Carbon Offsets Don't Work. Here's Why

Individuals, companies and governments “offset” carbon emissions by paying to plant trees or fund solar panels in one place, so they can emit them elsewhere. Carbon credits are exchanged in the open market with the idea that carbon prices will go up - forcing companies to emit less. Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant looks at why carbon offsets may not solve the climate crisis.
Based on the book by Jenny Price.
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[@jess_o]

Does anyone know who it was that described carbon offsets as "Trying to decrease infidelity in society by cheating on your wife, but paying another already faithful couple to remain faithful while you do it"

[@mcrowl2823]

I think it's Trevor Noah but I may be wrong.

[@CurtisJanzen]

99% of the air we breathe is Nitrogen, Oxygen and Argon. Only 0.04% of the atmosphere is CO2. The premise that a slight increase in CO2 is dangerous is incorrect. When CO2 levels go up, plants thrive and turn that CO2 back into O2. Nature keeps things in balance.

[@jmr]

​@@mcrowl2823I never heard him say that but it sounds exactly like something he would say.

[@markedis5902]

I’ve also heard it likened to “buying your salvation from a priest”.

[@chelseashurmantine8153]

Still doesn’t fit, cuz the faithful couple isn’t even a couple

[@JeffBilkins]

"Staying green" is a dog-whistle for "Ignore the problem and keep making money"

[@dave_riots]

It's the money. The money literally is the green they're talking about.

[@Yeahok-pc2jd]

Ya everything is about $$$$ because at this point in our transformation greed is the strongest force in humanity

[@volkerengels5298]

...sadly it is simultaneously true - that climate change costs are far higher. Put that together and you have a disaster for all. "You can't buy bread"

[@DBT1007]

The same like the mindset of ppl who still think everything is all about money. Like.. Phone battery or the phone itself. "hahaha. You still think you need to care for your phone? Poor. If your phone got scratched, just buy a new one lol" It applies to many stuff. They consume lots of stuff, never think about the resources and the waste they produces. They only think about the price. "ahh this one is only 3$"

[@spaz_matic]

Until lobbyist money is removed from politics this kind of argument will just be preaching to the choir.

[@DesmondKarani]

"Legal corruption."

[@tccragun]

‘Citizens United’ created the billionaires who now own (most of) the legislative processes.

[@jcook2433]

Lobbyists! 😢 Selling credits.😢 Not new! Obviously we need alternatives to energy but what is the answer? The vehicle plant is leaving me with no air and it is cutting edge tech. Where do we go from here? Anyone? Serious question.

[@scpatl4now]

Alternate power sources only work when they REPLACE fossil fuels. That is why carbon offsets don't work.

[@youngstunna1594]

Are there enough alternatives to be able to support a world/ country with fossil fuel cuts?

[@tccragun]

@@youngstunna1594The short answer is No. But the sooner we move to keep fossil fuels in the ground, the more options we will have for a smooth transition. Now is the time to choose a cooperative system of decentralized food and energy production along with walkable/bikeable communities and a rail based travel/freight system. Because a ‘for profit’ economy is largely responsible for the climate crisis we must not expect/assume that system to resolve this crisis. We must, democratically, replace competition with cooperation. Get ready to ‘take it to the streets’ because in the words of Bob Dylan, ‘the times they are a changin’

[@scpatl4now]

@@tccragun The other problem with adopting green alternatives is that many state governments (in the US) are hostile to it and promote the bills pushed by the fossil fuel lobbyists. Where I live the PSC that sets electrical rates allows the local electric monopoly to put so many burdens of having solar panels that isn't financially feasible to have them. We need something top down that negates all these barriers and forces local utilities to purchase surplus solar from individual residences at the rate they charge you for it.

[@youngstunna1594]

@@tccragun people as a whole are gonna have a hard to conforming to such green social communities…sounds like a lot of individual freedoms regularly enjoyed would erode away with such proposals.

[@youngstunna1594]

@@scpatl4now there are definitely energy monopolies…yes that is fact

[@susanyoung6579]

Reminds me of the church selling indulgences.

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

Theological librarian here. Excellent point. In their time, indulgences led to Reformation, and Counter-Reformation (Reformation inside the Catholic church). Let's see what happens with this carbon things. ✌

[@opossumboyo]

Just have to say that PBS Terra is one of the best climate content creators in the U.S. at the moment, and definitely the best from “mainstream” media sources. Makes me proud to be a donor.

[@mascadadelpantion8018]

We need to somehow not be so dependent on a consumerist society

[@phillipgarcia241]

It's the best thing we have to lift people out of poverty all over the world. One nation with a global minimum wage is the answer.

[@Debbie-henri]

Only a very few people are prepared to live such an unimposing lifestyle. The vast majority want consumerism, enjoy it, revel in it, their lives revolving around showing off to others what they have. And advertisers and companies want this mindset to stay, governments benefitting from the taxes collected on many goods and from company profits... So they're not going to curb consumerism either. They don't want us living cheaply. They want us to buy and fly so they can keep on adding phoney GDP to the value of their country, so they can show off to other countries what they have.

[@DesmondKarani]

@@Debbie-henri 💯💯 governments also want to brag. Consumerism isn't going anywhere any time soon.

[@tccragun]

@@Debbie-henriyou got it. That’s why the system MUST CHANGE ! We can either make the necessary changes ourselves, or the powers of the earth will force that change ! In the words of Dylan: “The times they are a changin’ “

[@A3Kr0n]

It's called "collapse"

[@Bonafide188]

I absolutely love this series. These are the arguments I was making against these schemes in my grad program in 2014 and abruptly dismissed for not having any compromise for companies

[@weirdsweetcoolplants]

Compromise for companies? THEY are the ones who made the problem in the first place, not to mention were/are keeping it growing, so why can't we, outside of government bs, make them (or at least yet) SOLVE the dang problem?😢

[@elijahvelazquez321]

We can't do our part when the basic necessities like eating enough food and having a mind that isn't constantly battered are thrown aside for some. If we do the changes needed it means not just some of us, ALL of us

[@Simon-fg8iz]

The solution is a carbon TAX. Mandatory payment for every emission across the production line, no excuses, no selling responsibilities, no offsets, no loopholes. This is the only way - if every carbon emission adds to the FINAL price, then emissions actually cost more. That incentivises everyone to go for the cheaper option which will in this case be the one with fewer emissions, no matter if it's the electricity that is produced with carbon-heavy sources, or the use of fossil fuels, or industrial emissions during production, or use of the produced chemicals, everything should scale equally with produced emissions. Every time you allow trading of responsibility, or try to micro manage every single pollution source separately, you introduce complexity that can be exploited. The market will *always* find a way to get around it, and make it worse.

[@darrellhuddleston5441]

Offsetting our way to extinction.

[@RabbitInAHumanWoild]

You said that Canada has a C&T system but this is not quite true. At the national level we have a carbon tax as does British Columbia. Some other provinces such as Quebec, which is part of the same C&T scheme as California, do C&T. Some do nothing at all.

[@lindsaydempsey5683]

Yup, Canada Inc, does not have a cap and trade system, it has a well developed carbon tax system that applies a carbon charge to most consumers and businesses in Canada. Some variations exist that the provincial level, but by and large, almost all Canadians pay for the carbon they emit.

[@ryuuguu01]

@@lindsaydempsey5683 Canada has a carbon tax which is getting loopholes added and if the Conservatives get it may be removed.

[@paulristow3454]

The carbon tax here in Canada has resulted in ZERO verifiable GHG reductions. It's a tax plan that has only served to demolish the economy. I work in the energy-efficiency/decarbonization field and I was a fan of this at first, until over several years it ended up nearly doubling the cost of construction projects to implement the energy & GHG savings that we had planned for.

[@Bushman9]

Simply put… you can’t tax the air clean. But Trudeau, like his Liberal forerunners, love taxes. Tax and spend. Repeat.

[@deborahblock-schwenk2907]

Credits are easy to game; simple taxes are not. We need a climate pollution tax!

[@nasirmeraj618]

Happy Early Earth Day! 🌍🌎🌏

[@FutureAIDev2015]

What if a hypothetical politician or organization could somehow magically impose a very high cost to pollution without worry about getting reelected or making their corporate constituents angry?

[@FutureAIDev2015]

Although that kind of measure now that I think of it sounds eerily similar to granting emergency powers like they did with Chancellor Palpatine in Star Wars Episode 3... And which basically happened in the beginning of the formation of the Roman empire, where Julius Caesar if I remember right was given emergency powers that were intended to be temporary but he just ran with them.

[@DeathsGarden-oz9gg]

Plant more native gardens trees vegetables fruits berry's to provide food and keep it native to help the native wild life like bugs birds bat's yes some will visit as night time pollinators will visit so will the bat's. It also helps reduce pesticide use and water use and can help reduce flooding in cities have more green spaces.

[@davidmenasco5743]

This is definitely great stuff to do. But it gets nowhere near the scale needed to address climate change. The main problems are: Transportation -- especially large and/or heavy duty vehicles over ground, air and water. Heavy industry - especially processes that involve high heat like steel factories, or lots of carbon, like concrete and cement. Agriculture - especially beef production. Dealing with these things will require creative solutions AND major government policy initiatives. There is just no way around it. The political system will have to be functioning -- at a high level, and involved deeply in solving this problem, or else the human race is in for some hard, hard times. Voting is more important now than ever.

[@jcook2433]

Cannot plant here due to defoliation and clear cutting, burning, chemical out put near new “Industrial facility” to produce EV. Must stop defoliation. Quick! Last breath statement will be stop defoliation. 🥵

[@Blood-PawWerewolf]

So it’s a stock market for polluting…. Humanity has fallen even further.

[@derek-64]

The only green they see is printed on dollar bills

[@franimal86]

Thank you!!

[@victoriaeads6126]

If only there was a way to make significant, enforceable rules about how companies operate to compelling them to change. If only. I guess making rules about not allowing the companies to unduly and unethically influence the process might be important, too. Huh.

[@davidmenasco5743]

These things have been done in the past. And they could be done again. It's just a matter of people coming together and reaching a consensus. But that consensus building today is the biggest challenge.

[@flufffycow]

Concrete is a big problem, if we could find a way too make green concrete it would save alot.

[@volkerengels5298]

We have ten others of that size And 4 more of an even bigger volume. e.g. We have NO control over species extinction. With rising temps this will speed up. It is insane fast by now.

[@rsaunders57]

"What needs to be done" at 8:14 is unrealistic and infeasible. Other than that, great video. Carbon markets were a concept to use the market to find a solution when no feasible solution was known. They haven't worked, yet, and you really need to see that there is no feasible solution from that. The policy discussion has to shift from "targets" which it seems we don't know how to hit, to solutions. When engineers can't find a solution, you need to give them more money, not shift to magical thinking and indigenous peoples virtue signaling.

[@user-bp8yg3ko1r]

Excellent and informative video, thank you!

[@jffryh]

This is like saying speeding tickets don't work because it allows drivers to speed as long as they're willing to pay their ticket fines. Would you rather polluters not pay to pollute? Then polluting would be free, like it already is.

[@Sugar3Glider]

Great note at the end

[@VulcanData84]

Trump: California Needs To Do A Better Job At Raking The Forests. US: 🤯...W🤔T🤷F🤬!?

[@cpi23]

one of the most important series on youtube

[@kzisnbkosplay3346]

We need to stop putting the well being of businesses before the well being of the planet as we know it.

[@chonglers1513]

And people

[@michaeldesbiens1322]

I work in a small aluminium melting plant .. this is fucked up how much they send shit into the environment because they have "permit" to do it

[@johnchambers8528]

One comment I felt that was wrong was where the commentator said local communities need more say on siting industrial facilities. Most areas unless they are very rural have zoning rules that limit what type of housing, commercial or industrial buildings can be put on available land. In rural areas they still have to meet state or federal pollution rules as well as wetlands restrictions or disturbance of endangered animal habitats. In these cases more government over site may be needed to prevent enviormental damage.

[@huldu]

There are two types of people in our world, those who can afford to care about these things and the rest who are only trying to survive each day as our society slowly crumbles apart.

[@JeffBilkins]

Those who can afford to care about it also can afford to not care about it.

[@WhoisTheOtherVindAzz]

There are "two" types of people: those that reinforce said divide and those that don't. Doesn't matter where you are from. Advocate for much shorter work weeks, free healthcare, education, etc. even in the face of your coworkers or friends calling you naive due to their own inability to realize that the only thing that makes you seem so is their own stubbornness and lack of imagination (both are caused by the system itself - which they help reinforce in a vicious circle). Read and study whenever you can (but please, not too much of the old greeks, that won't lead to anything new). (I grew up - at times - close to the bottom of society, and holy moly do "we" make it hard on ourselves. I am just lucky I live in a society with wellfare and free education (teaching me to care about something just for the sake of that something - not just to be exploitable; unfortunately many institutions aren't like that, so this was another place I was lucky) otherwise the times I were just at the edge could easily have ended drastically different had there not been anyone or anything to support me - I could quite easily have fallen in one sense or another, as family members have done, unfortunately). Climate change is real, there is no need to undermine it. But if your intention was to put focus on the lack of many system's ability to ensure that their citizens are even capable of caring, then I'm right there with you: and advocating for improved conditions (those I listed a few of above or whatever you personally think those are - i.e., independently of whether we agree on the specifics) is then indirectly helping "solving" the climate problem.

[@patrickfitzgerald2861]

Wrong. The people who are "only trying to survive" are the victims of the fossil fuel industry gangster capitalists, and they need to raise their voices in protest at what is happening both to them, and to the only home we will ever have.

[@davidmenasco5743]

The people who are just trying to get by, ARE the people who will be worst affected, and ARE the people who cannot afford to ignore it. They need to get involved to save their own behinds, because the people who have been running the show up until now have absolutely no way of dealing with the situation. Major institutions have come out and admitted that the existing economic system has no mechanism to deal with the type of threat that climate change represents. This means that the political system will have to be involved very deeply, and every person who has a vote needs to take it seriously and use their vote wisely. Voters need to look at candidates and vote for the ones who are serious about reducing CO2 emissions, especially by reducing reliance on fossil fuels. The first steps are: Wind + Solar + Batteries, and a carbon tax. Here's the good news: In the long run, the energy transition is going to save mountains of money. There is no one, anywhere, who is too poor to benefit from getting out from under the thumb of the fossil fuel companies.

[@jcook2433]

I cannot afford but care and never give up trying. Even weak efforts count when numbers stick together.

[@the1exnay]

Everything you suggested sounds great if we ignore the downsides. But, yeah, carbon credits don’t work. It’s just too easy to get a credit without actually reducing emissions at all. Carbon capture is easier to measure but too expensive to be worthwhile at this point. Despite the pessimistic tone of this video, a lot of good progress has been made towards reducing carbon emissions. It’s too little too slow to avoid climate change being a big problem. But it’s hardly trivial that so many countries have managed to reduce their carbon emissions. The EU, the US, canada, Australia, and more have their emissions decreasing year over year. Solar power and grid scale storage are rapidly improving which will make it easier to transition away from fossil fuel. Which is especially important for the less wealthy countries which would otherwise struggle to reduce emissions. Electric vehicles are similarly making progress. Over the last five years the proportion of cars that are electric has steadily increased and i suspect it will continue to do so if we continue on our current path (though, I’m hoping recharge stations soon realise that they’re just gas stations and become similarly user friendly) We need to do more, and hopefully faster, until we reach net negative global carbon emissions but there’s no benefit to making it sound hopeless and like we’ve made no progress

[@A3Kr0n]

It's nice to see someone being honest about these topics. Maybe someday you'll do videos on how what needs to be done won't happen. Call me a doomer, or call me a realist it's the same thing.

[@cdineaglecollapsecenter4672]

This has a lot in common with a Ponzi scheme. Thanks for the video!

[@jimc9516]

Here's an analogy for cap&trade: i live in a village next to a river and crap in that river every morning. my neighbour has indoor plumbing so he can use his washroom at home. i pay him $5 to not crap in the river and say i've reduced the amount of crap in the river. Here's an analogy for carbon taxes: i crap in the same river, but the government says "you have to pay us $5 if you want to keep crapping in the river". I ask them, "ok, can I renovate my house to get indoor plumbing?" they say "sure, pay us $200 for the permit and it'll take us 2 years to review it before we allow you to do that"

[@sandeshmhatre2702]

Imagine now a situation where the price is going up because of limited supply and more demand. Instead of 5$ you have to either pay 5000$ or build your own toilet. There will come a time when it will make sense to better invest in a toilet rather than paying your neighbour. Same with the taxes, imagine the money you paying as taxes leaves you no money to spend on routine expenses (you will feel penalized) and that money government invests in creating public toilets in the village (prevents others from polluting the river, as they are smarter than you and want to not pay any taxes).

[@WhichDoctor1]

any co2 reduction plan that's popular with oil companies isn't a co2 reduction plan at all. It's a keep emitting co2 as usual plan

[@steveking6204]

I wholeheartedly share these concerns. However, in the absence of economic growth, fossil fuels will continue to dominate. In a struggling economy, consumers will vote with their money and their ballots for the status quo. The difficult truth is that change requires resources which, in turn, requires economic growth.

[@MayAwbin]

Hi! Carbon offset has to be distinguished from the carbon market. Currently the carbon market prices worldwide is ten times lower than what it should be, making it ineffective to inventivise company to change their production scheme. Rise the prices to their real environmental cost, and the companies will reduce their carbon emissions by themselves smoothly.

[@ryuuguu01]

I would like to see something on 24/7 hourly green energy matching.

[@peoprie]

I agree it is important to highlight how we can improve a system, but I feel it would be a mistake to not recognize the minor successes and the steps in the right direction we are taking. We cant change over night, but I believe we are at least going in the right direction 😊

[@mwmentor]

Carbon Offsets are a prime exhibit of greenwashing - nothing changes - as highlighted by your presenter. It is time that they were taken off of the table. On another note: there is one point that I want to pick up on: methane emissions in dairy cattle is released through burping and not flatulence as is commonly believed. The only way to reduce that source is to reduce the amount of cattle in the world. Something to think about.

[@5353Jumper]

Or to feed the cattle better food so they have less gas.

[@RB-kb3tc]

@@5353Jumper I doubt this is going to work. Cattle's natural food is low-calorie and very hard to digest, which is why they evolved such an intricate digestive system that heavily relies on fermentation. If anything, I'd bet that more artificial easiliy-digestible food (the exact opposite of what ruminants naturally eat) might cause less gas. Just did a bit of research to fact check my hypothesis and it checks out. To decrease methane emissions use a diet with added fats from stuff like sunflower/canola seeds, and extra corn grain.

[@Jebusankel]

I'm an advocate for carbon offsets and I have to say this hasn't changed my mind. I admit that the current system is flawed in many ways, but in principle we're talking about allocating resources and we need economics to do that rationally. We can't just fall back on ideological moralizing. And watch out for that little bit at the end, about having communities have a say over what gets built. That "right" gets used to impede green projects all the time.

[@mk1st]

“Carbon offsets are a favorite with oil companies” Tells you everything right there.

[@elsalsero822r3]

this video seems misleading, starting with stating that California has reduced emissions overall, but... if solution is to stop the problem at its source-- ie at the plants where fossile fuels are burned, then the options are: 1) drastically limit consumption of fossil fuels and risk the large economic and political pain that will ensue or 2) find an alternate, cheaper energy source. with the rise of populism and misinformation, i don't see option 1 as being at all viable. however, option 2 is already underway. solar panels have decreased 90% in cost over the last 10 years and will continue to do so. major advances in battery storage technologies are allowing entire counties to become energy independent. the best way forward that i can see is to invest in renewables. even by allowing businesses to pollute for now so long as they invest in solar or other renewable technology to offset. at some point, the cost of renewable energy will be so low that companies will act in their best interest (as they always do) and pivot to renewables. at that point, the reductions in carbon emissions will be exponential.

[@krobbins8395]

We seem to be stuck in a pattern of inefficiency, redundancy and disposabilty. The efforts to reduce for ever chemicals in our water comes to mind. We need more resources to clean something that is going to be continued to be produced create so many peoblems. Looking at the complete life cycle of a plastic bottle with the theory that you might be able to start the life cycle again and more are being made everyday! How many man hours and fuel resources will be needed to keep this going saying it's good for the economy seems like more cost and waste to me? We can create more markets for trash and poison....its insane. Think of the cost to health and wildlife .....weather damage.Well seems to be pretty dang expensive to not find better ways.

[@brendalong3852]

Wasn't the carbon offset originally supposed to be a temporary program to help industry while they were working on reducing their carbon footprint?

[@christopherlocke]

Saying carbon producers need to reduce production at the source is an oversimplified way of looking at it. Those producers produce because there is demand (energy, food, transportation). There needs to be an effort to comprehensively shift the whole market away from things that heavily produce carbon (would carbon taxes be a way to naturally incentivize cleaner alternatives?).

[@steveleavell114]

I first heard about selling carbon credits in a story about daury farmers using manure to power their farms. I said even then it isn't doing anything because someone else is just making more carbon emissions.

[@rappar9673]

It sounds like the caps are just too lax and they're not restricting the market, as they should.

[@kevinclws]

Doesn't buying offsets increase the cost of outputting carbon to act as a carbon tax? I thought that was the intent? Tesla's early days were funded by selling carbon credits to gas car makers

[@heavymetalbassist5]

King of the hill said this over a decade ago

[@lindsaydempsey5683]

There are so many issues with this piece that I don't have the time to list them, but here's some highlights. Deliberately conflating GHG emissions with pollution. Conflating carbon offsets and GHG emissions with social justice issues, the list goes on. Bad science and discussion, a failing grade on an important topic.

[@grischa762]

Well GHG are a form of pollution, albeit not the only one. And social justice issues are always a central element when it comes to the effects of climate change, environmental pollution and how we can solve these issues.

[@MariaMartinez-researcher]

Uh... Greenhouse gases are not pollution? Don't carbon offsets trade and greenhouse gases emissions' *consequences* affect more the people in third world countries and poor communities in developed countries? Ever heard of Cancer Alley, Louisiana? Quintero, Chile, going from a beautiful beach town to "sacrifice zone"? Don't those companies use their carbon credits to continue polluting freely? Literally, freely? At no cost whatsoever for them? In which way exactly carbon offsets make those companies to pollute *less?* What use is carbon offset for the people living by the side of petrochemical plants? Or for the planet, seeing with our own eyes that carbon, methane, etc., emissions keep increasing?

[@lindsaydempsey5683]

Sorry for the delay in responding, it's been very busy. With respect; CO2 is not pollution, but it is a GHG. It is molecule that is central to all life on earth, you and I both breath it in and we breath out more. When that process stops or is stopped we die. Without CO2, plant's die. On the other hand, pollutants normally have a relatively fast acting direct measurable adverse dose response in biological life. People concerned about the impacts of GHG emissions and global warming yell "follow the science" and then very unscientifically confound CO2 with pollutants like CO, NOx, SOx and mercury emissions. These are not the same things. We do need to get serious about adopting policies and practices that reduce GHG emissions in general and CO2 in particular. That is important IMO. And as an aside for the science followers, IPCC scientists (as contrasted to politicians and policy writers) do not claim that global warming is an existential threat, why, because it isn't. It's a challenge, a serious challenge that needs to be taken seriously. Can we please take it seriously and deal with it as it actually is, while resisting the temptation to glom on to it issues of social justice, righting of past wrongs, basic universal income and more free child care. Those things are important too, but if we tie it all into one messy giant ball of tangled string, nothing will get done.

[@lindsaydempsey5683]

@@MariaMartinez-researcher I don't see any connection between CO2 emissions and cancer. I can accept a connection between cancer clusters and the pollutants released by petrochemical complexes as an example, that's definitely a thing, and to the extent that direct connections can be drawn between pollutant X or Y and human health effects, that needs to adequately monitored and regulated. I am not familiar with Quintero, Chile, but that sounds like a case of unmitigated pollution pure and simple. That sounds like a failure of government and local authorities to adequately protect its citizens and adequately regulate the pollution of air and water. Pollution is the problem, not CO2. For what it is worth, I think that we need a price on carbon at source. I also think that there are some applications like air travel where liquid fuels are very difficult to substitute for non-emitting alternatives, therefore I think that there should be room for well managed and properly regulated high quality carbon offsets. For example, there seems to be any amount of degraded habitat that would benefit from active restoration and permanent protection. In my opinion, the problem with carbon offsets is not the basic idea, but the way in which it is being done. With proper oversight and regulation I can see the potential for a lot of good to come from it. If you just want to stop using fossil fuels, I recommend that you take a good hard look at that as a personal choice, and I'd be genuinely interested to understand your experience of a life lived without fossil fuels.

[@andrej2375]

So you're saying cap-and-trade is bad because it reduces _carbon emissions_ but not _smog_ even though it was never designed to do that. (We should reduce smog, but it sounds like she's asking for a free lunch.)

[@nigh7swimming]

For 15 years I've been hearing what needs to be done. But it wasn't. We're forked, as greed overpowered rationality.

[@captsorghum]

I'd take all of this more seriously if I weren't continually being forced to pay taxes to _facilitate_ carbon emissions. Why does the U.S. (along with various "green" states) provide tax subsidies for housing that _increase_ with the size of the house and with the value of the land it sits on? Tax deductions to encourage 100-mile commutes to a house in the exurbs? Why?

[@ChristopherLecky]

Assess to materials will get increasing more difficult to acquire purely because of our scale of development in the last hundred years or more, At the start of the industrial revolution we would have opted for the materials that are the easiest to access, this began in 1760. Since then our production demand has increased along side population growth meaning the same materials at a higher cost to acquire because our options have reduced consecutively and progressively.. We think of wealth as something that's created whereas the reality is its something stolen from a generation not born yet because eventually a HUGE amount of investment will be required to gain access to any raw materials at all, which will make acquiring them for any reason totally unachievable for a majority of the population.. This is the future we offer those that have had no hand in the results of our lack of vision...If at any stage in the future our children or children's children experience an emergency that requires their ingenuity it will not matter how clever they are or aren't because they will need to owe someone something just to save themselves,,, and that's a totally messed up situation! The blind and hungry are also flaming ugly lol

[@dragoonzen]

Rich corporations are disgusting!!! Greedy AF.

[@patrickfitzgerald2861]

The evil gangster capitalists hide behind the word "corporations" so we don't know who they are. It's time to identify and stop them before it's too late.

[@martiansoon9092]

Yea. The first major problem: When you fund a green energy plant, the produced energy is just going to growing energy needs. While producing items creates emissions too, this deal produces even more ghg's. To fix this the fossil fuel company that makes this happen should CUT their production by the amount the green energy plant produces.

[@kated3165]

According to top climate scientists, preventing 1.5 is no longer possible. We now need things to be kicked into gear to avoid going over 2... which is already considered to be a catastrophic and deadly level.

[@caznilo33]

It is such an obvious lie, yet they get away with it because the system allows them to by their way out of every situation, and environmental accountability is no exception. We need to change this.

[@trevinbeattie4888]

I see a problem with trying to lock carbon by planting more trees: contemporary trees are part of the natural carbon cycle, so on balance should be releasing about as much carbon as they capture in the long run. Most of the carbon humans have added has come from ancient coal beds and oil deposits which had not been part of this cycle for millions of years. It’s going to take much more effort to lock all that excess away again.

[@Debbie-henri]

Oh yes, it's very true. Even 'if' you could plant every square metre of land on Earth with trees, you could not reabsorb all the carbon we have released from fossil fuels. Fossil fuels represent hundreds of thousands of 'generations' of trees that existed on Earth over millions of years, so it will take an equal amount of generations to fully reabsorb all that CO2. We've barely got started on the first of those generations, most countries still too deforested to count, others still deforesting as I type, and very few moving fast enough with their reforestation efforts. (China did temporarily. But the last thing I heard, the CCP ordered the cutting down of their new forests, to return the land to agriculture. They're going to have to learn the hard way...). But there is a way to speed things up a very little (it is a very little, but that's all there is which isn't a super technological answer). That is to plant fast growing trees/shrubs that can be coppiced regularly, the wood either put into storage (dry caves), or stacked to rot down into soil. I know that 90% of a rotting tree returns to carbon in the atmosphere, but it's not instant. It can take some years for certain plants to fully break down (eg: Bamboo), sometimes 10 years or so (Eucalyptus). And there's still the remaining 10% of the tree's Carbon that is turned into new soil. By deliberately fast tracking soil building through coppicing trees and stacking the wood to rot, you create useful soil to help agriculture/horticulture industry (if you don't want to leave it in place) and provide work for many people who can manage such forests/farms. I'm just starting a small soil building project of my own. I can't go industrial with it, my garden isn't big enough for that. But I can at least plant 200 Salix that can grow 6-8ft per year, coppice easily with secateurs, support wildlife, take 2-3 days to manage per year, and build much needed soil on my land (that's after having tested the effect of brash heaps on my land for 20 years and observed the very positive results regarding soil building, wildlife support, etc).

[@jcook2433]

But….. no trees leaves us totally exposed. No trees anymore here. Two years ago, miles of undisturbed wetlands, woods, swamp and animals. Taken down in the dead of night for “green solution”. 😢😢😢 My green dreams were not this. Answers needed.

[@joelboren8644]

Those dams are the absolute best way to eliminate carbon at the source. Hydro power is a very reliable renewable energy that will prevent alternate power plants that would burn carbon. Indigenous peoples rights are important. But they run counter to real world solutions for carbon. You have to pick. There isn’t a way to have both. It is impossible to build a those dams on strong indigenous land rights. The only choice is to not build the dams and burn more carbon. Everyone has their sacred principles not to cross. Everyone burns more carbon fuels to avoid the choice.

[@weirdsweetcoolplants]

Why dont we just redesign the businesses to make stuff better? I mean, we did it during corona. Give me 2 reasons why the hell we cant do it now!😢

[@Debbie-henri]

What many companies like to do is to buy land for rewilding, so as well as offsetting carbon emissions they're not prepared to curb, they get to own a big chunk of land too. So not only is it classed as an offset, it's an investment at the same time - a win for them, bad news for everyone else, because such large and wealthy companies can outbid an individual farmer easily, and this practice instantly makes surrounding land more expensive for everyone else, encouraging more investment companies. Oh, and Scotland has just worked out what to do now it's realised that general inaction means it won't be able to meet its net zero targets - Admit it's not going to meet targets and push the deadline date back. There, that was easy. Instead of actually 'trying harder,' Scotland has shown the world that all any government of any country has to do is collectively shrug its shoulders and think up another date to fail by. Pathetic.

[@28blooddog]

It's going to take congressional action to stem the tide of big oil. Thank you all for informing us to whom is responsible for the climate emergency. o7 I salute y'all!

[@stephanieh.777]

As long as greed is rewarded, these problems will persist...

[@Jiddy12345]

Just watched a King of the Hill episode about this

[@LazloVimes]

its almost as if we should listen to scientists, stakeholders and natural resource managers instead of businesses. who would of thought. does anyone seriously think anything will change?

[@Debbie-henri]

No, nothing will change - well, nothing will 'start' to change until the climate crisis gets really serious. (Yes, I know people like us already recognise that the situation is already very serious, but companies and governments have not been pushed to that point yet). Of course, by the time these two main culprits 'do' start to react, it will have been far too late anyway. Just look at Scotland, for example. Now realising it can't meet with original net zero targets, the government has said it can't keep it's promises and has pushed it's deadline for net zero forward to another date. (How's that for being a great example for larger, greedier, less concerned countries around the world? Tell me, 'which' government out there do you 'trust' to do the right thing, keep it's word, uphold its pledge and meet it's net zero targets?) No doubt Scotland will fail to meet it's new deadline too, and will continue to push it forward into the future until there's no one left to make any more fake promises.

[@jbielic4067]

Nope, well at least I don't.

[@paulristow3454]

So if you think that C&T isn't a solution, then what is? Because carbon taxes aren't working. What you proposed sounds beautiful, but it's just vague fuzzy word salad about indigenous land rights and social justice. Word salad isn't a solution. What C&T does do is engage the free market to maximize GHG offsets and optimize the process of overall net GHG reduction. Carbon taxes, ESG mandates, and political word salad don't accomplish anything.

[@falsificationism]

This was so good. They could have emphasized how incompatible consumer capitalism is with basic human needs though. This is not a collective action problem either. The source of the problem is corporations and massive organizations, specifically the US military, animal agriculture, and fossil fuels. It's not on anyone reading this to have individual virtue, although that's nice and morally consistent, WE cannot solve the problem. Billionaires and corporations--our oppressors (yes that's what they are, even if you earn a couple million a year)--are in full control of this; they used "carbon credits" as a smoke screen, a greenwashing campaign to achieve goals that have nothing to do with us.

[@sixvee5147]

“I accepted to come to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation. I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist. There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C.” - Sultan Al Jaber, President of COP 28, also CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Mukhtar Babayev will be the president for COP 29; he is also a former executive of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijian Republic. Seems more and more likely, scenario SSP5-8.5 of the IPCC assessment may come to fruition (or at least the higher end of the spectrum). I say enjoy what you can, while you still can; pity the generations to come.

[@johnjakson444]

Meanwhile the solar and wind farms need nat gas to cover their arses when they don't make any power and worse they use the least efficient form of gas burning ie peaker plants, so saving gas by using renewable has the same total CO2 emissions as if all the RE was shut down and only the much higher efficiency CCNG plants were built which make power 24/365 without playing any carbon saving games. Once you understand that, then you will want to replace all gas plants with nuclear plants. Oh but who could go along with that. Germany did the exact opposite going from nuclear to coal, well atleast it was a 45% eff coal burner rather than the much older 33% burner.

[@myadhdSquirel]

It's a giant money scam.

[@myadhdSquirel]

The wealthy are paying off the wealthy...

[@travcollier]

Cap and trade is a solid idea, and worked well on SOx emissions. But the way it has been applied to GHG emissions has been terrible. It really needs to be applied just to major emissions and not include "avoided emissions" or capture. Big emitters get a strict and decreasing cap, and can only trade with other big emitters who reduce their emissions below that cap.

[@dasstigma]

So, when I pay for the education of a bathroom maintenance person in Timbuktu, I get to shit on the ground? Yea, sounds like some rich guy thought of that.

[@CB-pf5lb]

Possibly the greatest scam adopted by big companies after recycling

[@DSAK55]

LOL, that was known a decade ago

[@jerzyczajaszwajcer]

Capitalistic madness

[@thomassherer8682]

Just tax carbon emissions heavily, using the proceeds to pay for other projects. $100/ton on coal at the mine mouth would be a good start.

[@TheZectorian]

what is all us consumers buy carbon offsets to increase the price. and then refuse to sell.

[@TheZectorian]

squeeze the polluters

[@martiansoon9092]

@2:05 Total BS. We are over 1,5C now. 12 months average is over 1,5C. 10 months on record high monthly temperatures. And in 5-10 years we will be over 1,5C as 10 year climatic average. There is simply no way to avoid 1,5C. 2C is likely crossed in 15-17 years. So by 2040 2C is at the same situation as 1,5C is now. In any realistic emission cut scenario we will be going well over 2C temperature rise. We have already had few days over 2C limit, but that's not climatic thing, yet. And there is no realistic technologies found yet that allows us coming back to cooler Earth. Our current trend is toward 3-5C warming. And our emissions are still growing every single year (except Covid shutdowns [7% reductions were needed every year since that one year]). These numbers does not include Hansen et al. even higher numbers. And all is related to 1850-1900 average (as Copernicus sees it). We have to stop burning fossil fuels. Today. (And suffer aerosol dimming effects, that rises temperatures due to SO2 reduction with less cooling clouds.)

[@jlinnlinn4241]

Ya need to walk or bike a lot more, Traffic is out of control. 1 person in sn suv 1/2 hour of wasted driving Anything, is what kills the planet. Turn off the light too.

[@zapfanzapfan]

You want to be warm, well fed and comfortable? Well, that has consequences...

[@greensteve9307]

Just like with breaking tax or other laws, rich companies will just buy their way out of trouble.

[@deisisase]

??? Keep temps under 1.5 warming? When was this script written?? We passed 1.5 nearly 4 months ago at the time I'm writing this comment

[@austinmitchell2652]

I really love these videos debunking ineffective climate strategies!! This is very important information for a lot of us to learn

[@chibinyra]

Okokok! Hear me out: Carbon Capture but not at point of emission and using dirty electricity!

[@leongliyang6946]

I don't believe stop pollution will help a lot. Now we do this, we need extra land to power farm (solar and wind). Flora/Fauna/Fungal had problem once human started power farm and kicked out all jungle/forest. Is stupid, is not planting, is more of money making idea. If you want to power farm, you place this items (solar and wind) in desert make more sense because no forest/jungle/animal/human/ecosystem hurts,

[@scrodumdangleidus2591]

Money makes you blind😢

[@camazotzz]

UC Davis class on climate change teaches these schemes uncritically.

[@johncarson7702]

It'd be great if we could disregard the economy and make things last again.

[@johncheresna]

So we kill out economy while China, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc build about a coal fired plant a week.

[@robertmclean6629]

We are literally starving with no place to live. Fuck saving the Earth.

[@giancarlopellizzari1751]

Just don't look up.

[@RagingGeekazoid]

Who thinks the purpose of cap & trade is reducing emissions? The purpose of lowering the cap is to reduce emissions, and the purpose of trading within the cap is to alleviate some of the associated pain. Polluters have to pay for their sins, and the price keeps going up. I can see requiring the markets to be geographically local, but the premise of the video seems like a straw man.

[@SSNewberry]

Does not work. 3° is getting baked in. Currently, the plan is to borrow it from the future.

[@Dronebertios_World]

Carbon markets are just like EBIDTA. That's to say non-sense.

[@myusername570]

Damn, I'm so stoked to be alive for this period of time. I yearn to work, consume, and waste forever as God intended.

[@davidmenasco5743]

I think the point is, that's not something people can do forever. There is a big time delay in the effects of climate change. So your decisions (our collective decisions) will affect your (our) great grandkids. The way things are shaping up, it's looking like your grandkids and great grandkids will be paying a steep price for the last 20 years of inadequate government action on climate change.

[@perrinpartee557]

Crude oil makes literally everything that we all enjoy including the phones we are using to watch this video and all these servers that are processing all this data so I can watch this and make a comment. I think the issue is we don’t have a feasible solution to apply at scale at this point. Also consumerism. We just need to buy less and do less but that would cause the economy to slow down a lot, so we need to come up with new non-growth economic models. Also developing countries want the same things we have in rich countries. So oil demand will continue to rise and is continuing to rise. I looked into carbon credits for my family’s timberland but it seemed like more of a scam for the landowner. 40 year contracts. It’s better for us to manage for timber production. Some of the land adjacent to me was enrolled in carbon credit program. True conservation would be enrolling land that has a high risk of being developed. However, the economic incentive of the carbon credit contract would need to offer a competitive offer when compared to the development potential income. Then carbon credits would make sense and be true conservation.

[@alext7074]

Carbon trading is just another money making scheme. Yey corporations!

[@youngstunna1594]

Okay but where is everyone gonna work?….taking away all the jobs and not replacing them, taking away all the bread and butter /trade “jobs”.

[@jcook2433]

Restore farms? All gone in the past two years in agriculture state. Jobs and survival now dependent on “green factory” but no one left to fill the jobs. Factory not even up and running yet. All a cruel joke. No water will be available because of factory use by one of four million gallons per day. There will be many factory sites coming and the four million usage will multiply. No water, no farms, no people so no jobs needed. Cycle not working.

[@johnnimbus8761]

How is respecting "strong indigenous land rights" going to curtail carbon emissions? Your suggestion is a solution to an entirely different problem and misleading.

[@janewayofchaos3255]

Because by respecting indigenous land rights, the carbon stays in the ground, and offsets like Forest are better maintained allowing them to better help remove carbon from the air. It also helps to prevent major corporations from using large sections of land for their factories which are often among the largest producers of carbon.