The Problem With Offsetting

So young, but already such a bitch….

 

I honestly thing this article got it wrong. Offset, if it is really carried out, does not reduce your emissions, but it does offset them. If (and this is a big “if”) I plant enough trees that they compensate for the CO2 I produce, then I have not reduced, but I have offset.

Still, I have two problems with the concept of offsetting through the oh so beautiful planting of trees. The first concerns the working of plants in itself, and the second the consequences of offsetting on a planetary scale.

Firstly: how would it work, exactly? I am not an expert, but I remember from school time that plants emit CO2 in the night. Not sure about the entire percentages, but it looks like every plant, by and large, offsets in some measure (probably not a small one) its own oxygen emissions during the day with CO2 emissions during the night. Plus, a lot of the difference likely goes in the plant itself, which at some point will die or burn, offsetting a lot of C02 from actually decomposing. When you net the effect of both nocturnal CO2 production and the CO2 trapped in the plant (which will be released in the atmosphere, one way or the other, again one day) I fail to see the great advantage here.

Still, let us imagine that I am wrong in this, and – summa summarum – the planting of trees does produce a great net benefit in the production of oxygen, or the decreasing of carbon dioxide.

In this case, one of two must be true:

1. The planting does work, and work in such an efficient manner that this can be the remedy for the alleged problem of growing CO2 emissions. Why, then, is this not the emergency, instead of changing our way of life? Why are not all environmental organisations of this planet pushing for the planting of trees in China (an extremely cheap measure seeing the labour cost over there) instead of curbing the lifestyle of us Westerners?
2. The planting does not work for whatever reason. Why, then, do enviroNazis allow the very concept of offset to be advertised and sold, no doubt at a healthy, capitalistic profit?  If global warming is a global problem, that offsetting can never address, then it is only a feel-good excuse, no doubt profiting those who actually claim “emergency” in some way or other.

Of course, this is all bollocks anyway. The Lord in His wisdom could never have made a planet that suffers from more of His children being born and living an innocent, sinless life. Similarly, it is stupid to think that an omnipotent God is fooled by cars’ and aeroplanes’ emissions of a perfectly natural and non toxic element, unless we all follow Greta Thunberg, who clearly is smarter than Him. 

And this, my friend, is at the root of the issue.

A stupid world, that has forgotten God, thinks that it can understand the way Creation works; and when people forget God, they start doing a lot of stupid things.