![]() The ocean stores about 20 times more carbon than land-based plants, animals and soil, 50 times more than the atmosphere. In the same time period, something like 85% of the world’s wetlands – an equally vital carbon sink – have been drained. Much of the remaining forest has been degraded to the point that it now emits more carbon than it extracts. Since the 1700s, about 1.5 billion hectares of forest have been cleared globally, nearly an eighth of the world’s landmass. It’s worth dwelling for a moment on the latter of these, because this is often, though not always, where carbon-offset schemes focus their attention. On the other, we have also reduced the capacity of the planet to pull these chemicals out of the atmosphere, through deforestation, wetland destruction and damage to ocean life. On the one hand, we are pumping heat-trapping chemicals – mostly carbon, but others too – from the lithosphere, the biosphere, and the hydrosphere, into the atmosphere. In the past 300 years, industrial capitalism has radically altered both sides of the equation. Climate-changing gases which were belched from animals, plants, the land and the sea were breathed back in at an equal rate, producing the relatively steady climate that allowed civilisations to emerge. For about 650,000 years, around twice as long as Homo Sapiens have been around, these were in balance. There are ultimately two things that regulate the chemistry of our air: what goes in, and what comes out. You need to turn them both off, and pull the plug. ![]() If you’re pouring water into a bath from two different taps and are worried it’s going to overflow, then you can’t leave one running in exchange for turning the other one off. Because at root, the basic problem with offsetting is one of accounting. On Friday, my colleagues Martin Williams and Lucas Amin exposed details of British Gas/Centrica’s shockingly poor offset system, under which it offered customers a way to pretend away emissions from their power stations.īut before we get to the specifics, let’s think through the general principle. With global concern about climate change soaring, the market for carbon offsets – a financial product connected to these sham schemes – trebled in size to £1bn last year. Sign up nowĪ decade and a half later, though, the scam is back. Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday. The filmmakers were climate activists, pointing out the profound silliness of this new capitalist market. Companies from airlines to energy providers were asking customers to pay an extra couple of pounds to ‘neutralise’ their emissions. Carbon offsetting was, at the time, a relatively new idea. The firm’s founders were invited onto broadcast media across the world to justify this nonsense. The launch got widespread, shocked news coverage. “So, if you’re in a relationship and one of you does something you probably shouldn’t have, then you can come to us, and pay us a little bit of money.” To offset the infidelity, the company would invest it in a couple who promise to be faithful. “What we do is cheat offsetting,” they say, in what became an early viral YouTube video. Bearing heart-shaped helium balloons and red red roses, they told passers-by about their new company,. Fifteen years ago, as Valentine’s Day approached, a trio of entrepreneurs took to the streets of Britain selling a brave new idea.
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