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Offsets and carbon neutral
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Info: Offsets, carbon neutral and consumption & food
CONSUMPTION AND FOOD
Vital Signs: Record Resource Consumption Depletes a Warming World
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2007/2007-09-14-04.asp
ENS, September 14, 2007
Record levels of consumption by a global population that now numbers 6.6 billion people are pushing the limits of ecosystem services upon which all life depends, according to the latest Worldwatch Institute report, "Vital Signs 2007-2008."
Global food crisis looms as climate change and population growth strip fertile land
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/aug/31/climatechange.food
Ian Sample, The Guardian, August 31 2007
Climate change and an increasing population could trigger a global food crisis in the next half century as countries struggle for fertile land to grow crops and rear animals, scientists warned yesterday.
The looming food crisis
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2157823,00.html
John Vidal, The Guardian, August 29, 2007
Land that was once used to grow food is increasingly being turned over to biofuels. This may help us to fight global warming - but it is driving up food prices throughout the world and making life increasingly hard in developing countries.
Climate Change Threatens World Food Production, Says New Study
http://www.voanews.com/english/Science/2007-09-13-voa16.cfm
Rosanne Skirble, VoA, 13 September 2007
By the end of this century, if current trends continue, world agriculture will be in serious trouble, according to economist William Cline
Eating Less Meat May Slow Climate Change
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hxSQa9KhHaDXNGyeqOyHHbwb1iBQ
Maria Cheng, AP, 13 September 2007
In a special energy and health series of the medical journal The Lancet, experts said people should eat fewer steaks and hamburgers. Reducing global red meat consumption by 10 percent, they said, would cut the gases emitted by cows, sheep and goats that contribute to global warming.
Human greed takes lion's share of solar energy
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/human-greed-takes-lions-share-of-solar-energy/2007/07/02/1183351126304.html
SMH, July 3, 2007
HUMANS are just one of the millions of species on Earth, but we use up almost a quarter of the sun's energy captured by plants - the most of any species.
Buying Into the Green Movement
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/fashion/01green.html
Alex Williams, New York Times, July 1, 2007
Roll out from under the sumptuous hemp-fiber sheets on your bed in the morning and pull on a pair of $245 organic cotton Levi’s and an Armani biodegradable knit shirt.
Western consumption may cause famines
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22001596-5005961,00.html
Anita Purcell-Sjoelund, Herald-Sun, July 01, 2007
Food production in developing countries will halve in the next 20 years unless wealthy nations lower their rate of consumption, a research group has warned.
Human greed takes lion's share of solar energy
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/07/02/1183351126304.html
SMH, July 3, 2007
HUMANS are just one of the millions of species on Earth, but we use up almost a quarter of the sun's energy captured by plants - the most of any species.
Meat production 'beefs up emissions'
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2130193,00.html
Ian Sample, Guardian, 19 July 2007
Producing 1kg of beef results in more CO2 emissions than going for a three-hour drive while leaving all the lights on at home, scientists said today.
Green consumerism will not save the biosphere
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/07/24/eco-junk/
George Monbiot, Guardian, 24 July 2007
The middle classes rebrand their lives, congratulate themselves on going green, and carry on buying and flying as much as ever before. It is easy to picture a situation in which the whole world religiously buys green products, and its carbon emissions continue to soar.
Study shows environmental cost of imported food
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/study-shows-environmental-cost-of-imported-food/2007/07/31/1185647903660.html
The Age, August 1, 2007
According to a study being launched today, the food in a typical Australian's shopping basket has travelled a staggering 70,803 kilometres to reach Melbourne — equivalent to almost two trips around the world.
March of the patio heaters ...
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=52&id=1157442007
Michael Howe, the Scotsman, 25 July 2007
THIS summer seems to be the ideal time to fire up a patio heater once the barbecue burns out and the sun drops below the horizon
Stop shopping, or the planet gets it
www.theecologist.org/news_detail.asp?content_id=856
Ecologist online, 10/04/2007
Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the government’s Sustainable Development Commission, has called for the UK citizens to shop less or ‘the planet will go pop.’
Garden chain drops patio heaters
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,2050776,00.html
Hilary Osborne, Guardian Unlimited, Thursday April 5, 2007
Britain's biggest garden centre chain is to stop selling some of its most popular products, including patio heaters and peat, over concerns about their impact on the environment, it was announced today.
Bill McKibben says we're stuffed
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=71395
Ira Boudway, Salon, March 23, 2007
We've eaten, developed and drilled to near oblivion, says the environmental writer. It's time to realize that having more stuff is not the road to paradise. Oh, really?
OFFSETS & CARBON NEUTRAL
To cancel out the CO2 of a return flight to India, it will take one poor villager three years of pumping water by foot. So is carbon offsetting the best way to ease your conscience?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2337485.ece
Dominic Kennedy and Ashling O’Connor in Bombay, Times online, 28 August 2007
When David Cameron flew to India to open a JCB factory for a party donor, green-thinking supporters could rest assured that his visit would be carbon neutral.
Tree planting does not offset emissions
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Tree-planting-does-not-offset-
emissions/2007/08/05/1186252531039.html
Age, August 5, 2007
Tree planting schemes popularly used to offset carbon emissions do little to combat climate change, a think-tank says.
Offsets, the Indulgences of Today?
http://www.enn.com/energy/article/22454
Saul Gomez, ENN, August 29, 2007
What do political heartbreaker turned environmental heartthrob Al Gore, British rockers Coldplay, and multinational banking giant HSBC have in common? They are all seeking to make personal and business activities carbon neutral. More and more, wealthy individuals and companies are offsetting their carbon consumption out of a sincere concern for the environment, for good public relations, and for economic value.
Exposed: The Truth Behind Popular Carbon Offsetting Schemes
http://www.alternet.org/environment/57976/
Martin Hickman, Independen, July 31, 2007.
Academics and environmentalists are questioning the ethics and impact of offsetting -- and suggesting that offsetting schemes have not been as effective as claimed.
Government committee scathing of airlines and offsetting
http://www.theecologist.org/news_detail.asp?content_id=999
Ecologist online, 23/07/2007
The Environmental Audit Committee has slammed the aviation industry for a ‘diverse and generally unsatisfactory attitude’ towards the use of carbon offsets in an attempt to mitigate their environmental impact.
GE provides credit card to ease carbon guilt
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/25/business/carbon.php
Claudia H. Deutsch, Int. Herald Tribune, July 25, 2007
Feel guilty about fueling up that gas guzzler or buying that box of incandescent bulbs? Would you feel better if, instead of frequent flier miles or cash, your credit card's rewards program allowed you to offset your role in global warming?
The first rule of carbon offsets: No trees
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/2/1300/61086
Joseph Romm, 02 Jul 2007
To plant forests to mitigate climate change outside of the tropics is a waste of time
All shirty about carbon
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/all-shirty-about-carbon/2007/06/25/1182623820492.html
Wendy Few, SMH, June 26, 2007
It's a case of buyer beware for anyone wanting to offset their CO2 emissions.
ALSO
Wikipedia on offsets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset
“Don’t Bet on Offsets“.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070507/thompson_moles
“Beware the Carbon Offsetting Cowboys“
http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MjQyNjE
Carbon-offset schemes 'inherently flawed'
http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-change/carbon-offset-schemes-inherently-flawed/article-164715
Tuesday 19 June 2007
The only long-term solution to climate change is to reduce carbon emissions, not to compensate with carbon-offset schemes, says Wouter Buytaert – Department of Environmental Science, University of Lancaster - in a June article for the Environmental Research Web.
Offsetting chief warns of carbon cowboys
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2105547,00.html
Terry Macalister, Guardian, June 18, 2007
The fast-growing but increasingly criticised carbon offset industry is at risk of being discredited by "cowboy" operators unless it draws up a recognisable set of standards that customers can trust, one of the most senior figures in the sector has warned.
The inconvenient truth about the carbon offset industry
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2104395,00.html
The Guardian, June 16, 2007
In the concluding part of a major investigation, Nick Davies shows how greenhouse gas credits do little or nothing to combat global warm
Is carbon offsetting the solution? (Or part of the problem?)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2097417,00.html
Mark Honigsbaum, The Observer, June 10, 2007
We burn fossil fuel in the developed world - and plant much-needed trees in Africa to 'off set' our emissions. It sounds like a win-win situation. But is it?
Carbon credits don't grow on trees
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/carbon-credits-dont-grow-on-trees/
2007/05/23/1179601494650.html
Wendy Frew, SMH, May 24, 2007
People who pay to have trees planted on their behalf to clean up greenhouse gas pollution cannot be sure they will get what they pay for, according to research that shows the so-called carbon offset market is vulnerable to profiteering and lacks credibility.
ALSO
Environment groups call for carbon offset regulation
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2007/s1932288.htm
Carbon offset cash-in questioned
http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11835
NewScientist.com news service, 13 May 2007
Some firms are making a killing from schemes designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, while doing little or nothing in return.
Carbon-Neutral Is Hip, but Is It Green?
http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=73875
Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times, April 29, 2007
THE rush to go on a carbon diet, even if by proxy, is in overdrive. In addition to the celebrities — Leo, Brad, George — politicians like John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are now running, at least part of the time, carbon-neutral campaigns.
Carbon Offsets: Buying Your Way Out of Responsibility
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/50077/
By Dara Colwell, AlterNet. April 11, 2007.
More and more people are using carbon offsets to rationalize consumption. But will paying extra money to have trees planted in India really negate the pollution from your flight to Europe.
Industry caught in carbon smokescreen
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/48e334ce-f355-11db-9845-000b5df10621.html
Fiona Harvey and Stephen Fidler, Finacial Times, April 25 2007
Companies and individuals rushing to go green have been spending millions on carbon credit projects that yield few if any environmental benefits.
Carbon Offsets: Modern-Day Indulgences to Assuage Carbon Guilt?
http://www.iema.net/news/envnews?cat=222&aid=17104
Environmental News, 11 April 2007
"The reason why the offset companies can argue for carbon neutrality is they are using a carbon calculation method that is best termed ‘future value accounting,'" Hartzell writes. "Carbon savings expected to be made in the future are counted as savings made in the present. This is the same technique used by Enron to inflate its profits--and sooner or later I expect, just like Enron, the house of cards will come tumbling down."
Carbon cost of climate change concert criticised
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2439525.ece
By Arifa Akbar, Independent, 11 April 2007
As the main acts for Live Earth were announced, among them Madonna, Corinne Bailey-Rae and the Black Eyed Peas, critics were raising eyebrows at the $2m to $3m (£1.1m to £1.6m) that the event is expected to cost in carbon offsetting.
Carbon offsetting 'can be harmful'
http://news.independent..co.uk/environment/article2162852.ece
The Environment Secretary, David Miliband, is to announce the start of a government consultation that will make the UK the first country with a national standard for testing carbon offset schemes.
By Andy McSmith, Independent 18 January 2007
Does carbon offsetting really help in the fight against climate change?
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2144018.ece
By Cahal Milmo, The Independent, 11 January 2007
A lot of hot air?
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1987647,00.html
Can you really repair the damage caused by flying by paying a few pounds to a carbon offset company? Tony Blair seems to think so - but Dominic Murphy has his doubts
The Guardian, Thursday January 11, 2007
Do carbon offsets live up to their promise?
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0110/p13s02-sten.html
By Moises Velasquez-Manoff, The Christian Science Monitor, January 10, 2007
Consumers purchase them to relieve greenhouse-gas guilt, but there's no easy way to keep offset companies accountable
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