Nothing exemplifies hypocrisy better than the recent behavior of Al Gore in promoting his theories about global warming while, at the same time, using more than 20 times the amount of energy at his home in Tennessee than the average American.
Flying around the world in a private jet to promote his image as the leading “global warming” warrior, champion of the green movement, doing battle with the growing number of skeptics, exhorting everyone within earshot to join him in fighting the eeeevil non-believers.
After being criticized for his excessive personal use of energy, Mr. Gore and his disciples pointed to his use of “carbon offsets” to neutralize the impacts of his profligate ways, thereby keeping him pure, that is, “carbon neutral.”
But even more telling was his refusal, when he was directly asked (by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla) during Congressional hearings on global warming to take the simple pledge, “I pledge to consume no more energy for use in my residence than the average American household by March 21, 2008.”
Writing in Human Events (Al Gore's Hypocrisy a High Cost for Taxpayers), Amanda B. Carpenter noted,
Inhofe said by taking the pledge Gore must reduce his consumption, not merely pay money to “offset” his energy levels. He intoned that Gore should show support for families who could not afford offsets by reducing his energy level to the average families’ energy consumption level.
“The offsets and credits are used by the wealthy so they do not have to change their lifestyle,” Inhofe told him.
Gore would not pledge to live by energy limits set by the average American household and said he would continue to purchase offsets.
Gore filibustered. “Thank you so much for your question,” he said to Inhofe. “One of the other recommendations is that you also set standards for green energy set by utilities. That is what we purchase and we [his family] pay more for it because it is rather uncommon. We purchase wind energy that does not produce carbon dioxide. That does cost a little more now. And that’s why it does cost more. We are in the process of renovating a new home.”
“Carbon offsets” is an interesting sophistry that is being used by Mr. Gore and others, generally well-to-do liberals, to offset their own so-called “carbon footprint,” which is defined in Wikipedia as follows:
Carbon offset is the process of reducing the net carbon emissions of an individual or organization, either by their own actions, or through arrangements with a carbon offset provider.
A carbon offset service is one arranged with such a provider, that achieves this net reduction through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases.[1] A wide variety of offset actions are available; tree planting is the most common. Renewable energy and energy conservation offsets are also popular, including emissions trading credits.
Carbonfund.org further notes:
Carbon offsets enable anyone to reduce their climate footprint by supporting projects, typically energy efficiency, renewable energy, sequestration, biomass, etc. that reduce carbon dioxide emissions to offset one’s own climate footprint.
The typical American is responsible for 10 tons of CO2 emissions annually through their direct energy use of home, cars and air travel, and about 24 tons of CO2 including their purchases, activities and the other services we all share throughout the economy.
While most people can reduce their climate footprints by using energy more efficiently and buying cars that get better gas mileage, which we strongly support, cost-efficiently reducing it to zero through individual actions within your four walls is nearly impossible. Carbon offsets are a cost effective way to reduce the remainder of one’s climate footprint.
However, commenting in his Junk Science column, What’s Your Real Carbon Footprint? (May 11, 2006), Steven Milloy noted:
The notion of a personal “carbon footprint” was created by global warming alarmists to foster a sense of individual accountability with respect to the consumption of energy produced by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. The idea is that the more energy from these sources you use, the more carbon dioxide (CO2) you cause to be released into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to global warming.
… you can purchase “off-sets” from sellers who claim they will use your money to neutralize or off-set your personal CO2 emissions – by planting trees or supporting wind/solar energy projects, for example.
You’ll still want to hold on to your wallets, though. Those who seek to profit from the carbon footprint concept would have you believe that calculating your CO2 emissions is the first – and last – step in discovering your impact on global temperature. But there’s much more to it than that.
If we calculate that the average U.S. household contributes, at most, an infinitesimal 0.0000000000148 degrees Fahrenheit annually to average global temperature – a trivial contribution even when multiplied by the 100 million U.S. households.
Moreover, the carbon off-set hucksters have created such a price scale that if you wanted to purchase enough off-sets at the low-end price of $5.50/mt-CO2 to potentially avoid one degree Fahrenheit of warming based on the average household’s “carbon footprint,” they would reap about $7.04 trillion. An off-set purchase price of $30/mt-CO2 makes the price of potentially avoiding one degree Fahrenheit of warming – and their potential gross revenue – a whopping $38.6 trillion.
Land-based temperature data indicate that the average global temperature increased about 0.07 degrees Centigrade per decade during 1880-2005. In contrast, when ocean-based measurements are factored into, average global temperature has increased by only 0.04 degrees Centigrade per decade.
As a by-product of developing The Real Carbon Footprint Calculator, we calculated that to prevent one degree Centigrade of global warming, mankind would need to avoid emitting about 4 trillion metric tons of CO2 – that would mean no manmade CO2 emissions for 120 years.
In short, carbon offsets are just another ruse for picking people’s pockets in the name of saving the planet. As far as I can tell, there is no accountability of how much money is being generated by this hustle or how it is spent. We hear about those caring souls who actually seem to think they are doing something to improve the environment, especially when it’s good for their public image, but we never hear anything at all about how the money is used, who gets it and how much. My sense is that it’s nothing more than another giant scam.
Unfortunately, the problem is the relentless pressure to sell the idea to the public and our politicians, who may do something else stupid, like passing a law or laws to make this foolishness mandatory, thereby creating another huge tax.
The idea that we can actually reduce the total “carbon footprint” of our society to zero is an amazing claim. Think about it. Suppose, as the environmentalists urge, everyone in America paid to do this, would the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere be any less than it is now? Hardly. The only result would be fatter wallets for the recipients of this largesse and less money in the pockets of the donors.
(c) 2006 Harris R. Sherline, All Rights Reserved
