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Anyone have experience with buying offsets or have a preference for which organizations are the best? I understand it's like a charity in that you have to trust that the ones you donate to are using most of your donations for the project.
So far it seems like the "gold standard" site makes it easiest to buy offsets for a particular project and shows you just how much it costs per ton of offsets. Being I'm a wind energy supporter I'd be more inclined to throw money in this direction... that or tree planting and forest preservation.
Those who are entitled to sell carbon credits earn that position by performing services that supposedly use up carbon--foresters, farmers, people who grow things, basically.
Those who buy credits, thus supposedly earning them the right to put carbon into the atm-- essentially by burning fossil fuels,-- thus forgiving them their sins. They can still sin. We just forgive them if they pay enough.
If we didn't have such a system, would the foresters and farmers stop foresting and farming?
People saw thru the scam from the start and the ill fated Chicago Carbon Exchange went belly up early on. All their investors, who had imagined great profits to be forthcoming, like Gore, Obama, Jarret etc were disappointed. Too bad.
Well a lot of these big politicians claim to be buying carbon offsets for all their private jet usage and all the other wasteful things they do to put carbon into the environment despite the fact that they claim to be green so I was just wondering. I wouldn't mind giving a little bit of money for green causes myself that's why I asked. I thought about just getting a bunch of tree saplings and randomly planting them in low-lying swampy areas which we have plenty of around here too that was another idea.
The cottonwoods and the willows really enjoy those areas.
I don't know the pay scale, but I doubt planting a few trees and selling the credits will amount to much profit for you. Maybe just do it for the sake of doing it.
In regards the benefits of planting trees, it's particularly good if you live in an urban/suburban setting that had formerly been forest. You'd be providing some return towards normal habitat for the area. A few birds & bugs may appreciate it. Doubtful that it would get bears and wolves back into the neighborhood.
You make a good observation that willows and cottonwoods like moist areas. They're pioneer trees in the natural course of ecological succession. (Lakes silt in to form ponds, then swamps, then meadows, then, eventually, forests as soil conditions are changed and shaped.)
A recent episode of WI Public TV "University Place" was a lecture on Forest Management. Like most people probably, I had always assumed that after the lumberjacks buzz thru a woodlot, the best thing to do was to plant new seedlings. Apparently, according to this expert, just letting it re-seed itself & evolve naturally is the healthiest thing to do. (!) https://pbswisconsin.org/watch/unive...nt-why-bother/
BTW- Thanks for caring. I don't think the carbon thing is important at all, but saving/providing habitat is the big problem facing MotherNature.
South Dakota doesn't have native forest because the climate is so unpredictable combined with the wind speeds... we had 2 record rainfall years and then this year was extremely dry and windy, but there's still plenty of swampy areas where planting a single cottonwood or a couple could result in several dozen over enough of a time period, given these trees put up suckers.
I wish people gave more thought into randomly planting trees in unused land. It's the first thing I think of when I buy a house, and on my mother's 9 acres she bought in the year 2000 she planted 2 dozen trees. Her yard looks so wonderful right now, like a small forest in the middle of the countryside.
A lot of Wisconsin where I grew up has reforested over the years because if you simply do nothing, the trees will grow back on land that was once cleared with no intervention. Out here you have to make an effort.
I'm not going to sell any credits and try to profit, that wasn't my intention. I was interested in buying offsets or donating to some cause that helps preserve forests. I was more interested in whether these politicians buying these offsets does any good and counters their private jet usage or if it's just a public relations scam. If I bought 10 "offsets" from that "gold standard" website am I doing any good?
??? Who gets the money and what do they do with it?
If it'll make you feel better, just write your name & address on the back of a Twenty dollar bill and send it to me. I'll send you a certificate that says "Thanks for your contribution. You have just offset 3 tonnes of carbon emissions"
BTW- did you ever take a course in chemistry? Who measures gases in tons? It's Moles to scientists. They use "tons" to make it sound impressive to the naïve. ( I use the word naïve cuz it sounds so nice compared to "ignorant" or "uneducated.")
You can send me money and I will plant a tree out back. Even put your name and photo on it..............
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