[spchampion2]

> But this fallacy has been repeatedly exposed. For one, the organisations that are supposed to certify that indeed enough tree-planting has taken place do not have the tools to verify that the declared emissions will definitely be absorbed. Another problem is that many offsetting activities do not actually offset anything.

> A recent investigation into the world’s largest carbon standard found that 94 percent of its rainforest offset credits did not actually contribute to carbon reduction.

When I looked at the offset market in the past, I realized that it was one of the few markets where both the buyer and seller are perfectly happy with fraud.

- The buyer is motivated to seek the lowest cost offsets they can find. They're not paying for the cleanup - all they need is the offset document itself, often for legal purposes.

- The seller is more than happy to take the buyer's money and spend it on looking like they're doing something. The rest is free margin.

Neither side remotely cares about the underlying activity behind the offset, and neither side is really penalized if the underlying activity is fraudulent. In fact, both sides are actually better off if the whole thing is fraudulent! I can't think of many other markets where this dynamic exists.

[ClumsyPilot]

> When I looked at the offset market in the past, I realized that it was one of the few markets where both the buyer and seller are perfectly happy with fraud.

> I can't think of many other markets where this dynamic exists.

Recycling market is the same - UK government pays you to recycle plastic, £60 per tonne. You find someone in a 3rd world country that will take it off your hands for £30 per tonne, and pocket the difference. They give you a document saying the plastic was 'recycled' and dump it in the ocean.

The sums may be wrong, but you get the gist

[4dregress]

Or they illegally burn it!

[walthamstow]

Or legally burn it

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SELCHP

[youngtaff]

I actually wonder if incineration is the best way to dispose of plastic as it avoids the recycling fraud problem

Generally we try to minimise our plastic use but it’s hard

[ClumsyPilot]

Well you can't minimise plastic use if the rest of society doesn't.

I think landfilling is fine, we just need to make sure it does not end up in the environment floating about and causing contamination. And that we are not getting defrauded.

[sacrosancty]

They must be recycling enough of it to recover their £30. They may dump the unrecyclable parts into the ocean, but nobody doubts there are unrecyclable things mixed in with it. It can't be 100% recycled.

[distances]

In this scenario they don't pay for the plastic. They receive £30 and a tonne of plastic.

[tmtvl]

To expand on this for anyone who doesn't quite follow, the government pays citizens £60 for recycling, which requires a certificate of proof, a citizen can give their plastic and £30 to a company for a certificate, but the company doesn't actually do the recycling.

[KajMagnus]

> the government pays citizens £60 for recycling

The government might as well be part of such fraud too? What do they care, if the plastics is not actually recycled.

But if they cay say to the voters, "Now we're recycling all plastics", then, some more votes, they'll get, in the next elections? (Maybe just a few more votes, if most voters also don't care)

[version_five]

This is true for a lot of corporate training as well, in particular for compliance stuff. It's all bullshit to check a box. Whoever's paying for it wants to spend as little as possible, nobody cares what the content is or whether its actually learned, it's just about transferring liability. It's these silly regulatory constructs that are too detached from reality (like offsets) that give rise to this brand of bullshit

[theragra]

Indeed. I found i can pass 99% of these trainings without reading any materials beforehand. I just check reasonably sounding boxes. That's it. I failed such training only one time among hundreds!

My colleagues pass these in foreign languages for the lulz

[jwestbury]

My favourite was a training I took once which, if clicked through fast enough, would just skip right past the tests. There was no final check for how well you did, so my "you passed" certificate at the end proudly displayed that I had passed with a 10% score (because I answered the first few questions before realising the bug).

[theragra]

Nice ;) I certainly hope these things do not store answers forever. Because if they do, in ten years some scary social credit system will punish a lot of people

[hourago]

> both the buyer and seller are perfectly happy with fraud.

Many people fully believe that they are making the world a better place, they are not "happy with being deceived" but they are just ignorant. This is like saying that the tobacco industry lies make both happy. That is only true as far as the buyer, the smoker, does not find the true, sometimes in a very hard way.

And your argument also applies to economic scams. If I invest all my money in a fund and think that I am getting a 20% return, I may be happy because I do not know that the bank has lost all my money. So, I am happy until I know the true.

Here, all the fault is in corporations that lie and scam people. The consumers are just trying to be good people. Your assumption that people does not want to know the true seems very profitable for scammers.

[worldsayshi]

> I realized that it was one of the few markets where both the buyer and seller are perfectly happy with fraud.

The tragedy of the commons is near universal on all transactions and our propensity for neglecting fraud regarding the commons is universal. It just so happens that for these transactions the focus is on the commons.

[starkd]

I think the environmental movement went seriously awry by aligning itself with socialist political goals. Socialism is nothing more than a way to monopolize corporate power for tremendous profits. Climate ideals of limiting carbon also diverted attention from real-world pollution concerns - like harm from large-scale mining operations.

[unethical_ban]

Oh man, attacking "socialism" by invoking profits. Saying carbon limiting efforts do not align with concerns about mining. Implying limiting carbon isn't an important goal.

Woof.

[starkd]

So, you take peoples' stated intention at face value? Can people not be greedy just by becoming avowed socialists?

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

The Castro Brothers, Hugo Chavez, and many others were some of the richest people in the world. These are not exceptions; they are generally the rule!

[unethical_ban]

Telling that you invoke those leaders rather than the countries of northern Europe. In any case, I can't tell how your original comment aligned with the discussion about carbon offset credits, or more off-topic, how you think limiting carbon output is somehow not a worthy goal of reducing climate change.

[starkd]

Well, for one, trying to reduce carbon output diverts attention other environmental concerns - like waste management, resource depletion, particulate pollution, recycling, etc. (When is the last time you heard about environmentalists trying to solve those issues?) Second, it gives blanket permission to regulate virtually every aspect of your life. Across the board. Whether it is needed or not. It is also highly presumptions to think that we can effectively control it to the degree it will actually make a significant difference without crashing the economy. And by crashing the economy, I don't just mean the rich sacrificing some of their salary. I mean, people starving or freezing to death.

[verall]

Can you expand on how a carbon credit market is aligned with socialism? I'm either not understanding the connection or what you're meaning.

[starkd]

Comment was not specifically about carbon credit scheme.