Cheat Neutral

Posted on February 5 by Josef

Tags: , , , , , | 1 comment

I’ve written before about the carbon offsetting con and in my update I mentioned the wonderful Cheat Neutral site.

Now I figured I should embed their splendid video here too for your delight and enjoyment:

Their about page is also great, and so I reproduce that here too…

About Cheatneutral

Cheatneutral is about offsetting infidelity. We’re the only people doing it, and Cheatneutral is a joke.

Carbon offsetting is about paying for the right to carry on emitting carbon.
The Carbon offset industry sold £60 million of offsets last year, and is
rapidly growing. Carbon offsetting is also a joke.

Find out more:

Five ways that Cheatneutral is like carbon offsetting:

  1. Cheatneutral tries to make it seem acceptable to cheat on your partner.
    In the same way, carbon offsetting tries to make it acceptable to carry
    on emitting excess carbon.
  2. Cheatneutral doesn’t really do much to reduce the amount of cheating in
    the world. Carbon offsetting does very little to reduce global carbon
    emissions.
  3. It seems impossible to measure how much harm cheating on someone does.
    With carbon offsetting, there is currently no practically feasible way
    of measuring how much carbon offset projects actually save.
  4. Having Cheatneutral’s services available could actually encourages you
    to cheat more. If the carbon offsetters persuade you that it’s possible
    to offset your emissions, you’ll carry on emitting excess carbon through
    your lifestyle rather than think about reducing your emissions.
  5. Cheatneutral is fundamentally the wrong way to go about solving problems
    with your relationships. Carbon offsetting is fundamentally the wrong
    way to go about tackling climate change.

Two ways which Cheatneutral is not like carbon offsetting:

  1. We don’t make any money out of Cheatneutral. Offset companies in the
    voluntary carbon market take a cut of every transaction and make a
    profit.
  2. Cheatneutral is a joke we thought up in the pub. Carbon offsetting
    presents itself as a credible solution to climate change, described by
    the government’s chief scientist Sir David King as
    “the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even
    than the threat of terrorism…”

What can I do instead?

  • Measure your carbon footprint. There are good resources to do this online —
    visit www.resurgence.org/carboncalculator for a good, detailed analysis of your footprint. For a slightly quicker calculator try www.carbongym.co.uk, or www.chooseclimate.org to look in more depth at the CO2 emissions associated with flying.
  • Think about reducing your carbon footprint. There are lots of easy ways to reduce the emissions from various areas of your life. You might want to think about your home,
    transport and what you eat and consume. There are lots of resources on the internet to help you reduce your emissions.
  • Learn about Contraction and Convergence. C&C is a framework for agreeing a global cap on carbon emissions. We believe that to make our individual sacrifices count, we need a global framework that caps the amount of carbon emitted, creates a timeframe for reducing emissions to a safe level, and distributes carbon credits equitably. C&C satisfies all of these, and would make carbon trading fair and effective. Good resources are www.climatejustice.org.uk and www.gci.org.uk
  • Use your influence as a citizen. You could lobby your MP for the adoption of C&C and telling them you are concerned about climate change. You can also talk to and lobby your elected representatives from local and regional and European government. You can find out who your MP is at www.theyworkforyou.com. Think about joining a pressure group, lobby group or charity that you feel shares and promotes your concerns.
  • Get together with your friends or family and discuss what you think. How we face up to the new challenges of climate change should be something everyone has an opinion on. Although individual action is needed, we also need ways to make government and businesses take a lead in responsibly dealing with emission reduction.



See also:

Carbon Con update

Posted on March 5 by Josef

Tags: , , , , | 1 comment

A while ago, prompted by a load of Hub members sending details about numerous Carbon “offsetting” companies to the Hub list, I wrote The Carbon Con.

One of the comments I got was from tav of green.tv

“well said!

wish more people would think like this.”

Thankfully it seems more people do now indeed think like this.

Going through the news that I’ve aggregated on the Commons Creation site, I ended up reading a member’s blog, which in turn led me Dougald Hine’s excellent blog where I saw this article about Paul Kingsnorth’s mock up of CheatCare:
cheatcare.jpg

A couple of days later I came across CheatNeutral, a wonderful site.

Their about page nicely outlines why Carbon “offsetting” is such a load of nonsense:

About Cheatneutral

Cheatneutral is about offsetting infidelity. We’re the only people doing it, and Cheatneutral is a joke.

Carbon offsetting is about paying for the right to carry on emitting carbon. The Carbon offset industry sold £60 million of offsets last year, and is rapidly growing. Carbon offsetting is also a joke.

Five ways that Cheatneutral is like carbon offsetting:

1. Cheatneutral tries to make it seem acceptable to cheat on your partner. In the same way, carbon offsetting tries to make it acceptable to carry on emitting excess carbon.

2. Cheatneutral doesn’t really do much to reduce the amount of cheating in the world. Carbon offsetting does very little to reduce global carbon emissions.

3. It seems impossible to measure how much harm cheating on someone does. With carbon offsetting, there is currently no practically feasible way of measuring how much carbon offset projects actually save.

4. Having Cheatneutral’s services available could actually encourages you o cheat more. If the carbon offsetters persuade you that it’s possible to offset your emissions, you’ll carry on emitting excess carbon through your lifestyle rather than think about reducing your emissions.

5. Cheatneutral is fundamentally the wrong way to go about solving problems with your relationships. Carbon offsetting is fundamentally the wrong way to go about tackling climate change.

Two ways which Cheatneutral is not like carbon offsetting:

1. We don’t make any money out of Cheatneutral. Offset companies in the voluntary carbon market take a cut of every transaction and make a profit.

2. Cheatneutral is a joke we thought up in the pub. Carbon offsetting presents itself as a credible solution to climate change, described by the government’s chief scientist Sir David King as “the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism…”

The same day that I came across CheatNeutral, a new report was published by Carbon Trade Watch, entitled “The Carbon Neutral Myth - Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins”:

Carbon offsets are the modern day indulgences, sold to an increasingly carbon conscious public to absolve their climate sins. Scratch the surface, however, and a disturbing picture emerges, where creative accountancy and elaborate shell games cover up the impossibility of verifying genuine climate change benefits, and where communities in the South often have little choice as offset projects are inflicted on them.

This report argues that offsets place disproportionate emphasis on individual lifestyles and carbon footprints, distracting attention from the wider, systemic changes and collective political action that needs to be taken to tackle climate change. Promoting more effective and empowering approaches involves moving away from the marketing gimmicks, celebrity endorsements, technological quick fixes, and the North/South exploitation that the carbon offsets industry embodies.

Download the report here



See also:

The Carbon “Offset” Con

Posted on November 1 by Josef

Tags: , , , , , , , | 2 comments

Here is the text of an e-mail I sent out earlier today:

Sorry to smash the illusion folks, but I’ve done considerable research into this and carbon “off-sets” are a con.

We cannot neutralise, nor “off-set”, carbon we have already emitted (or are about to emit by driving, flying etc.) by giving someone £7.5/per tonne of carbon we emit.

We cannot consume our ways out of trouble by simply buying a few carbon credits each time we fly, or even by totting up our total carbon footprint for the year and becoming so-called “carbon neutral” citizens.

It may sound strange, but the only way to reduce our carbon emissions is to actually reduce our carbon emissions.

Buying carbon credits to make ourselves feel better simply doesn’t cut it. We need to reduce our direct and indirect consumption of fossil fuels (and *reduce our consumption* of all resources).

Therefore,

Rather than signing up with http://www.targetneutral.com or http://www.terrapass.com/ford/ (BP’s and ford’s offerings), and then believing that every mile you drive is actually helping the environment, *drive less*.

(see, for example, http://cuttingyourcaruse.co.uk/)

Rather than continuing to take all those cheap flights every other weekend, because you’ve “off-set” the emissions, *fly less*.

(a great site about how to travel by train and ship is http://www.seat61.com )

Rather than working out how much energy your house uses and then simply paying your penance to the carbon “off-setters” (the modern-day equivalent of corrupt catholic priests who used to put a price on your sins and then cash in), *use less energy*.

(and switch to http://ecotricity.com )

OK, so “off-setting” *can* mean some money going in the right direction. But even that is very dubious. Nearly all the carbon “offset” companies are run for private profit and they generally all pass the buck when it comes to actually ensuring your money is invested in credible projects

(a pretty good article on this can be found here:
http://www.newint.org/features/2006/07/01/keynote/ )

Therefore, rather than giving money to carbon “off-setters” who lead us to believe we can continue as normal so long as we give them £7.50 for every tonne of carbon we emit, why not…

*Invest your money in a Triodos Renewable Energy Bond*
http://www.triodos.co.uk/

*Express your interest in helping to fund co-operative community wind farms*
http://www.energy4all.co.uk/

*Lobby your local council to adopt the Merton Rule*
http://themertonrule.org

*Forget CO2lonialism, read *Ecology Begins At Home*:
http://www.alternativ.nu/ecologybeginsathome/EcologyBeginsAtHome.pdf

*Learn more about your Ecological Footprint*
http://myfootprint.org

*Discover how to create a Happy Planet*
http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_publicationdetail.aspx?pid=225

Together we really can create a radically better world.

And we’re going to.

Carbon “off-setting” is not how we’re going to do it.

Warming regards,

Josef.

PS - lots of fun climate change related stuff happening this weekend:
http://www.campaigncc.org/nov4.shtml - join in!



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