The Carbon Offset Hoax

By Wayne Brown

 

Carbon Offsets Explained to the Kiddies

(or "Pickle #4")

John Oliver presents a funny but true overview of "Carbon Offsets" here. As he points out, the whole thing is a hoax. But it's much worse than he says. It wouldn't work even if it were not a hoax.

Planting a tree takes C02 out of the atmosphere as it makes roots, barks and leaves out of the carbon it "breathes in". But this is a one-time thing. The "carbon offset" idea is based on the tonnage of vegetable matter created by the tree, not the entire life cycle of the tree. The Amazon forest emits more C02 than it absorbs on a net basis.

So, for example, the "trillion tree campaign", in theory, would offset a tremendous amount of carbon once. Next year, we'd need another trillion trees to be planted (or, absurdly, not cut down).

As John Oliver puts it, we can't offset our way out of climate change. Even if we could, the idea is fundamentally flawed. In the long run, planting or saving trees will have zero impact on climate change.

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