1 Jun 2007 01:35
Carbon offsets, Carbon Trading, and Other Nonsense
Carbon offsets, Carbon Trading, and Other Nonsense. A couple weeks ago, a colleague told me about a website called http://www.terrapass.com/index.html All you have to do is provide your car and a number of miles you drive, and the website calculates how much carbon you need to offset. You give them your credit card information and then you have been absolved from carbon sin. The website indicates great support from the environmental community. Read on and tell me how this sort of scam will help global warming. What's even more important is that a bigger scam -- carbon trading -- is the preferred method for dealing with global warming. BusinessWeek published an exposé of what this company really provides. Elgin, Ben. 2007. "Another Inconvenient Truth: Behind the feel-good hype of carbon offsets, some of the deals don't deliver." Business Week (26 March). "TerraPass was the brainchild of Karl Ulrich, a professor at the Wharton School. Ulrich, an environmentalist who bikes to work, became concerned several years ago about the carbon dioxide emitted when he drove to his cabin in Vermont. In the fall of 2004 he gave one of his classes $5,000 and challenged students to create an affordable carbon-offset program. TerraPass, with a number of Wharton graduates as shareholders, has soared since then. The company now claims 42,500 customers. Tom Arnold, the 30-year-old former Ulrich student who runs the business, says TerraPass has already had a major impact by offsetting more than 117,000 tons of greenhouse gases. Ford Motor Co. and the travel Web site Expedia.com collaborate with the offset-retailer to offer customers the option of neutralizing travel-related emissions for an added cost." "One of the largest in its portfolio is a sprawling garbage dump outside of Springdale, Ark., from which TerraPass has purchased thousands of tons of gas(Continue reading)
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