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Carbon Offsets
Climate Care is a carbon offset firm used in an effort to be green by the UK Conservative party leader. One of Climate Care's projects pays Indian farmers to substitute human powered pumps for diesel pumps. Opponents of the conservative party are having a field day:
Climate Care points out that even children can use treadle pumps: ‘One person - man, woman or even child - can operate the pump by manipulating his/her body weight on two treadles and by holding a bamboo or wooden frame for support.’ Feeling guilty about your two-week break in Barbados, when you flew thousands of miles and lived it up with cocktails on sunlit beaches? Well, offset that guilt by sponsoring eco-friendly child labour in the developing world!
Ala Larry Summers, I don't see the problem. Westerners pay Indian farmers to produce cotton, why is producing carbon-sinks any different? It seems that some environmentalists are more interested in producing guilt than in reducing carbon.
Addendum: I am not claiming that carbon offsets work, in some cases the offset would have happened anyway so there is no net gain. According to some, replenishing human energy creates more carbon than pumping oil. But these are different objections.
Thanks to Mike Makowsky for the pointer.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on September 6, 2007 at 07:18 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
If you want to reduce carbon, buy wood furniture.
Posted by: 8 at Sep 6, 2007 7:23:16 AM
Er, Gordon Brown is the UK Prime Minister not David Cameron.
Posted by: Phil at Sep 6, 2007 8:06:29 AM
Let's just all consume less of everything, isn't that the best response? Less, Less, less. That's the theme for the next decade.
Posted by: glenn at Sep 6, 2007 8:11:21 AM
The production of human energy producing more carbon centered on a (unrealisitically) beef heavy diet. This would not be the case in India.
Posted by: Michael Foody at Sep 6, 2007 9:14:33 AM
As long as the worker recive the going rate it would seem to be a net benefit to them. For those interested in reducing co2 in the atmosphere see: Biochar/agichar/terra preta.
Posted by: Floccina at Sep 6, 2007 9:47:41 AM
BTW getting more for less is a thing that people are working on all the time. Mostly we work on getting more for less effort but we also work on get more from less resources also to the degree that they are expensive.
Posted by: Floccina at Sep 6, 2007 9:52:12 AM
I agree with your post, but your quote doesn't come from environmentalists. It's from Spiked, a magazine that hates environmentalists.
Posted by: Tim Lambert at Sep 6, 2007 10:22:26 AM
Do you mean that you do not see the problem with child labour?
Posted by: aaron_m at Sep 6, 2007 10:39:24 AM
There something fundamentally barmy about the whole offset industry.
What's next? Contribute money to an anger management program in Bangladesh, and then freely indulge in road rage? Pay for a diversity awareness program in Ouagadougou in exchange for the right to use the n-word a dozen times a year? Sponsor a horny teenage couple to have a child out of wedlock, which thereby entitles you to kill someone?
There's a Monty Python skit in here somewhere.
Posted by: at Sep 6, 2007 11:28:52 AM
The article is not written by environmentalists, it criticizes Climate Care for offsetting 1st-world carbon guilt by paying 3rd-world villagers to reduce their standard of living, and it criticizes CC for employing child labor, which is barbaric. Did you read the article?
Posted by: Bob at Sep 6, 2007 1:07:59 PM
For an ironic yet thought-provoking take on [XYZ] offsets, see http://www.cheatneutral.com/
Very nicely done, IMO. Frames the issue in an interesting light, much like Anonymous did above in the "barmy" comment. Tip o' the Hat to http://meta.ath0.com/
Posted by: Eduardo S at Sep 6, 2007 1:20:43 PM
The carbon tax, and also carbon credits are an elitest dog and pony show to reduce the standard of living of everyone of modest means. A hypocritical imposition on the working people. Anybody who talks about carbon credits should be swiftly kicked in the shins repeatedly.
satirical example.
"I can afford to pay someone to make my guilt go away. If you cant than you dont need that house/car/lifestyle, you stupid poor person."
Or in the case of al gore, he can just buy carbon offsets from himself so he can continue to be an energy glutton of the highest order. Same with george Clooney.
Posted by: Jacob at Sep 6, 2007 1:30:15 PM
How do you pay someone to reduce his standard of living? It would take a very bad utility maximizer to go for that deal...
Posted by: Phoebe at Sep 7, 2007 5:22:08 AM
So far as I know, no humans consume fossil fuels, so it would be carbon offsetting.
Posted by: Lord at Sep 8, 2007 12:50:17 AM
I've been biking back and forth to work a lot lately and I though: gee, someone who takes a car should pay me to offset their CO2.
Is there an exchange where I can list myself?
Posted by: John Bailo at Oct 22, 2007 12:39:22 PM
I found the following article on this topic just fascinating. A little bit more rubber hits the road...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=asbxv0im4WxM
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