Great job to elicit a response from Rowett. You are of course correct, none of these carbon offset games address the fundamental that we must stop burning fossil fuels. Tragically, that is not going to happen until EROI for oil breaks.
“carbon mitigation can be held as an economic asset with real utility.”
“The voluntary carbon market’s overemphasis on retirement has led to price suppression and an oversupply of low-quality credits.”
Look, my dears, you can’t have it both ways. Either the one-tonne of stored carbon offsets an emitted tonne, or it doesn’t. If it is held in reserve, then its value its determined by its incremental additional carbon sequestration over time, which is a small value. A carbon credit held in reserve has no value to the financial system unless it is consumed as an offset. It has a value only to nature and the Commons, which can’t be monetized. This illustrates the problem of “creating a numerical value for every observable entity. What is the value of a tree? It has an intrinsic value to itself, and to its biosphere and larger diffuse values to all life on Earth. Yet some people try to assign a numerical value to that tree so that numerical value can essentially be stolen and placed in a column of their spreadsheet. If it is entered in the credits column, its value can supposedly offset some liability in the debits column, even though that liability might be valued on an entirely different set of standards. That numerical value is deemed stolen because it is extracted from the tree’s intrinsic value and essentially patented by the thief so that nobody else can extract that same value from that tree. And they lack proper authority to steal that value - no human-appointed arbiter can offer that authority legitimately. Again, this theft of an abstracted numerical value from an entity with intrinsic value presumes to negate responsible empathy for the entity itself. The business mind wishes to numerate everything in its world to create an illusory overlay of an economic reality in order to restructure its profit system with complete disregard for the consequences to others. That brings a moral crisis to the values crisis.” (from https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/the-deceit-of-progress)
“… a long-standing goal of economists seeking to internalise negative externalities”
As I have previously noted, the Economy is an externality to the environment, not the other way around. Gold is a physical property in one’s possession; the carbon stored in a tree is part of the commons until stolen and privatized. This is grand theft. “each Toco supports carbon mitigation.” Only in your imagination. Are you confusing carbon mitigation (whatever that is) with climate mitigation? Your “pooling model” reminds me of CLOs - collateralized loan obligations, with various credit-ratings assigned to the various tranches, and that market is near collapse from over-leverage.
All monetizations of Nature are part of the neo-liberal scheme that prioritizes the Market’s supposed ability to solve environmental crises as opposed to thoughtful, science-based government regulation.
Great job to elicit a response from Rowett. You are of course correct, none of these carbon offset games address the fundamental that we must stop burning fossil fuels. Tragically, that is not going to happen until EROI for oil breaks.
“carbon mitigation can be held as an economic asset with real utility.”
“The voluntary carbon market’s overemphasis on retirement has led to price suppression and an oversupply of low-quality credits.”
Look, my dears, you can’t have it both ways. Either the one-tonne of stored carbon offsets an emitted tonne, or it doesn’t. If it is held in reserve, then its value its determined by its incremental additional carbon sequestration over time, which is a small value. A carbon credit held in reserve has no value to the financial system unless it is consumed as an offset. It has a value only to nature and the Commons, which can’t be monetized. This illustrates the problem of “creating a numerical value for every observable entity. What is the value of a tree? It has an intrinsic value to itself, and to its biosphere and larger diffuse values to all life on Earth. Yet some people try to assign a numerical value to that tree so that numerical value can essentially be stolen and placed in a column of their spreadsheet. If it is entered in the credits column, its value can supposedly offset some liability in the debits column, even though that liability might be valued on an entirely different set of standards. That numerical value is deemed stolen because it is extracted from the tree’s intrinsic value and essentially patented by the thief so that nobody else can extract that same value from that tree. And they lack proper authority to steal that value - no human-appointed arbiter can offer that authority legitimately. Again, this theft of an abstracted numerical value from an entity with intrinsic value presumes to negate responsible empathy for the entity itself. The business mind wishes to numerate everything in its world to create an illusory overlay of an economic reality in order to restructure its profit system with complete disregard for the consequences to others. That brings a moral crisis to the values crisis.” (from https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/the-deceit-of-progress)
“… a long-standing goal of economists seeking to internalise negative externalities”
As I have previously noted, the Economy is an externality to the environment, not the other way around. Gold is a physical property in one’s possession; the carbon stored in a tree is part of the commons until stolen and privatized. This is grand theft. “each Toco supports carbon mitigation.” Only in your imagination. Are you confusing carbon mitigation (whatever that is) with climate mitigation? Your “pooling model” reminds me of CLOs - collateralized loan obligations, with various credit-ratings assigned to the various tranches, and that market is near collapse from over-leverage.
All monetizations of Nature are part of the neo-liberal scheme that prioritizes the Market’s supposed ability to solve environmental crises as opposed to thoughtful, science-based government regulation.