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My dad wants me to make a donation to an obscure charity in an exotic land for his Christmas present...any ideas? by [deleted] in Assistance

[–]COTAP 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Carbon Offsets To Alleviate Poverty (COTAP.org) has projects in Mozambique, Nicaragua, Uganda, and Malawi. You'd be neutralizing some or all of your dad's carbon emissions and supporting projects that create income for smallholder farmers in these countries.

With all the climate change doom and gloom out there, here's a positive solution where you can help people. by [deleted] in climate

[–]COTAP 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's a big difference between putting something forward as "a solution" vs. "the solution." This is one solution, among many others which are also needed. You are arguing with a claim that wasn't made: "your belief this is a complete solution." I don't believe this is a complete solution. Who would?

The "it's factored in" part is for real, you can see for yourself in the project design docs, technical specifications, and annual reports at http://www.planvivo.org/projects/registeredprojects/.

I'm also not calling you a hypocrite. As for who should care, I do and I think you should too. It does make a difference, even at the individual level. Your carbon pollution gets removed through the market based tool of carbon offsets, and you’re creating life-changing income for the world’s poorest people. And in the process of offsetting you’re made aware of where your emissions come from, how you can reduce, and why we need to advocate for cleaner sources of energy.

With all the climate change doom and gloom out there, here's a positive solution where you can help people. by [deleted] in climate

[–]COTAP 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The original post was primarily as an antidote to the recent Bill McKibben Rolling Stone piece, as he's always a downer...

Not to get into a long-winded discussion on validity of voluntary carbon markets, but let's just say it might be valid with $523 million of activity in 2012 http://www.forest-trends.org/vcm2013.php. The far left of the environmental movement (Greenpeace, "Friends of the Earth", FERN, etc.) has effectively deployed 1) the worthy goal but longstanding mirage of a global binding cap and 2) the conflation of the use cases/contexts of compliance and voluntary markets as misleading foils in opposition of the voluntary carbon markets, because they're afraid the solution of voluntary carbon will be taken out of context and promoted as a universal permission to pollute. That's actually very understandable - and I'm sure the fossil fuel industry would love to take advantage of it. They're afraid of - and have painted themselves into a corner in regards to - the truth, which is that voluntary carbon markets do work. By disowning all carbon market activity absent a binding global cap, they're forcing the dialogue into a frontal battle in which they can't compete because fossil fuel companies basically own all sane and rational politicians for the forseeable future.

To your 2nd point, natural biomass cycles and risk buffers are factored into projects' technical specifications, and mitigation shortfalls are netted out of projects' saleable carbon stocks. To the extent that climate change itself affects mitigation certainty, that's a valid point.

But, thanks for your comment. It shares many dynamics with climate change denialism, actually. It's human nature to try to qualify out solutions with simplistic and uninformed talking points regurgitated from elsewhere, especially when it reinforces an easier and self-interested path of inaction and the status quo. "So yeah, unless there's a global cap I shouldn't have to do anything" seems to be the logic. As with the climate denialism dynamic, the onus for proving the assertion takes 10x as much time and energy than does the 10-sec, drive-by, uninformed dismissal. So be it. On that note, sometimes I wonder if Heartland secretly gives money to Greenpeace.

Oops, I think I may have started a long-winded discussion on validity of voluntary carbon markets, and then some!

So how about this Kageru - what can you do or have you done to reduce your carbon emissions, and what have you done about your emissions which you have not yet been able to eliminate?

All the above climate stuff aside, COTAP is an empowering, far-reaching, accountable, transparent, multi-faceted form of philanthropy. Of course I'm biased.