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A new Greenpeace study is causing tension among some environmental groups. Carbon Scam (pdf) brings into question carbon offset programs, like the one being used by PacifiCorp, American Electric Power, and BP America to offset some of their carbon production by saving Bolivia's rain forests. Greenpeace took an in-depth look at this project — the Noel Kempff Climate Action Project (NKCAP) — and determined that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Greenpeace's senior forest campaigner, Rolf Skar, says:
Global warming is just too important to gamble with. I'm not ready to trust that something that has not yet shown to be reliable will be so in the future.
Meanwhile the Nature Conservancy, who is a broker for the NKCAP program, disagrees. They stand by their belief that forest protection must be a part of the solution in the fight against climate change, arguing:
The Noel Kempff project also serves as an example of how well-designed forest carbon projects can result in real, scientifically measurable and verifiable emissions reductions with important benefits for biodiversity and local communities.
Have you chosen to purchase carbon offsets? Why? For what? Does it matter to you if those offsets are close to home — a forest in the Cascades, for example — or in a Bolivian rain forest? Would you turn your own land into a carbon offset forest? Have you read the Greenpeace report? What questions does it raise?
Tagged as: carbon offset · climate · forest
Photo credit: joesef.stuefer / Creative Commons
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(CONTINUED FROM PRIOR POST) Unlike some corporate programs that allow consumers to opt into a carbon offset program for additional charge, we provide our carbon-neutral program with every vehicle at no cost to our customers. This is significant, because our program offsets the carbon produced by 100% of our customers, rather than just a small percentage who choose to opt in.
We don't pretend that our carbon-neutral program provides a complete answer to concerns about carbon generated by our vehicles, but it certainly offers a very significant and additional improvement. For the record, it's an investment that no other new vehicle retailer (or manufacturer, for that matter) has yet matched. Meanwhile, as member of the Land Rover dealer council, I continuously lobby our manufacturer for even cleaner and more fuel efficient vehicles.
Dan Muggli / Centre Manager / Land Rover Portland
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I agree that deforestation is an issue that needs to be dealt with on an international level. Your guest mentioned that a lot of the deforestated land in third world countries were being used for small scale agricultural development. Since hunger is an issue in most of the third world, is it a good idea to stop the agricultural development that might solve some of their hunger issues?
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How about some more programs like Al Gore's pushing of ethanol subsidies which has raised the price of the staple of the Americas tortillas by several hundred percent. I suggest you read Dead Aid by a former member of the world bank from Namibia on the negative effects of do gooder programs in Africa especially electric guitar aid which has been disasterous to local economies. Hunger is a PROBLEM! It is not a debatable issue.
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No Matter what you do someone is going to die... I would contend you guys have no idea how little carbon offsets or anything like that matters on a global scale, Way to go Land Rover -Whoopee people who can buy a 100K car only want to be green so they can feel good about heating thier 5,000 sf house occupied by 2.
Think Globally Act Locally- I cringe when I see these stickers it doesn't matter if you buy a carbon credit people are still burning tires in the middle east every day to stay warm. If the nations GDP was spent on green programs how much effect would it have on the earth?
Sorry to pop bubbles here guys, but if global warming is real, then its gonna happen Too many Americans are hungry and out of work to care about Carbon Emissions, Save these good ideas for when unemployment drops again, and a middle class guy could buy a house without sending his wife to work.
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Have you chosen to purchase carbon offsets? No.
Why? If you want to reduce pollution then do so! This is a feel good concept that...
Does it matter to you if those offsets are close to home — a forest in the Cascades, for example — or in a Bolivian rain forest? No.
Would you turn your own land into a carbon offset forest? Yes, I am managing my forest land correctly.
Have you read the Greenpeace report? Yes. After a long supporting association, I left Greenpeace (et al) decades ago, for good reason.What questions does it raise? How can people be so gullible...
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Mr. Rolf refers to Pacific Corp and other utilities as "polluters" What people like Mr. Rolf fail to realize is that we are all polluters by the fact that we use energy produced by said utilities. The only way to "cap" carbon emissions is by improved efficiencies of the most inefficeint power plants (those in China for example) or reducing our usages.
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Mr. Rolf refers to Pacific Corp and other utilities as "polluters" What people like Mr. Rolf fail to realize is that we are all polluters by the fact that we use energy produced by said utilities. The only way to "cap" carbon emissions is by improved efficiencies of the most inefficient power plants (those in China for example) or reducing our usages.
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Carbon offsets remind me of the old Catholic church in the times that one bought dispensations for their sins by giving money to the church, it did not reduce sin and I suspect that it was a failure with the Lord. Carbon offsets are in my opinion just a giant fraud and will be unsucessful and very expensive as most government programs are.
What about the CO2 given off by trees at night is this accounted for?
What about the photochemical smog produced by pine,(fir) forests the presence of which can be seen over pine forests here in North America and the Amazon due to a project to reforest the Amazon basin in a paper making project?
What about managing forest fires by removing brush to prevent the environmental disasters that these fires are?
I always have wanted to ask about these issues.
Bill Edell DDS
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"Carbon offsets remind me of the old Catholic church in the times that one bought dispensations for their sins by giving money to the church, it did not reduce sin and I suspect that it was a failure with the Lord."
Yow! Right on!
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Dan, thanks for stoking your ego. Glad you have reconciled your conscience.
Anyways, I have a couple questions:
1. Can a company like Weyerhauser make money on both sides of the equation (by foresting areas and then eventually cutting them down later for consumer products, or are those exempted?)
2. What constitutes a forest? Are monoculture forests eligible for credits? Is there any native plant threshold needed to be reached?
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I personally think that Carbon Trading is too narrow of an approach to fix the unbalance of Climate Change. If we think that learning how to measure carbon emissions and offsets will solve Climate Change as a silver bullet approach we will be missing the boat again. -Oil centric or Carbon centric there is not much of a difference-. What about forests, water cycle, seeds, food, soil, biodiversity and balance? Once we get our perfect carbon calculation tools set up are we going to move to the next topic? Maybe then it will be too late. We need to stop thinking of this issue in a single-minded way.
There are different types of forests and assuming that you can manage a tropical forest like a forest in Oregon is naïve. The Amazon contains 50 percent of the world’s biodiversity, a much more complex ecosystem to be managed!
more on the next comment box
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If we only focus on reforestation than we will end up living in a world of monocultures of 2-3 species of trees plantations (like corn fields made out of trees). A forest plantation and a natural forest are two completely different animals. We cannot pile them in the same stack.
The Noel Kempf National park management in Bolivia is a great example of a holistic approach because it focuses on the three pillars of sustainability; economic, social, and environmental.
It is really easy to point your finger and say what is wrong, but doing the field work to make projects and stakeholders to work together has more merit.
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Rather than a comment, I have a question:
Why does the Bureau of Land Management in Central Oregon burn large areas of Juniper? Doesn't Juniper absorb carbon? Doesn't the intense smoke [some even reaching Portland] add to the carbon in the atmosphere? Shouldn't our Government set an example, after all the burning is to clear land for cattle grazing?
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Actually while I understand your point.
Clearing the over growth of Juniper that has occurred because of the unsustainable practice of suppression of fire, is in the long term what the ecosystem needs. -
Great show! So refreshing to hear two folks talk about an important issue on which they have some disagreement with rationality and respect.
I was really caught though by one of the last comments-- "it *could* work". Yeah, carbon offsets or cap/trade COULD work, but only if we get effective laws with teeth on the books. But that's what's so frustrating--that's so unlikely to happen! Every time I get excited about environmental progress I remember there are more fundamental obstacles to that goal, mainly big money and corporate interference in our democratic processes.
How do we get money's corrupting, blind and unfair influence out of our government? Isn't that the central issue preventing progress on so many of the important issues we work on?
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Thank you for today's program. As we have also been longtime corporate supporters of OPB Radio, many of your listeners will be aware of Land Rover Portland's carbon-neutral program. More than three years ago we became the first automobile dealer in North America to provide complimentary carbon offsets with every vehicle delivered here in Portland.
As distinguished from the Nature Conservancy program, our offsets are provided by the Conservation Fund www.conservationfund.org (the nation's highest rated environmental non-profit organization).
Through the additional restoration of native North American forests in permanently protected areas with long term management plans, our program provides CO2 offsets equal to 50,000 miles of driving. Through a separate program, our manufacturer offsets all CO2 produced during the assembly of our vehicles. (CONTINUED NEXT POST)