Carbon Offsets = Empty PR Rubbish or Real Progress?
Joel Makower says it perfectly: Carbon offsets are the latest corporate greenwashing craze. Smoke and mirrors, baby.
Actually, he says, “Buying offsets for an energy-wasteful home or business and calling it environmentally responsible is akin to buying a Diet Coke to go with your double bacon cheeseburger — and calling it a weight-loss program. Efficiency (and calorie reduction!) comes first.”
And he says a lot more.
Read Joel’s post HERE - you’ll learn something, I promise!
Tags: environment, Ruminations
But what Joel doesnt tell anybody is that he charges companies $110 per thousand for a leaderboard at GreenBiz. Little bit of the pot calling the kettle black…..? He too is taking advantage of the current climate, pardon the pun. He should focus on furthering the agenda and helping the conversation, not discrediting it while making a killing. Do the numbers, $110 x 110,000+ impressions a month make for a lot of cheese, hopefully its sustainable cheese Joel.
Hah! Now we\’re getting into the whole issue that threatens to derail any progress the \’Movement\’ has. In a way it goes back to the \”sellout\” talk we used to have in high school when discussing our favorite bands. It went like this - \”Dude. I heard Fugazi was going to sign with RCA! If they do that, I\’ll never listen to them again!!!\” Meaning, of course, that by signing a contract and being able to quit dayjobs making pizza, the band members\’ musicianship was going to disappear magically. While this is absurd, the real threat was that the band was going to change/dillute their sound to appeal to a wider audience. That\’s a legitimate concern. When one looks at Worldchanging or Grist, for example - two fine websites - one can see the intrusion, at the edges, of this sort of pressure. Both sites seem loathe to call out the liberal status quo on its relative inaction, having already calcified, to a degree, in terms of their partisanship. Bad move for the future, in terms of creating a necessary nonpartisan network? For sure. Realistic, in terms of attracting an audience and staying in business? Absolutely. And that\’s where the buck stops, no? One must stay in business to have both freedom and reach. I think Gore\’s film was full of holes and egregious omissions, for example, but I have to applaud the intention and overall impact. I don\’t know anything about Joel\’s business operations, but when I read his post about carbon offsets, I was glad to see that the movement to question these offsets has a clear voice.
B.Keller - I think I understand your point, and it\’s a critical one that needs to be repeated in every corner of the environmental movement. We are certainly on the verge of being completely co-opted, subsumed by marketers if you will. Ironically, this is what Makower points out. I very much would like to learn how we can form a network of motivated people who are both nonpartisan and well-enough connected/funded to pressure immediate proactive (oh, too late for this) legislation. To date, we have many scattered voices, but no political power, nor party. How do we effectively band together, with our voice and our vote not taken for granted (primarily by the Democrats who are making small noise, but only to appease at present)?