Carbon indulgences

We’ve all heard the comparison between carbon offsets and indulgences, the latter being those documents that let Medieval Catholics exchange money for an official (or not so official) pass that let them avoid the penalties for committing sins. (See Wikipedia: Indulgence for some fascinating background on the topic.)

I dislike this comparison for three reasons:

First, it lumps all carbon offset programs into the same category: Snake oil. There’s no reason why an offset program must be a sham, and such casual broad brushing is intellectually lazy or outright dishonest. I have no objection to carbon offsets provided they deliver real world emissions savings that would not have happened otherwise. Anyone who sells false offsets, meaning those that result in no net reduction in CO2 emissions, are either incompetent businesspeople or scam artists, and they should be treated appropriately.

I realize it’s quite possible for the people running an offset program to make what turn out to be mistakes. They could follow the best possible assessment of scientists about which actions they can fund that will do the most good, dump a lot of money into one or more CO2 reduction technologies or techniques, only to find out years later that those solutions didn’t really solve anything because they didn’t perform as well as expected.

I also suspect that this view of offsets being a scam partially explains the opposition of some people to a cap and trade system; they’re convinced that the amount of cheating will be so large that the entire process will be ineffective, and therefore economically inefficient. Living in the age of the mortgage debacle and not long after the ENRON market manipulation,

Second, I detest the cheap moralizing. Moderately priced to expensive moralizing is acceptable, however.

Third, and most relevant, I think that many people who hear this comparison interpret it as both condemning carbon offsets as well as implicitly blessing other, “real” reductions they can make in their carbon footprint. People tend to think in dichotomies, and it’s extremely easy for them to see the steps they can take personally to fend off the horrors of climate change falling into two categories: The indirect ones, like cap and trade or buying offsets, with a relatively high chance of being nothing but a financial scam, and the direct or “real” ones like changing light bulbs or driving a hybrid.

The problem is that the dividing line between the steps that are worthwhile and those that aren’t not only doesn’t fall where people assume it does, but it’s not even a straight line. It loops and curls through the landscape of possible actions, like one of those US Congressional district maps that resembles a Neptunian ink blot test.

For example, I mentioned recently that the amount of gasoline used in the US for lawn and garden equipment (see Fossil fuels and your lawn) is large in absolute terms, but is such a trivial percentage of our total emissions (less than 1%) that it doesn’t come close to being a priority item. Yet you can bet that customers who replace their gasoline-powered string trimmer with an electric one practically glow with satisfaction of the Big Step they’re taking to Be Green.

From a macro perspective, hybrids present the same situation in the US. Hybrids are roughly 3% of new vehicle sales, so at a savings over a comparable non-hybrid vehicle of one third in fuel consumption, we’re still cutting out only about 1% of the emissions from new cars. Given the massive reductions the whole world needs to see from the US, 1% is rounding error. But try telling that to a Prius owner who thinks he or she is Saving the Planet. (Yes, I know there are some who buy hybrids because of the economics — they’re convinced that the reduced expense of fuel makes it a Good Deal. Right now, the price premium on hybrids is still high enough that their analysis is very likely wrong.)

Note that this is not the “it doesn’t matter what I do, so I should buy a Hummer and crank up the A/C” argument. That’s an entirely different issue; I’m addressing here whether the things we do at least in part because we think they constitute “going green” matter.

The core problem is that many people who change their light bulbs, drive a hybrid, adjust their thermostats, use cloth grocery bags, etc. think it’s enough, and assume, sometimes quite vocally, that if everyone made those same choices then we’d have that nasty ol’ climate change thing handled and we could move on to something else.

And that’s where indulgences come into play: People think that because they’re taking these minor, painless steps that they’ve done their part. In reality, and even in aggregate, they’ve done little more than buy themselves a worthless indulgence that they (and their peers) think counterbalances their lifestyle sins, so they can continue with their pre-enlightenment lifestyle with a clear conscience. It’s no wonder that many people who haven’t studied this stuff obsessively think that way — it’s what the makers of light bulbs and hybrids and programmable thermostats tell us every chance they get. And, not coincidentally, this self-indulgent behavior makes life much easier for politicians if the voters aren’t asking tough questions about how we’re going to de-carbonize our electricity supply and transportation infrastructure and buildings.

So, you might ask, why do I take take all these “little” steps that I just said don’t come near being “enough”? Honestly, I don’t have a satisfying answer. The right side of my brain is happy and smug because I’m doing my part and it’s so much more than the commitment I see from my neighbors and relatives, even as the left side screams about the numbers involved and asks for the 8,000th time when I should try to organize a multi-million greenie march on Washington DC. There really are times when you know that the best you can do isn’t nearly enough, but you do it anyway, blog about it, and hope for a miracle.

Let me remind everyone, yet again, that if you live in an area (as I do) where you can pick your electricity supplier and you have an option for “100% green” electrons, you should leap at the chance to sign up for it (as I did). This will directly support more development of renewables, and it’s the biggest painless step you can take to lower your carbon footprint.

The next thing you should do is get involved politically. The only real hope we have of fixing this mess (defined as keeping it from being catastrophically bad) is to get vastly better public policy. That requires politicians who no longer act like it’s 1960 and coal will be king forever.

Oh yeah — and change your light bulbs, hypermile when you drive, adjust your thermostat, use cloth grocery bags, kill off your electricity vampires, insulate your water heater, …