds of CO2 per gallon." (According to Ken Kifer. I always thought it was 15 pounds.) If a car uses 20 mpg, it will be pumping out 1.25 pounds per mile, or a ton every 1600 miles. If a carbon trade was $29 per ton (I believe that's the going rate in the EU) we should get $29 every time the cycle computer rolls over 1600 miles. I ride about 5000 miles a year, so I'm expecting an annual check for $92.63.

Now I just need to find some tree-hugger yuppie with a Beemer and a guilty conscience to start the checks coming!

BTW, I'm lousy at math so I probably screwed up the figures. At least I hope so, cuz $92 ain't hardly worth it!

Planting trees doesn't help carbon. They die and all of the carbon that they sucked up is released. It is a flat out scam. The carbon that is bad is the carbon that is burned out of fossil fuels, burned trees would have released the carbon anyhow.

You really think a bike path would motivate people more than cold hard cash? I'd ride my bike in the Daytona 500 for enough bread!

I agree, of course more people would be motivated with cash. I just don't think it is realistic or enforceable. I could be wrong.

I'm just tossing out other ideas, it's fun to think about it.

Currently, most countries issue tradeable currency through their central banks. They don't issue new money in equal shares to each person, though. The new money goes into the hands of a very select group of bankers and financiers. If the tradeable carbon credit idea ever comes to fruition, I'd expect it to work the same way. That is, most people will have to earn their necessary carbon credits by trading their labor, just like they have to earn dollars now.

If you really want to help "green" the area you live in, donate your time to one of those organizations that plants trees. there's a bunch of em about - national and local. It's pretty cool to plant a bunch of trees around your own area and watch them grow up. And especially in an urban/syburban area, I bet they can make a measurable difference in air quality & temp reduction!
cheers

It was a typo.

This reads like the governments have absconded with a birthright and given it to corporations to be doled out to people only if they work hard enough for it. First carbon emissions then clean water and air? Or did I mis understand again?

Originally Posted by Platy
That's just how capitalism works. And it only works for the capitalists. :(

One of the things Enron was working on when they blew up was privatizing and monetizing water rights, world wide. That's still an ongoing project in financial circles. I don't think you misunderstand anything. I'm just giving you a little glimpse of what might be taking place backstage. Someone will come along in a few minutes to tell you, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

It does help some. Carbon is stored in the woody material of the tree. Some in the leaves. In the case of some trees, it can be stored for hundreds of years (the life of the tree). Also, the tree can be harvested and used as a product which can store carbon even longer. for example, the wood floors of my house are 100 years old. Bunch of carbon stored in them as well as the frame. The downside of these "plant a tree get a carbon offset" programs is that it takes a long time for a sapling to become a tree. I don't know what kind of credit you get for one tree but it shouldn't be much if they're just planting saplings. Mature trees do provide shade which reduces energy consumption which should be considered also if the trees are planted in suburban/urban settings.