A Tree Falls In Hollywood And Lands On Gore's Head

According to a serious Liberal Global Warming group, indicative of Al Gore's Carbon Offset scheme, along with the Rolling Stones, in 2004 Brad Pitt paid $10,000 to maintain a forest in Bhutan to offset his large Hollywood-based carbon footprint, while actor Jake Gyllenhaal did the same for carbon rights to a tree plantation in Mozambique. Now it seems such efforts are often a scam perpetrated by one of the largest new carbon offset companies, founded by some aging rock stars and a music promoter around a campfire at a concert in Scotland.

In many cases the trees aren't actually purchased and and are already there, or have been planned. Investigations discovered that what the stars were actually buying were "carbon sequestration rights." In other words, they've been renting someone else's trees, allegedly to "store" the carbon to offset their rich lifestyles. But the science suggests that too is a scam.

If the trees catch fire and burn, the carbon goes back into the air. And if they simply die and rot, they produce methane, another greenhouse gas, said to make global warming even worse.

As if that isn't bad enough, in areas where actual plantings do occur, follow up studies have shown that many of the trees don't do very well resulting in land degradation. The local populations who, in part, often gathered wood to survive get labeled as criminals and studies ten years on show none of the so-called carbon offset goals are being met.

The source, Carbon Trade Watch, is more serious than Gore on global warming, they don't take corporate money and denouce efforts like Gore's carbon offset plan as a manifestation of power politics and corporate scams that care less about the earth than perhaps about power and greed. Sound like anyone you know?

from a pdf: (T)he Future Forests company was born around a campfire backstage at the 1996 Glastonbury Music Festival. Company founder and former music promoter Dan Morrell and the late Joe Strummer of legendary punk band The Clash conceived of the idea of planting trees to offset the emissions of climate-damaging gases. Despite a rash of negative publicity in recent years, Future Forests (now, re-branded as the Carbon Neutral Company) set precedents as the first high-profile offset company to emerge, garnering a great deal of press through the high-profile patronage of pop stars and famous actors, brought in through Morrell's and Strummer's connections to the entertainment industry.

The company was also criticised for misleading the general public into thinking that its payments fully funded the planting of extra trees. In fact, Future Forests was paying only a minor supplement towards the planting of already-planned trees. For instance, a 2001 contract between Future Forests and a forestry enterprise established on public land in North Yorkshire in the UK specified that while the company did not acquire ownership of “individual trees” it was entitled to “individual separable, enforceable… carbon sequestration rights in the land”.

In an article in the Sunday Times in 2005, the Chief Executive of a tree-planting charity called Trees For Cities criticised Future Forests: “Pop stars think they are paying to get trees planted. Really what they are doing is paying for a marketing company to go out and buy carbon rights on trees that other people are planting.”

The first carbon offset project was organised in the US in 1989, when Applied Energy Services had its plans to build a 183 megawatt coal-fired power station approved partly due to its pioneering offset, which involved planting 50 million trees in the impoverished Western Highlands of Guatemala.

This initial project was beset by many of the problems that have plagued offset schemes ever since. The non-native trees that were planted initially were inappropriate for the local ecosystem and caused land degradation. The local people had their habitual subsistence activities, such as gathering fuel wood, criminalised. Ten years on from the start of the project, evaluators concluded that the offset target was far from being reached.

Comments

[Zifnab]

If you don't like the topic, don't join the thread. I don't intend to have threads hijacked by commenters.

[charles]

why don't you just start your own blog

as your first posting

you can compare and contrast the presidential firing of 8 us attorneys

with the presidential firing of 93 us attorneys by another administration

get busy

[charles]

Dan

i can't express how disappointed i am that strummer went hollywood

damn - that just hurts

[iftheshoefits]

If you have no argument, change the subject. Clever!

Boorish behavior at the expense of other's bandwidth knows no bounds.

[Purple Avenger]

The only way you can "sequester" a tree's carbon is to cut it down and stack lumber somewhere or build something (relatively) permanent with it to keep it out of the cycle.

Any moron knows this. These carbon credit pimps are a massive fraud.

[Gary Maxwell]

Wow it seems like questions like "how" and "where" and "how did you calculate the credits" are quite appropriate and necessary. So I now return to Al Gorging on electricity, and ask again " how did you generate offset credits Mr. Gore?" " where specifically is the project or projects that you are using to claim an offset, and show me the calculations that you claim give you a carbon neutral footprint. Transparency is not just a good idea, it is essential given the track record of several of these firms.

[Oregonian]

"The only way you can "sequester" a tree's carbon is to cut it down and stack lumber somewhere or build something (relatively) permanent with it to keep it out of the cycle."

"Any moron knows this."


Morons do, indeed, "know" that (as you've aptly demonstrated) but smarter minds know that living trees also sequester carbon. If we replant a forest in an area that has been logged it will take carbon out of the atmosphere and keep that carbon stored permanently, shifting it from tree to tree as older plants die and younger ones take their places.

http://www.conservation.org/xp/CIWEB/programs/climatechange/

You may now return to the safety of picking your nose and reading Ann Coulter.

[Gary Maxwell]

I thought trees burned and put carbon in the air? And dont trees decay and rot if they die and create methane ( a different but similar gas in the atmosphere)? Permanent seems like an unlikely word choice if one was truly trying to strive for accuracy.

[iftheshoefits]

"If we replant a forest in an area that has been logged it will take carbon out of the atmosphere and keep that carbon stored permanently, shifting it from tree to tree as older plants die and younger ones take their places."

Only if in fact that we can guarantee the viability of the forest forever. Which of course, we can't. You know, forest fires, new housing developments, etc.

Also, trees planted today take decades before they're making any significant difference, CO2 wise. If we take Al Gore and the leading global warming scientists at their word, we're all doomed before then anyway.

I think we should be planting millions of trees, global warming or not. They're beautiful, incredibly functional, and one of the greatest renewable resources we have. But using that activity to completely give a pass to big business and rich folks on doing their part in real conservation is still a shell game IMO.

[Zifnab]

Sorry. My bad. I didn't mean to hijack the thread with something interesting. Now where's that jacklope.

[Gary Maxwell]

Ambiguities in the report, and considerable discrepancies between it and its predecessor, show
that there is no scientific consensus on many points for which consensus is often claimed.
Overall, however, the report is drafted so as to allow environmental extremists to cite its high-end
projections as evidence of the need for urgent action.

Exerpt from a report lined internally in the link I gave above to just wet your whistle.

[Gary Maxwell]

Found this after a diligent search for IPCC scientists who resigned. The rumor was true, and here is a link:

Nonetheless, at least one scientific expert saw fit to resign from participation in the latest IPCC report, because he says "media sessions" associated with his research on hurricanes and tropical cyclones were being misrepresented.

Christopher Landsea, who is now science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, resigned from the IPCC's fourth assessment team two years ago.

In his resignation letter, Landsea expressed concern over statements by the IPCC to the media, which he said were "far outside current scientific understandings."

[Hard Right]

Awwww, poor Oregonian is mad the Gorical got busted by the REAL environmentalists. It still didn't stop him/her/it from clinging to it's delusions. As the saying goes, friendly fire, isn't.

[gahrie]

Everyone is aware of the fact that there are more trees in the US today than there were before the pilgrims landed here...right?

[TheSpartan]

Everyone is aware of the fact that there are more trees in the US today than there were before the pilgrims landed here...right?

But less forest...I know that might be a hard concept to grasp for you but think on it for awhile.

[Zifnab]

Is that what they call "losing the forest for the trees"?

[Phoenix]

I thunk on it, Spartan, and damned if I can come up with anything because I can't see the trees for the forest. Or something like that.

Does a tree have to be in a forest for it to use C02?

"Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.
Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him."

Damn forests turn on you every time.

[seekeronos]

"Damn forests turn on you every time."

Just like those mean old trees that like to jump out in front of drunk drivers, inattentive skiers, and swat away golf balls into the deep rough.

Ah! The sweet smell of green, and the Most Holy Church of the Algore-i-cal. May potato batteries and funky cow patties be upon his head.

[Phoenix]

"May potato batteries and funky cow patties be upon his head."

:) May I say an "Amen"?