Cheat Neutral
A 2007 video ridiculing carbon offsets, in which only the telephones haven’t aged well.
Discussions about the problems with carbon offsets and the ridiculous claims of Big Polluters becoming “climate neutral” by buying offsets have been going on for decades. The discussions often become extremely technical and filled with jargon.
Permanence, additionality, leakage, measurement, baselines, reference areas, and methodologies are just some of the terms thrown around. And that’s before we get to the alphabet soup that includes (in no particular order — and this is far from a complete list): ITMOs, VCM, SBTi, BECCS, ERPA, NAMA, FCPF, CDM, LEAF, LULUCF, VCMI, ART, TREES, VCS, CERs, TSVCM, VERs, NDCs, ACCUs, ICVCM, CCS, MMV, COPs, ETS, CDR, CORSIA, ETS, AFOLU, and, er, REDD.
So, we’re going back to 2007 for today’s post. To a video that makes no mention of any technical details or jargon, but hilariously exposes the complete and utter insanity of carbon offsets.1
Without further ado, here’s Cheat Neutral — the video stars Alex Randall and Christian Hunt and was directed, filmed, and edited by Beth Stratford:
The principle is simple. If you pay someone else to remain faithful and pay £2.50 to Cheat Neutral, it’s OK to cheat on your partner. The amount of infidelity in the world will not have increased.
“Cheating isn’t something you have to feel bad about, it’s just something you have to neutralise. Make sure the total amount of cheating doesn’t go up,” as Alex Randall puts it in the film.
Obviously, it’s complete nonsense. But it is no more nonsensical than carbon offsetting.
“That’s not balancing anything”
Alex and Christian chat to various people on the street about the idea of Cheat Neutral. One of them points out that,
“That’s not balancing anything. It’s just doing one thing and then doing something else totally different. I don’t see the link between them. Except in our minds.”
Which is pretty much a perfect description of what’s wrong with carbon offsetting.
Cheat Neutral’s website included a list of five ways that Cheat Neutral is like carbon offsetting:
Cheat Neutral tries to make it seem acceptable to cheat on your partner. In the same way, carbon offsetting tries to make it acceptable to carry on emitting excess carbon.
Cheat Neutral doesn’t really do much to reduce the amount of cheating in the world. Carbon offsetting does very little to reduce global carbon emissions.
It seems impossible to measure how much harm cheating on someone does. With carbon offsetting, there is currently no practically feasible way of measuring how much carbon offset projects actually save.
Having Cheat Neutral’s services available could actually encourages you to cheat more. If the carbon offsetters persuade you that it's possible to offset your emissions, you'll carry on emitting excess carbon through your lifestyle rather than think about reducing your emissions.
Cheat Neutral is fundamentally the wrong way to go about solving problems with your relationships. Carbon offsetting is fundamentally the wrong way to go about tackling climate change.
And the website included two ways that Cheat Neutral is not like carbon offsetting:
We don’t make any money out of Cheat Neutral. Offset companies in the voluntary carbon market take a cut of every transaction and make a profit.
Cheat Neutral is a joke we thought up in the pub. Carbon offsetting presents itself as a credible solution to climate change, described by the government’s chief scientist Sir David King as “the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism . . . ”
Cheat Neutral got plenty media coverage: Financial Times, The Guardian, Daily Mail, BBC, Mother Jones, and a US talk show where the host called Alex “sweetheart” and was under the illusion that his name was Beth.
“No place for carbon offsetting”
On 21 March 2007, in a speech in the House of Commons, Labour MP Alan Simpson referred to Cheat Neutral and said,
“There is really no place for carbon offsetting in an agenda that seeks to deliver carbon reductions for ourselves. . . . The website is not a serious website, it is intended to ridicule an approach that deserves to be ridiculed.”
On the BBC, Alex explains the serious point behind Cheat Neutral:
“The point we’re trying to make is that carbon offsetting doesn’t provide us with a solution to climate change, and it in fact delays people in making real changes in their lifestyles. It delays people making changes to their own lives, it delays us making changes to our industries and economies we’re going to have to do if we’re going to meet the challenge of climate change. And the longer we put off those changes, the harder it’s going to be to make them, the more damaging and the more destructive it’s going to be when we do eventually have to move to this low carbon economy.”
Someone recently shared the Cheat Neutral video with me on social media. I watched it again and decided it was about time I posted it on REDD-Monitor. Better late than never.
Re-writing #3: It seems impossible to measure how much harm cheating on someone does. With carbon offsetting, there is currently no practically feasible way of measuring how much harm carbon offset projects actually do. Otherwise, great analogy, thanks for sharing!