A Free-Market Energy Blog

Carbon Offsets: Want to Get Sued? (greenwashing as illegality)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 5, 2022

“ClientEarth lawyers have developed a legal briefing that unpacks the problems with carbon offsets and why businesses relying on them should prepare for legal action.”

“… ‘quality’ in the unregulated carbon credit market can be hard to come by, and harder still to verify…. Another issue is there simply isn’t enough room on the planet to plant the number of trees neededwithout harming food supply.”

A recent article in ClientEarth, Why carbon offsets don’t work, and the legal risks of marketing them, should send chills down the spine of corporations (and others) that are trying to be “green” despite their natural dependence on fossil fuels. The charge? … “so-called carbon ‘offsets’ hide a massive climate problem and pose a significant legal risk to the companies marketing them.”

The September 30th article begins:

If you’ve bought a flight lately, or filled your car with petrol, you’ve likely been offered a product to ‘offset’ the climate impact of your purchase.…

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Carbon Offsets: Tricky Math

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- October 4, 2022

“… very little carbon is absorbed [by tree planting] in the early years. In fact, it will take 50 years for the carbon from this one [plane] trip to be taken up by the trees. The 20-year-old [flyer] will be 70 by the time the trip is fully ‘paid’ for in carbon terms. “

The crusade against carbon dioxide (CO2) has many here-and-now costs. And CO2 mitigation is futile given energy density in favor of oil, natural gas, and coal -and intermittency against wind, solar, even hydropower.

Carbon offsets are a tool in the mitigation toolbox. Corporations like it, but environmentalists fuss about business-as-usual emissions and “greenwashing.” Bottom line: planting somewhere to allow CO2 emissions is iffy. What about the accounting where the trade is a dud? What if the tree gets sick?…

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Current and Rising Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations Pose No Threat to Human Health

By -- October 3, 2022

“… breathe easy. Atmospheric CO2 is not causing, nor will it ever cause, and direct threat to your health or cognitive performance.”

Almost all trace elements and compounds, even beneficial ones, can be poisonous if ingested or inhaled in large enough concentrations. So, what about carbon dioxide (CO2)? Do we have to worry about any deleterious health effects as its atmospheric concentration continues to climb?

As an answer to the above questions, consider the work of the following four research teams, two of which focused on human physiological responses to elevated levels of CO2 and two of which focused on human cognitive responses.

Liu et al. (2017)

Liu et al. (2017) examined the performance, acute health symptoms and physiological responses of human subjects exposed to both ambient (403 ppm) and elevated (3025 ppm) atmospheric CO2.…

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Renewables and the Great Texas Blackout: Baker Institute Study Tip-toes to Key Causality

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 29, 2022
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New England Power Market: Warnings Aplenty (blackouts, energy poverty too)

By -- September 28, 2022
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James Hansen’s Latest (climate alarmism, energy realism continues)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 27, 2022
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Energy and Environmental Review: September 26, 2022

By -- September 26, 2022
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Big Oil, Exxon Not Guilty as Charged (a rebuttal in six parts)

By Robert Bradley Jr. -- September 22, 2022
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“Big Oil vs The World”: BBC Exposé Fails (Episode III)

By Richard W. Fulmer -- September 21, 2022
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“Big Oil vs The World”: BBC Exposé Fails (Episode II)

By Richard W. Fulmer -- September 20, 2022
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