Climate change has become the fastest-growing global religion of our time. By the week it takes on more features of the age-old theistic religions but without the moral, humbling faith of those religions.
Buying some air tickets recently, I was bemused to see Air New Zealand offering me the chance to pay extra for wind farm carbon credits or to plant some trees to offset the alleged environmental damage of the flight.
What tripe. Air travel is one of the marvels of this technological age, not a curse on the world. Selling “carbon offsets” is nothing more than a resurrection of the religious “indulgences” sold by churches in Europe 1000 years ago, whereby those who had “sinned” could buy an “indulgence” from the church to cleanse the sin.
Even the language of Air New Zealand’s website is nakedly religious – it talks of “pastoral” tree planting. Bless me Father, for I have flown.
Wind turbines are a fine way to generate clean electricity but we shouldn’t be praying before them as if they are some latter-day Cross.
Trees are vital to the environment, because, as they grow, they turn the carbon dioxide we humans breathe out into the oxygen we live by as we breathe in. The scientific evidence now is that the minute increase in the tiny amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (CO2 is less than 400 parts per million) is helping trees and other plants to grow faster, which will be of major benefit to the planet and to the economy.
But it is scientifically absurd to be told we should pay to plant a tree as penance for taking a flight that gets us where we want to go in a small fraction of the time we used to endure by horseback, foot or sailing ship.
My bullshit antennae is really bristling with these indulgences.
19 Comments
April 19, 2009 at 12:21 pm
The best predictions are that the first 2 degrees are good for some places (Canada, Russia, NZ trees)
Then after 2050 things get bad everywhere.
I accept this strong probability, but I dont believe people will act now to prevent bad shit 50 years away. Most will jet if they can afford it, and damn the consequences to their grandchildren.
April 19, 2009 at 12:41 pm
It’s like Foodstuffs charging for plastic bags, then donating most of the profits to environmental causes.
If that’s good, why not donate most of the profits from everything they sell to environmental causes because they’ll all impact on the environment.
And why stop there? They could also donate most of the profits from any food which doesn’t meet healthy eating guidelines to the Cancer Society, Daibetes NZ or the Heart Foundation.
April 19, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I use “child abuse offsets” to show the inanity of the practice. By volunteering and donating money to prevent child abuse in NZ I could more than cover my annual trip to Thailand to rape child prostitutes (should I make such a trip). No, really, that’s how offsets work. Don’t change your own behaviour, no matter how wrong it is, pay someone else to change theirs. Of course, the catholic way is just to give money to someone unrelated and pretend, but it’s the same PR.
Especially when there’s so many easy changes people can make here. From trivia like using fewer plastic bags to bigger steps like selling your car and using PT/bike/walk instead, it can be done incrementally at little cost. That’s how most of the “extreme green” types arrived where they are when you get so affronted by them.
But David, your claim that things grow faster with more CO2 is only true to a limited extent – it relies on denying the link between CO2 and temperature change. As things warm up any benefit from increased CO2 is overwhelmed by climate change. You seem comfortable with that, I’m not.
April 19, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Yes, the marketspeak generated by companies that try to project a green image is often revolting. And yes, the attitudes of those who argue that we ought to care for our environment are just often sanctimonious, and emanates more than a whiff of religious fervour. But I’ll take that, and action of some sort, over smarminess and climate change denial any day.
And while we’re at it, we should try and regain a sense of history. Until as few two, three, four generations ago, the only people who could afford not to regard their environment as a finite resource that needed constant tending and stewardship, were artistocrats and the mega-rich. Now we’re all capable of wreaking merry havoc, and it didn’t take us long to forget that link, to forge ahead under the constant illusion that the world around can and should be mined for all it’s worth, and will keep on giving regardless. But it’s not true, and it has in fact never been true.
So by all means, laugh at the offsets, bristle at the plastic bag charges, complain at the outrage of having to change your lightbulbs – poor dear you. But you’d do well to remember that if you’re insulated from the problem, it’s by a mere accident of geography.
April 19, 2009 at 9:03 pm
yup. air new zealand is effectively playing kindergarten science with this one. carbon-offsets are largely bullshit.
once the hydrocarbons are out of the ground and into the atmosphere and biosphere it’ll take thousands of years to take them out again. a few trees, which are likely to be cut down, or fall down, and reenter the system, are meaningless.
they’re better sponsoring phytoplankton, and ensuring it dies to settle on the sea floor…
April 19, 2009 at 11:18 pm
You’ve picked up on a good point, but I don’t think the comparison is the right one.
You start by saying that climate change—i.e., the science—is becoming a religion, but your article is actually about a particular advertising or marketing strategy. Marketing people certainly try use “science” as a credibility device, and usually not in ways I agree with. I suspect you’d agree with that. But that some marketing people are pushing a “religious” approach to climate change, doesn’t make the science that way.
A better comparison might be of those “selling the message” both cases? The evangelistic types, the “businesses” that spring up from them or have to deal with their issues, etc. We could probably extend this out to snake oil salespeople of all shades, too!
Nice to see your blog back, by the way.
April 20, 2009 at 8:24 am
So by all means, laugh at the offsets, bristle at the plastic bag charges, complain at the outrage of having to change your lightbulbs – poor dear you.
Not me, Giovanni. I changed all my lightbulbs to the lovely eco ones some years ago, and I’m not bristling at plastic bag charges — I mostly use my reusable canvass bags for my shopping.
I do laugh at the quackery of carbon offsets though!
April 20, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Most airlines are now overing these carbon credits when booking, especially those based around Australasia
April 20, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Agree on the airline taxes thing. Went to book a trip to Adelaide and was delighted by the rates – until I pressed the button a second time..
April 20, 2009 at 3:44 pm
There is an EconTalk episode somewhere in the archives with Mike Munger discussing these sorts of ‘indulgences’ (Mike is a Catholic).
Well worth finding the episode… I think it was one of the Grabbag episodes .
April 20, 2009 at 5:28 pm
“CO2 is less than four parts per million”
Umm, really? Maybe on your planet.
Irrespective of one’s views on anthropogenic global warming, and I am a sleptic, the argument that carbon dioxide cannot have an important effect because it is present in small concentration, is naive. Haloalkanes are present in parts per trillion, but apparently have the ability to deplete the ozone layer.
April 20, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Well you wouldn’t catch me voluntarily buying carbon credits. But what I’d really like to know is “how can I get in on the rort?”
I’m a journalist by trade, so if someone commissions me to write something maybe I can offer them Shiraz offset credits.
April 21, 2009 at 10:05 am
What the hell, you might enjoy this then.
http://www.theonion.com/content/infograph/carbon_footprint_reduction
April 21, 2009 at 3:57 pm
It’s not so much that the website language is religious – the religious language is nakedly agricultural.
The idea is they plant the trees on pasture, you see. It could be a double entendre but that wouldn’t have occurred to me.
It kind of works if they plant a tree – or really a section of forest – which would not have been anywhere otherwise, and it or its equivalent stays there forever. One assumes Landcare’s scheme, for example, tries to achieve this, but I can understand scepticism, and Che is correct.
I’m a bit confused about what the speed of the plane has to do with anything though.
Nice to see you back.
April 21, 2009 at 8:23 pm
@lyndon planes travelling faster consume more fuel. it’s why it takes longer to get anywhere when oil goes up.
and putting trees on pasture likely would drop CO2 emissions. less fertilizer made from oil.
April 22, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Everytime I fly anywhere, I go back to my farm and plant some trees as deliberate compensation. Why? because:
1/ It can’t hurt and it might even help.
And
2/ I believe we all have a responsibility to set an example, so that our leaders get the hint.
I believe, Poneke, that is these two principles you seem to struggle with – perhaps it is a generational thing.
April 25, 2009 at 5:13 pm
To go from 280ppm to 387ppm is no small matter. Without greenhouse gases the earth would be much cooler; these gases are proven to absorb particular parts of the sun’s radiation spectrum. If we continue to increase emissions that number will get much much higher.
Trees are only useful in this context if they’re never cut down, but they are useful. Solution? Fly less, plant more.
April 30, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Good point Poneke. Glad to see I can agree with you sometimes!
June 19, 2009 at 12:50 am
I believe, Poneke, that is these two principles you seem to struggle with – perhaps it is a generational thing.
Ooh, the smugness! You could cut it with a knife.
Anyway, I’m sure that the next time your leaders drop by your farm, they’ll be really impressed by all the trees you’ve planted. Don’t forget to label them though, otherwise they might get them confused with the trees you planted for other reasons, which would be a waste of a good hint. Don’t bother with voting or anything though, that would be far too obvious.