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by super-serial 2791 days ago
Part of it is I want to support promising geoengineering solutions because I don't think reducing emissions will be enough in the future. In particular spreading olivine on beaches also reduces ocean acidity and gives nutrients to the base of the ocean food chain.

Donating money so that polluting industries can pollute less seems like a bailout to those industries. They should be fined/regulated by their governments in those countries. If they get a bailout which gives them a competitive advantage (free money) what's stopping them from opening another low-tech, inefficient plant with the extra money, then expecting another bailout? It seems like rewarding bad behavior.

1 comments

> Part of it is I want to support promising geoengineering solutions because I don't think reducing emissions will be enough in the future. In particular spreading olivine on beaches also reduces ocean acidity and gives nutrients to the base of the ocean food chain.

We can do both! No need to make a choice. The carbon offsetting schemes in the developing world are currently very cheap because we have all the low hanging fruits available at the moment. When all the very inefficient and easy to replace processes will be replaced, the offsetting schemes will be much more expensive than geoengineering solutions.

> Donating money so that polluting industries can pollute less seems like a bailout to those industries

It's not really how it works (at least not the companies I've looked at). The way it works is you have a more expensive and equivalent way to do things which at the end does release less carbon. It still works in a free market way. For example they engineered cooking stove which are much more efficient but slightly more expensive, they are subsidised by the Co2 offset donations.

Do you have any carbon offset schemes you recommend? I feel like there are a lot of BS offsets out there.
>Not OP, not my personal recommendation.

Giving What We Can has published an analysis on the topic. You can read it here when the site is up again (it is down for me right now): https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/research/causes/climate-chan...

Tl;dr: Cool Earth is their recommendation.