[time4tea]

Carbon offsetting is a nonsense.

Any company that uses it, is doing nothing other than buying a grant to pollute.

[YokoZar]

"Buying grants to pollute" is literally how cap-and-trade systems work, and they've been extremely effective at reducing pollution. We don't hear about "acid rain" anymore because of cap-and-trade of sulfur dioxide.

But we don't really have cap-and-trade for carbon, so the next best thing is public pressure to be net-zero rather than literally zero.

[betaby]

> We don't hear about "acid rain" anymore

Because of the de-industrialization of the West.

[Legend2440]

More because we switched away from coal, and what coal we still use we pre-process to remove the sulfur.

[RetroTechie]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offsets_and_credits#Lim...

[mono442]

a cap-and-trade system is just a tax but more complicated and less predictable

[SpicyLemonZest]

I agree with the second sentence but I don't see how it implies the first. "Leave no trace" is a principle of outdoor recreation, not the fundamental meaning of life, and generating greenhouse gases is often necessary to produce goods and services people enjoy.

[pehtis]

Agreed. Carbon offsetting always reminds me of this old The Register article: https://www.theregister.com/2008/02/01/bofh_episode_4/