ptone » Politics

Carbon Offsets: not the way to go

ptone — Mon, 19 May 2008 04:48:34 +0000

NPR had a bit this morning on carbon offsets. IMHO these are a pretty poor way to address the problem of carbon output. Most of these credits go towards things like wind and solar power and often claim to help you be “carbon neutral”. These may reduce growth of carbon output, but they don’t actually help remove any of the carbon you spewed in the activity you took part in (and for which you are buying credits). Its mainly a guilt alleviator, and really just serves to enable people to not improve or better their behavior or lifestyle.

Think of it this way, would you support a murder offset credit, that let you kill someone, but then donate money to help starving children somewhere (who otherwise would die). In the end you may be “life neutral”, but you still did bad thing, and you can’t right it by paying someone to make you feel better. Extreme comparison for sure, but I think it is apt.

More good NPR

ptone — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:10:58 +0000

This one on how the economy woes are tied to what people expect in terms of lifestyle. Â And for things to get better, people will have to change their lifestyle – not something most Americans want to do – hence, I think the economic problems will last longer.

new NPRcollaboration (ATC, TAL)

ptone — Sat, 10 May 2008 16:44:16 +0000

A new NPR collaboration between All Things Considered and This American Life sounds promising. Their first program looks at the root origins of the subprime mess. Something I wish I had acted on earlier because I was one of the ones in 2004-5 predicting a train wreck (from the sidelines).

They had a teaser version of the show during the ATC showÂ and the full length show is today.

Multiple mouthes

ptone — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:56:42 +0000

I think it pretty dumb that in one breath the reporting is that there is no inflation, citing “core” inflation figures that exclude energy and food (if those aren’t core, what is?), while in the next breath touting that consumer spending is “up” (but not always noting that the spending increase is due to higher food and energy prices). Is someone trying to have it both ways?

Example 34,543,234 of why the details always matter