Who’s Fooling Who?

Ya gotta love the elites who rationalize flying in private jets because they buy “carbon offsets.”  Give me a break!  These folks should remind us of the men who during the Civil War legally circumvented the Conscription Act by paying another man to take their place on battlefield.  While not a precise analogy the similarities are striking.  Paying someone to do an individual’s dirty work has been practiced by homo sapiens for centuries dating back to the Carthaginians.  A practice that continues today, but not to dodge the battlefield, but rather to tell the world how much they care.

~ The Grand Illusion ~

Have you ever asked a liberal to explain carbon offsets?  They will argue to no end in favor of them telling us what carbon offsets supposedly do, but they never seem to define specifically how offsets actually benefit the environment.  So, let’s be clear, while CO2 is certainly a factor in climate just as water vapor and clouds are factors, there is no hard evidence conclusively proving that CO2 is causing climate change.   Additionally, the United Nation’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has purposely distorted the facts by claiming on its website that “Carbon dioxide is the principal greenhouse gas,” when in actuality, water vapor and clouds are responsible for between 70 – 80% of the earth’s greenhouse gas effect.

But for a moment, let’s assume that CO2 is a cause of climate change, it still doesn’t alter the fact that carbon offsets don’t significantly reduce carbon emissions; instead, it promotes the illusion of affecting climate.  Have you ever wondered who it is exactly that issues carbon credits?  I Googled that question which brought me to Carbon Credits.com where I found the following in the first sentence on its website:  “Who Issues Carbon Credits? (Everything You Need To Know.)…a question that requires a not-so-straightforward answer… Still, it deserves an answer.”  But as I read further (and I encourage you to do so yourself) I discovered that either I’m not smart enough to understand the explanation or it’s just more liberal circumlocution.

Being unable to ascertain the specific protocol involved in issuing carbon credits, I thought I would check out who actually verifies the process and where their authority comes from.  Carbon Credits.com states that credits are certified & verified by carbon offset companies that have their own internal mechanisms of determining carbon credits prices based on various factors, but nowhere on the website does it state what those factors are—double talk anyone?

Recently, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposed guidance for companies seeking to list carbon credit derivatives for trading.  But unlike, say, oil, carbon allowances don’t possess an inherent economic value.  Rather, carbon allowances are a political creation that allows countries, companies and wealthy individuals to virtue signal their nobility.  So if an entity wants to claim it is reducing emissions, it can simply buy credits rather than actually using less fossil fuel.  Or in cases such as John Kerry or Bill Gates, instead of flying commercial they can buy carbon credits to offset trips on their $50 million private jets that spew 25 metric tons of carbon on just one trip across the Atlantic.

The Guardian in Great Britain found that more than 90% of carbon credits did not reduce emissions.  And this is where the danger lies – while offsetting provides an excuse for avoiding real emission reductions it creates a dangerous mirage of emission neutrality when emissions are actually rising.   Purchasing carbon offsets is more akin to moving the deck chairs on the Titanic but it does make the offset purchasers feel good about having someone else compensate for their carbon footprint.  So, while the effectiveness of the offsets is in many (perhaps most) cases inaccurate and/or misleading, it diverts attention from the hundreds of private jets flying from climate conference to climate conference.

~ Is CO2 Really Bad for Us?~

What almost never seems to be considered in this matter is the fact that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide increase photosynthesis, which spurs plant growth.  And according to NASA, a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.  Begging the question, when and where does the increased agricultural productivity enter into the discussion?

I’ll conclude this post by referencing 1863 and the man who paid someone else to do his fighting for him.  Let’s assume for a moment that the paid soldier was involved in a conspicuous act of heroism, who then would be entitled to wear the medal for bravery?  If we use the logic of buying carbon offsets, then it would the man at home sitting by the hearth who deserved the medal because after all, he paid for it, right?

The reality of the matter is that buying carbon offsets allows those with enough money to virtue signal as they jet from city to city and country to country without ever having to deal with TSA prior to boarding.