Update on my Climate Neutral efforts
After a final bit of looking around at some of the options, I’ve paid my first round of offsets to cover the air travel I’ve done so far this year. Prior to today, I’d done two return flights from Brisbane to Canberra and three return flights from Brisbane to Sydney. These flights equate to emitting around 2.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which the climate friendly website says they can offset for $56.86. I don’t have any reason to doubt them on this, even though it all seems a bit easy to take 10 plane trips and be able to ‘neutralise’ it by paying less than $60.
There are a couple of other issues I’ve encountered while looking at offsetting plane travel – one small, one larger. The smaller one came with the travel I’m doing this week. The start and finish – flying Brisbane to Mt Isa and Cairns to Brisbane – are easy enough, with another $20.29 covering the 0.96 tonnes of CO2. However, in between, I am flying in a small twin engine plane to places like Doomadgee, Normanton and Aurukun. I’m not aware of any way to easily assess greenhouse emissions from small plane journeys. I’ll probably just count a jet flight from Mt Isa to Cairns as a near enough equivalent (0.25 tonnes at $5.28).
The bigger problem relates to assessing the wider impacts of air travel beyond CO2 emissions. Whilst carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas, and it is good that there is growing awareness of measuring and minimising our emissions, I am starting to wonder if the almost exclusive focus on CO2 – and ways to neutralise it – means other important climate changing impacts are being ignored. Methane is one example, where total global emissions are much less, but the greenhouse impact of it per volume is much greater than CO2. The low focus on methane emissions is one reason why meat and dairy production gets widely ignored despite its large overall impact. (another reason is that it’s much easier to blame ‘others’ for mining coal or driving trucks or flying planes, but it’s a bit hard to blame others for our own diet).
A similar issue applies to air travel. It appears that measuring the climate impact is not just a matter of measuring carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of aviation fuel. Some studies suggest that there should be a multiplier effect because most of the emissions occur much higher in the atmosphere and the vapour contrails left by jet planes have a bigger impact than CO2 alone.
For example, George Monbiot writes that
the climate impact of aeroplanes is not confined to the carbon they produce. They release several different kinds of gases and particles. Some of them cool the planet, others warm it. In the upper troposphere, where most large planes fly, hot, wet air from the jet engine exhaust mixes with cold air. As the moisture condenses, it can form “contrails”, which in turn appear to give rise to cirrus clouds – those high wispy formations of ice crystals sometimes known as “horsetails”. While they reflect some of the sun’s heat back into the space, they also trap heat in the atmosphere, especially at night; the heat trapping seems to be the stronger effect. The overall impact, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is a warming effect 2.7 times that of the carbon dioxide alone.
However, others have disputed this type of measurement, and it seems that the science surrounding this is still not certain, which may be one reason why the estimates of how to offset air travel vary so widely. (For example, the lonely planet website seems to calculate a lot lower rate of carbon emissions per plane journey than the climate friendly site – I presume because they measure the impacts differently, not because they are offsetting the carbon in a less expensive way).
One of the big flaws in the Kyoto Protocol is that emissions from international air travel are not counted at all. Leaving it to one side in the too hard basket may have helped in reaching agreement, but just because we’ve pretended it doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it isn’t being added to the atmosphere.
I will try to find out more on air travel and climate change, as I think it is an area which Australia (and probably most other countries) has not really started to grapple with much. There is obviously a real prospect that factoring in the costs of this will impact heavily on our tourist industry in the near future. I’ve also been surprised that the potential costs of pricing in carbon (and possibly other greenhouse-generating impacts of air travel), have not received much attention in all the examinations of the financial prospects of the pending Qantas takeover, or in the projections for air travel behind projects like the extra runway planned for Brisbane airport.
24 Comments, Comment or Ping
dodgyville
One of the bigs scare campaigns by the polluters is how much it would cost to go green, but my own experience in switching to renewable energy is that we’re talking dollars rather than hundreds of dollars.
Although it does seem counter-intuitive to me that you can pollute all you want and just pay someone to “offset”. I look at it this way: It’s about voting with your wallet, creating an incentive for companies to think green and to also creating an economy of scale to deal with pollution.
Who knows? If everyone paid extra for their car and air pollution like you did, we’d probably have enough to replace a coal-fired plant with a few greener solutions (now that would be a real offset!)
I still think the Dems should be putting out heaps of press releases about this in slightly confrontational fashion: eg. “Democrats challenge Greens to go carbon neutral too”.
Mar 12th, 2007
John Atkinson
> “The low focus on methane emissions is one reason why meat and dairy production gets widely ignored despite its large overall impact.”
I haven’t checked the actual numbers lately, but rice paddies are, IIRC, the biggest anthropogenic source of methane.
So the vegies can’t rest easy either.
Mar 12th, 2007
Stuart Moore
Andrew,
Wow. Money paid to someones bank account for nothing other than to recognise marketing hype by 21st century snake oil merchants.
Given the that real science is demonstrating the miniscule impact of (increasing)carbon dioxide on global tempertaures your effort would appear to be a little off target.
I believe that the following paper and contained references should be read and absorbed by all of our decisionmakers (after all they had no problem with the flawed “Inconvenient Truth”).
http://members.iinet.net.au/~glrmc/World%20Economics%20-%20Stern%20Review,%20Part%201.pdf
It is the trace discharges of poisons and carcinogens that we should be targetting, not carbon dioxide which comparatively is essentially benign. Let us not forget also that increased carbon dioxide will enhance plant growth.
Regards,
Stuart Moore
Mar 12th, 2007
Robert Merkel
Senator, next time you take a flight on a small plane (are we talking regional airlines flying small commercial turboprops? a chartered turboprop? a chartered GA piston plane?) why don’t you ask the pilot how much fuel they used for the journey?
The loading of the plane makes a great deal of difference as well. If you’re the only passenger, the fuel economy is, well, not great. A full Saab 340 or its ilk is pretty efficient; a full Q400 is better than a jet.
From a greenhouse perspective, one of the nice things about turboprops is that they fly too low for contrails, so they avoid that extra forcing. So you should be able to do the calculation just based on fuel burn and get a reasonable answer.
Mar 12th, 2007
philip travers
My position on all this is.. glad the Senator is aware of costs including emissions,but carbon trade offs are a nonsense,and at best a way of accounting for ones pollution trails.There are a lot of guilt trips you can lay on people about what they eat,and well its all a bit pathetic,unless it is undermining every fabric of society and environment.But,how far do you take this? A steak will produce how many emissions whilst being part of a living animal,then slaughtered, cooked eaten farted excreted?I have been wary of criticising meat eaters consciously for years,on the basic premise,that if I can have reasonable relations with them,anything I know that is detrimental to them and animals surely must be eliminated.Least harm.A recent New Scientist points out the problem of plant emissions,and,I find all these overviews are really ineffective tools,because government rides in at the last moment and declares more changes to scientific papers,so the dear ones of government,are always the positive harbingers of change.Carbon trading is accounting hocus pocus,and adds further to the uninspiring other hocus,we must always live for those in the future..Popular mechanics recently shows how they melted a diamond,what is the hardness of carbon dioxide?Can a gas have hardness?There is no good reason to criticise the Greens on this,humanity is already in the dark.All the Senator is doing is using available tools,consciously.The Greens know this stuff.Wanting a competition on who is more carbon friendly,could quickly deteriorate into a limitation of mind that will not find,that the market for some green goods and services are reliant, on consumers competing against each other,for what purpose? Diamond hard ethics!?
Mar 13th, 2007
philip travers
Allen Yeomans has just published a book,I hear on how organic methods of farming will reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide ,and,growing trees for such is faulty.Well I am already there,plus making sure that trees are planted to pull down the rain as the C.S.I.R.O have already explored and essentially shown is a great option.But one thing still not researched,as far as I know,is taking advantage of the fact Australia has bush fires? Without being tediously theorising,could all that smoke be a way of distributing something beneficial besides what has been determined as beneficial to plant growth.There are bacteria that absorb carbon dioxide,instead of worrying needlessly,why not spray it by plane with these bacteria ,giving jobs to cropdusting interests and other flight related industries,as they convert to organic means.Obviously 1 and 1 do not equal 2 here,but, shit,the first place to have a go at carbon dioxide is where it expresses itself,out of the flue,thank you.Unnaturally there are other components of this stuff as others point out, exceeds our problem solving capacity at this time.But producing bacteria in large tanks could be an interim goer.We can then insist the same for unwanted methane production,although a corn cob or two ,has been shown to take up these emissions,and is a worthy U.S.A. approach that has critics ,because of corn subsidies,solution to that again is having the subsidy a non competitive reality,just a way of putting cash in the pocket for its production.Corn particles replaced talcum in baby powder,and little kids and even women maybe safer since that happened.Rice growing,isnt a problem in Australia only the methods,and the micro-management of water,which is a dunny type flush at the moment rather than sound science delivering exact water requirements when needed,and other thoughtful progress.Elections bring on heads not screwed on properly,and thus criticism and reaction are sustaining an unproductive result.Rice and rivers vote yes!
Mar 13th, 2007
Jono
The whole carbon neutral concept is pure green marketing, by the big greedy environmental lobby groups.
Its all just a scam to make people feel guilty .
Mar 13th, 2007
dodgyville
I just meant it in the friendly rivalry type of way. I don’t like blood n’ guts politics, but I think a bit of argy bargy can raise awareness of an issue in an engaging way. It’s like comparing warfare and a sporting field, both are competitions but one is healthy (sporting contest) and the one is not (warfare).
Mar 13th, 2007
Iain Hall
Hi Andrew
I tried the first link in this piece and it comes back Page not found.
It is all well and good to pay the money to some company but how do you know that the money will be actually used to capture an equivalent amount of Co2 to that which has been emitted by the air travel that you have made? I seems to me that this whole business of “carbon offsets” is an elaborate scam more akin to medieval papal indulgences than any real answer to what is still a rather debatable problem.
Frankly If you want to salve your conscience you can send me the money and I will use it to buy organic beer that I promise to drink whilst watching my Gum trees grow. The beer will then be recycled to water said trees and my proven methodology will ensure that as each tree is watered it is also provided with a little extra nitrogen to promote their healthy growth.
Mar 13th, 2007
Alice Hungerford
Hi Andrew, Nic’s sister here. I enjoy your blog a lot. Found this effort of yours interesting, in an attempt to take responsibility for emissions. Who do you pay the $$ to? How will it be spent to offset your emissions? Is this really the sustainable answer? (ie if every body did it, would it make it better?)How could we do it better? Eg plant a tree for so many Km we drive? Get rego discounts for leaving our cars at home, turning off the lights… going solar…? i met an interesting guy ?Michael Smith? at Woodford who is doing great work in Vic on this, has recently published an excellent book on the topic.
Peace
alice
Mar 13th, 2007
dodgyville
I know a lot of people are sceptical of paying for offsets, and it is legitimate to ask “how do I know if the money is being used to do what they advertise?”
I think at some point you have to trust the chain of supply. Be discerning, but if a company offers a service why shouldn’t you trust it to deliver? Our society only exists because of a web of trust.
I think people use their mistrust to avoid trying to do the right thing. “Oh, I won’t pay for my pollution, it’s just a scam” is a bit of a cop-out if you ask me.
Mar 15th, 2007
ken
Interesting Dodgy – but its more of an insight or reflection on our current notion of society and humanity that one can “purchase” ones way out of a problem.
Mar 15th, 2007
dodgyville
Well, why not? A big economy is a useful tool if we use it the right way – I purchase my way out of growing my own luxury foods, finding my own water, making my own shoes, etc … “purchasing” works pretty well!
However I do agree with your basic sentiment which I believe is that a person needs to be responsible for their own actions.
Mar 15th, 2007
thordaddy
There is just something perversely dark about a group of people buying $20 worth of “carbon offsets” in order to stave off a purported existential crisis.
Mar 15th, 2007
muzzmonster
I note that some of the Labor city councillors in Brisbane have also pledged to become carbon neutral.
Mar 15th, 2007
Jono
The best way to become carbon neutral is to stop breathing.
As much as the Greens and environmentalists would love us to all just shut up and die, they aren’t even going to hint at it when they discuss their hairbrained policies and regulations.
Instead they will talk about abstract nonsense like “the environment” and “climate change”.
So what? The climate changes, it always has for centuries, why does it become a political issue to justify yet another massive tax and invasion of property rights ?
The Greens are the biggest threat to liberty since communism.
Mar 16th, 2007
Paul Walter
Seems to me some of this was raised by Bob Brown, when he asked why a large sum of money was being spent as subsidy to engineer a solution for “clean” coal; in effect to make brown coal as “clean” as black coal.
Brown wanted to know why monies were not available, rather, instead for research into non-carbon energy, like wind, solar and geothermals.
Since then, Labor has hopped onto the coal band wagon also, for fear of offending a very large and profitable industry in an election year. Peter Garrett was subsequently interviewed on “Lateline” and I thought he looked in difficulty at times with Tony Jones, for all his acumen.
Thing is, I can accept that coal is a profitable industry for the country in the short term, and I do indeed wonder why the f- WE should “try harder” if India and China are going to go mad on building coal fired generators, especially when we can sell coal to them to solve at least some of our problems.
But at the same time, I remember the rotten politics involving politicians in thrall to large companies woodchipping old-growth in Tasmania and Victoria , so am inclined to take Brown’s comments alluding to corporate welfare for vested interests much more seriously than I once would have, or not beleive all the propaganda about “clean” coal and how “necessary” the coal industry is, when this comes from paid-off media lobbyists and scared politicians.
Mar 16th, 2007
Andrew Bartlett
Nice smear words Jono – some substance would be more helpful though.
Thanks Iain – have fixed the link. I agree there is reason to be sceptical about how effectively money paid as offsets is used, but that’s just a reason to check it out as closely as possible and have decent accreditation – not to do it at all. Otherwise people who use the money for something as basically useless as you jokingly suggest would be as likely to get funds as people who are clearly able to use it for valuable purposes such as increasing the resourcing and use of renewable energy.
Personal offsetting is basically just a non-official form of carbon pricing. Until our governments get a proper form of carbon pricing going, it is probably the best we’ve got – and some might argue that as long as its properly accredited, it could well be more efficient and effective that a government tax, which can be more likely to created a distorted market and get less value through churn and excessive red tape.
Hi Alice – say hi to Nic, hope she is doing well. I guess one has to look at each individual offsetting program to see what they use the money on. The ‘climate friendly’ site I linked to (now that I’ve fixed the link) details what they use the funds for – mainly renewable energy. I’ll explore a few other examples over the course of the year, plus write about any other info I discover about offsets (if it’s interesting enough)
Ken – I’ve tried to mention as often as possible that offsetting alone is not enough. It has to be combined with genuine efforts to reduce emmissions (I’ll be detailing how I’m going with that too over the course of the year). If that’s done I think it can be quite valuable.
Mar 16th, 2007
Marissa
Can I just point out a basic logical flaw here? If
* you pay money to a company, and
* the company builds a windfarm to power the village of Boogaloo, and
* the fact that you paid makes -you- carbon neutral, then
* the Boogalooians are now -not- carbon neutral.
Seems a bit unfair to the Boogalooians, don’t you think? What do they have to do to be carbon neutral?
Bottom line is: if you’re putting carbon in, and not taking it out, then it’s a nonsense to claim to be “carbon neutral”. Trees are probably best, but only if you store them as timber after they stop growing (say by building nice traditional Queenslander houses).
Sorry to be so negative. I guess it’s better to do something than nothing, but is this solving our current, serious problem?
Marissa
Mar 20th, 2007
The Feral Abacus
Marissa – what is your reasoning on your fourth dotpoint?
Mar 20th, 2007
Marissa
Mr Abacus – or may I call you ‘Feral’?
You use some energy which is generated by putting carbon into the atmosphere. You “fix” that by paying from some energy to be generated that does not release carbon. But the Boogalooians use that energy.
Now two lots of energy have been used. You claim “moral right” to the non-carbon energy bc of your payment. But someone has to be responsible for the carbon that was, in fact, released. If it’s not you, it must be the B’looians (somewhat to their suprise, I suspect).
In the end, carbon was released. The planet doesn’t care who was responsible, of course.
I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to help fund non-carbon-releasing energy, but *don’t* call is “carbon neutral”. Any marketing types out there? We need a new name.
Mar 21st, 2007
The Feral Abacus
Marissa – Feral is fine, and thanks for asking.
I’m not sure that I agree with your reasoning in #21, particularly your idea of the moral responsibility for carbon emissions being transferred to the hypothetical B’looians.
Remember that their windfarm is producing energy that would otherwise have been produced by carbon-based fuels. So expiating the original carbon emission by paying to build their windfarm has led to an overall reduction in emissions.
To look at it another way, if I get caught speeding in my car, and subsequently pay a fine to my state government – who then use the money to build a highway with speed limits that exceed the speed that I was travelling – the moral responsibility for speeding does not transfer from me to the government. I am still responsible for my act of exceeding the speed limit, but by paying the fine I’ve done something to make amends.
As I understand it, the use of ‘carbon neutral’ to describe such schemes is justified by setting fees to finance comparable future reductions in carbon emissions. I agree that it’s not an ideal term, and that such claims need to be examined critically.
Nevertheless, once people start thinking about paying for their emissions, its likely that they will be driving, flying, and using their air-conditioners a little less.
Mar 21st, 2007
Andrew Bartlett
Gah! Negativity! Ah well. ‘Carbon neutral’ is a slightly vexed term, but I think I’ve indicated a few times that while it has its limitations in isolation, it can also have great merit, particularly as a way of getting people thinking about the impacts of their individual action and as a way of building market demand in beneficial areas (such as renewable power).
I might take the advice of Marissa the Negative and explore doing some offsets through a properly accredited tree planting scheme. Still, I’m not sure the energy example is quite so zero sum – ideally a decent carbon offset would mean that power consumed by the Boogalooians would be renewable, when it might otherwise have been fossil fuel generated.
Mar 22nd, 2007
Marissa
On the efficacy of “carbon-neutral” schemes in leading to people using less energy:
I agree entirely with how both Feral and Andrew interpret “carbon neutral” schemes. But I *dis*agree entirely with their take on how people-in-general interpret these schemes. I think people-in-general do precisely believe that “if I pay this money I counteract all effects of the carbon my energy-consumption released. Therefore I do not need to take any further steps to reduce my energy consumption”.
Truly, we are encouraging people to think they can drive, fly and air-condition with abandon. That’s the crux of my problem.
We must break the preceived link between paying money and magically neutralizing the effect of energy-consumption. How about “carbon concerned” instead of “carbon neutral”?
Mar 23rd, 2007
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