[Greenbuilding] Carbon offset - pay to airline while buying tickets

[Marilyn]

>  Although one wonders at the logic of all this, doesn't it depend on how the
> > money used to pay the offset was "earned"?

I was in South Africa for a few months this year, and one thing I saw there was huge eucalyptus plantations 
that are put in with the money from carbon credits.  They have used eucalyptus apparently, because it grows 
so fast and then they have contracts with the pulp mills to come and use it when it gets to a certain size.

Problem is, it sucks up water like a camel.  In a country already suffering from cyclic and worsening drought 
conditions, these plantations are causing farmers and wildlife great hardships.

I have lost all faith in the theory and practise of carbon credits, since it seems that whatever they have in 
place doesn't seem to be very sensible, and because it seems that so many (not listers here) seem to see 
carbon credits as a license to use all the energy they want, thoughtlessly, because they can salve their 
consciences with 'credits'.
Just my two cents . . .
~marilyn


Cybercrone
http://www.eol.ca/~cybercrone
Hm-m-m-m . . .
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see
every problem as a nail.
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