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This is awesome! I can't believe all of the negative comments about lowering the barrier to do something this important. We only have one earth, it is priceless

by _yb2s 4y ago

This is awesome! I can't believe all of the negative comments about lowering the barrier to do something this important. We only have one earth, it is priceless because we cannot live without it, and we are really messing it up with massive amounts of CO2. It really doesn't matter much how expensive, difficult, or inefficient removing the CO2 is... it must be done, we have no other choice. Like any tech, it will get better over time when more and more money goes into it.

Syonyk 4y ago
"It has to be done" isn't helped by "throwing money at schemes that don't do what they claim to do on the tin." Especially when, by people doing that, they feel that they've "solved the problem" and can go on consuming as they have been. To a certain group of people, "carbon offsets" are more or less the old church "indulgences" - permission to {sin, emit} with the consequences covered. And if that money is doing nothing but enriching some people in the middle while not actually doing anything useful ("We'll not cut down this forest... that we we weren't planning to cut down anyway", or "Sure, we'll protect this land... and go clearcut the next mile over because we don't care where the ranch goes"), it's worse than nothing - because you've now "granted permission to emit" while not actually offsetting anything. That's not how it should be, but it's certainly how a lot of people perceive it to be. "Oh, it's fine, it's carbon neutral, I have an offset subscription" vs having to actually face that their carbon emissions aren't being offset. So I don't think it's fair to say that people asking questions about "Is the money being paid doing what it's supposed to actually do?" are pro-carbon or something. There's a lot of outright fraud in that space, and an API that smooths the friction of larger fraud isn't something useful. If you're going the wrong way to your stated destination, going that wrong way faster isn't helpful. Now, can I have all your surplus money to put into solar farms somewhere? Don't ask if they're in coal heavy territory or somewhere with a bunch of nuclear /hydro, it doesn't matter, right? We have to do everything we possibly can! ... except the one thing that would make a difference, which is consume radically less.
- _yb2s 4y ago
  I don't understand how this criticism applies to OPs service. Why do you think the emissions aren't really truly being offset? It looks like they provide 5 different CO2 capture services through different partners, and the projects methods and details are widely available. You can choose any desired ratio of the 5. Of these 5, 4 of them seem to be methods that, for a cost, directly and physically remove a known quantity of CO2 from the atmosphere. Only one, Forestation, seems to be potentially prone to the type of ambiguities you mention, where the intended impact never actually occurs, but this depends on if it's actually being done properly. The partner they are using is onetreeplanted, which seems to be endorsed by or partnered with a lot of credible environmental organizations.
  - kisamoto 4y ago
    Minor correction in that our primary forestation partner is Eden Forestation (although we have used OneTreePlanted in the past) but everything else you mention is accurate - thanks!
    - _yb2s 4y ago
      Your main website links to OneTreePlanted on the page https://carbonremoved.com/carbon-removal-projects/reforestation-california/ https://carbonremoved.com/carbon-removal-projects/reforestat...
palata 4y ago
Unfortunately, it's very likely that those technologies will never be able to remove a significant amount of CO2 from the atmosphere. It seems to be more and more appearing that the problem is that we consume too much energy. And so the solution is to do less, not more.
- _yb2s 4y ago
  Are you saying I can't just log into this API and spend $15 * 34810000000000/25 = $20 * 10^12 (e.g. 20 trillion dollars) each year to get all of the planets annual carbon emissions back into the ground as bio-oil? I kind-of did that calculation as a joke, but the result is actually fascinating to me... that's only about ~20% of global GDP. I expected it to be an impossibly large number, but it's not, e.g. about 10x as much as is spent currently on warfare and military globally.
  - palata 4y ago
    You sound like it is obvious to you, but those two points are generally not accepted yet: * CO2 emissions are linked to GDP. Lowering one means lowering the other. * We can't magically absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
    - _yb2s 4y ago
      Neither of those statements relate to what I was saying. My point is that humanity is wealthy enough to remove our current co2 production rate from the atmosphere, with current technology, if it were very important to us. Reducing consumption and improving the technology would likely make this much cheaper, but aren’t strictly necessary.
      - _yb2s 4y ago
        For example, the calculation above shows globally removing our current rate of CO2 production using one of the more expensive technologies behind this service would still be only about half as expensive as WWII was for the USA in terms of fraction of GDP. Expensive, sure, but clearly not impossible. If we were really "at war" with the climate change problem, it would be still cheaper than an actual war.
kisamoto 4y ago
Thanks a lot for your praise. We are early stage and releasing something new (and slightly controversial) but it's really encouraging and motivating to us to see others who share a similar opinion. We look forward to crossing paths again on the journey to a sustainable future :)

by _yb2s 4y ago

Syonyk 4y ago

"It has to be done" isn't helped by "throwing money at schemes that don't do what they claim to do on the tin." Especially when, by people doing that, they feel that they've "solved the problem" and can go on consuming as they have been. To a certain group of people, "carbon offsets" are more or less the old church "indulgences" - permission to {sin, emit} with the consequences covered. And if that money is doing nothing but enriching some people in the middle while not actually doing anything useful ("We'll not cut down this forest... that we we weren't planning to cut down anyway", or "Sure, we'll protect this land... and go clearcut the next mile over because we don't care where the ranch goes"), it's worse than nothing - because you've now "granted permission to emit" while not actually offsetting anything. That's not how it should be, but it's certainly how a lot of people perceive it to be. "Oh, it's fine, it's carbon neutral, I have an offset subscription" vs having to actually face that their carbon emissions aren't being offset. So I don't think it's fair to say that people asking questions about "Is the money being paid doing what it's supposed to actually do?" are pro-carbon or something. There's a lot of outright fraud in that space, and an API that smooths the friction of larger fraud isn't something useful. If you're going the wrong way to your stated destination, going that wrong way faster isn't helpful. Now, can I have all your surplus money to put into solar farms somewhere? Don't ask if they're in coal heavy territory or somewhere with a bunch of nuclear /hydro, it doesn't matter, right? We have to do everything we possibly can! ... except the one thing that would make a difference, which is consume radically less.

_yb2s 4y ago
I don't understand how this criticism applies to OPs service. Why do you think the emissions aren't really truly being offset? It looks like they provide 5 different CO2 capture services through different partners, and the projects methods and details are widely available. You can choose any desired ratio of the 5. Of these 5, 4 of them seem to be methods that, for a cost, directly and physically remove a known quantity of CO2 from the atmosphere. Only one, Forestation, seems to be potentially prone to the type of ambiguities you mention, where the intended impact never actually occurs, but this depends on if it's actually being done properly. The partner they are using is onetreeplanted, which seems to be endorsed by or partnered with a lot of credible environmental organizations.
- kisamoto 4y ago
  Minor correction in that our primary forestation partner is Eden Forestation (although we have used OneTreePlanted in the past) but everything else you mention is accurate - thanks!
  - _yb2s 4y ago
    Your main website links to OneTreePlanted on the page https://carbonremoved.com/carbon-removal-projects/reforestation-california/ https://carbonremoved.com/carbon-removal-projects/reforestat...

palata 4y ago

Unfortunately, it's very likely that those technologies will never be able to remove a significant amount of CO2 from the atmosphere. It seems to be more and more appearing that the problem is that we consume too much energy. And so the solution is to do less, not more.

_yb2s 4y ago
Are you saying I can't just log into this API and spend $15 * 34810000000000/25 = $20 * 10^12 (e.g. 20 trillion dollars) each year to get all of the planets annual carbon emissions back into the ground as bio-oil? I kind-of did that calculation as a joke, but the result is actually fascinating to me... that's only about ~20% of global GDP. I expected it to be an impossibly large number, but it's not, e.g. about 10x as much as is spent currently on warfare and military globally.
- palata 4y ago
  You sound like it is obvious to you, but those two points are generally not accepted yet: * CO2 emissions are linked to GDP. Lowering one means lowering the other. * We can't magically absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
  - _yb2s 4y ago
    Neither of those statements relate to what I was saying. My point is that humanity is wealthy enough to remove our current co2 production rate from the atmosphere, with current technology, if it were very important to us. Reducing consumption and improving the technology would likely make this much cheaper, but aren’t strictly necessary.
    - _yb2s 4y ago
      For example, the calculation above shows globally removing our current rate of CO2 production using one of the more expensive technologies behind this service would still be only about half as expensive as WWII was for the USA in terms of fraction of GDP. Expensive, sure, but clearly not impossible. If we were really "at war" with the climate change problem, it would be still cheaper than an actual war.

kisamoto 4y ago

Thanks a lot for your praise. We are early stage and releasing something new (and slightly controversial) but it's really encouraging and motivating to us to see others who share a similar opinion. We look forward to crossing paths again on the journey to a sustainable future :)