Who dreamed up Carbon offset.

Boomerang

Member
More smoke and mirrors bulls**t .
Just a paper shuffling exercise to tick a box to appear green (ish). Whilst continuing to not actually do anything different ..
Farmers just doing the same , utilities, big corporations throwing a bit of cash at them, then saying we are green .
The world really has lost the plot
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
More smoke and mirrors bulls**t .
Just a paper shuffling exercise to tick a box to appear green (ish). Whilst continuing to not actually do anything different ..
Farmers just doing the same , utilities, big corporations throwing a bit of cash at them, then saying we are green .
The world really has lost the plot

Offset can be good IF it encourages (incentivises) positive change

its can also be a load of utter rubbish greenwash that makes no difference at all, it can be damaging in many ways in fact as a result
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Please define positive change as it seems rather a subjective statement does it not?

I agree it is VERY subjective and there is a lot of bullshite and dodgy accounting going on as well (Root zero potatoes I highlighted on Twitter this week !)

BUT (as an example ) lets take regen arable systems as an example and via lots of well agreed research and models prove we accept it can sequester carbon (same could be said re grassland and other C sequestering areas of ag)

now let's say a farmer is not regen and can't afford to change to regen either because of capital cost or a loss of output or maybe both. lets also suggest the farmer has unproductive areas he could plant trees on or could let hedges grow bigger etc ...... but doing any of those thing will cost the farmer so why should he / he cant afford to do so personally ?


NOW let's say British Airways are prepared to buy offset and that money goes to the farmer who can now afford to run a regen system, plant some trees, let his hedges grow wider etc and sequester Carbon


surely this is a positive outcome for environment ?


IMPORTANT - The above doesn't remove the need or obligation for BA to also reduce their C footprint within their business as much as possible but like most none ag business they can never reduce it to zero or become negative can they ! - the best they can do is use their profits to help others make negative viable
 

ski

Member
There is no overwhelming body of scientific data that supports anthropogenic global warming only a overwhelming body of misused statistics to bolster propaganda that has created a cult like following where belief is an act of faith. There are many world leading physicists and other academics who repeatedly say the science is simply not there. This does not mean that they support the squandering of resources or the status quo. They just want to stick to the facts that they have at their disposal. The carbon offsetting is one of the most egregious examples of nonsense, its a licence to carry on doing what you are already doing. If you think that less flying will make a big difference then stop flying, the thought process that 'flying is bad, but I like flying to places, so ill support planting trees to offset my carbon' is so illogical that only people who think they are intelligent could support it. Do not fly and plant a few trees. And while we all hurrah this nonsense we will ignore the fact that a globalised supply chain leads to significant wastefulness and requires all sorts of accreditation schemes as local relationships that foster trust based on visibility as you know your customer and they know you are seen as outdated. Your local butcher buying from your local farmer does not need red tractor as he knows who he wants to buy from. The same would be true of local millers and farmers. This however is not seen as 'efficient' in the modern world, efficiency is parts made on four continents assembled in a fifth. This is the the lowest unit cost of production efficiency not resilience efficiency and recent history would suggest a balance perhaps between the two? Carbon offsetting will probably work out as well as subsidising renewable energy schemes, and look, hey presto, you get Drax being paid to bring wood chip in from virgin forests in the USA paid for by the taxpayer.

What could possibly go wrong.
 
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holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer

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serf

Member
Location
warwickshire
More smoke and mirrors bulls**t .
Just a paper shuffling exercise to tick a box to appear green (ish). Whilst continuing to not actually do anything different ..
Farmers just doing the same , utilities, big corporations throwing a bit of cash at them, then saying we are green .
The world really has lost the plot
Thought you were going to finish the title of the thread with
' should be shot at dawn ' ...🙄
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
I agree it is VERY subjective and there is a lot of bullshite and dodgy accounting going on as well (Root zero potatoes I highlighted on Twitter this week !)

BUT (as an example ) lets take regen arable systems as an example and via lots of well agreed research and models prove we accept it can sequester carbon (same could be said re grassland and other C sequestering areas of ag)

now let's say a farmer is not regen and can't afford to change to regen either because of capital cost or a loss of output or maybe both. lets also suggest the farmer has unproductive areas he could plant trees on or could let hedges grow bigger etc ...... but doing any of those thing will cost the farmer so why should he / he cant afford to do so personally ?


NOW let's say British Airways are prepared to buy offset and that money goes to the farmer who can now afford to run a regen system, plant some trees, let his hedges grow wider etc and sequester Carbon


surely this is a positive outcome for environment ?


IMPORTANT - The above doesn't remove the need or obligation for BA to also reduce their C footprint within their business as much as possible but like most none ag business they can never reduce it to zero or become negative can they ! - the best they can do is use their profits to help others make negative viable
Maybe we could have a system when an authorative body representing the best interests of the people like lets say, oh I don’t know, a govt for instance, actually paid farmers for removing atmospheric cyclical carbon from the atmosphere every day. At the same time we could have a system in place like oh I don’t know, say a tax just off the top of my head, that charged people for digging up and burning all new carbon in the process of doing whatever it is they’re doing that is soooo important. So the likes of BA would pay tax on every plane they flew which they’d then have to pass back to the people actually using the planes, lets call them the public? Even more radical, we could make companies like Drax pay tax instead of subsidising them?

The key point being that we don’t leave this important stuff to middlemen who are making a fortune blasting green paint over everything and making no difference whatsoever other than moving large quantities of money into the wrong pockets. Let the market decide my a-rse.
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
I don't see how creating financial incentive to encourage positive environmental change can be bad ........ as long as it DOES encourage positive change


some of the worlds biggest pollution companies are also some of the worlds most profitable - some of that profit should be used to try put right the damage they do

It really just another tax on pollution and I doubt anyone would disagree that taxing pollution is bad ? - only difference is right now this "tax" is voluntary but I suspect that WILL change !
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
I don't see how creating financial incentive to encourage positive environmental change can be bad ........ as long as it DOES encourage positive change


some of the worlds biggest pollution companies are also some of the worlds most profitable - some of that profit should be used to try put right the damage they do

It really just another tax on pollution and I doubt anyone would disagree that taxing pollution is bad ? - only difference is right now this "tax" is voluntary but I suspect that WILL change !
That can only work if the tax removes all profit from the activity, effectively making it pointless. (Just like fly tipping is growing exponentially because the penalties are simply nowhere near proportional to the profitability so are simply seem as a "tax you pay to do business".....)

That won't happen because those companies are embedded into our governmental systems via lobbyists, political donations and carefully crafted scientific funding projects.

Look at the government's "Transport decarbonisation plan" which includes continued aviation growth "because technology will solve the emissions impact issues " while the benefit of meaningful funding for buses and trains is being ignored.

:cry:
 
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Ffermer Bach

Member
Livestock Farmer
That can only work if the tax removes all profit from the activity, effectively making it pointless. (Just like fly tipping is growing exponentially because the penalties are simply nowhere near proportional to the profitability so are simply seem as a "tax you pay to do business".....)

That won't happen because those companies are embedded into our governmental systems via lobbyists, political donations and carefully crafted scientific funding projects.

Look at the government's "Transport decarbonisation plan" which includes continued aviation growth"because technology will solve the emissions impact issues " while the benefit of meaningful funding for buses and trains is being ignored.

:cry:
Look at the number of fossil fuel lobbyists at COP26

 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
That can only work if the tax removes all profit from the activity, effectively making it pointless. (Just like fly tipping is growing exponentially because the penalties are simply nowhere near proportional to the profitability so are simply seem as a "tax you pay to do business".....)

That won't happen because those companies are embedded into our governmental systems via lobbyists, political donations and carefully crafted scientific funding projects.

Look at the government's "Transport decarbonisation plan" which includes continued aviation growth"because technology will solve the emissions impact issues " while the benefit of meaningful funding for buses and trains is being ignored.

:cry:


I guess a progressive society never aspires to go backward - we don't want to go back to walking now we have cars, we don't want to stop travelling internationally now we have planes , stop using the internet or heating our homes etc so any policy or thinking that promotes such approach will always fail

the solution ultimately probably is technology to pull the pollution from the air and clean it up again - we can invent technology to do thousand / or we can use plants to do it ......... but have to balance that with feeding people


people will noit stop flying / consuming the trapping of modern life and why should they - quality of life is better than ever for most, there is less poverty in the world that at any point in history, proposing a return to the dark ages is not a solution, society should never go backwards

no bigger myth than "the good old days"......... truth is the past WAS worse
 

DaveGrohl

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cumbria
I don't see how creating financial incentive to encourage positive environmental change can be bad ........ as long as it DOES encourage positive change


some of the worlds biggest pollution companies are also some of the worlds most profitable - some of that profit should be used to try put right the damage they do

It really just another tax on pollution and I doubt anyone would disagree that taxing pollution is bad ? - only difference is right now this "tax" is voluntary but I suspect that WILL change !
Middlemen Clive, middlemen.

They aren’t encouraging positive change, they’re marketing bullshiit and profiting from it. The public are being told on a daily basis that companies are net zero or close to it. Maybe we should be taxing the shiit out of everything fossil fuel related and using that tax to provide an actual answer that might help a bit right now, like using the tax for nuclear? It won’t solve everything but it would help rather than fool people into thinking something is being done?
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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