Climate Change

We are obsessed with carbon counting and the goal of being carbon neutral. A large city in New York State is working to change their heating/cooling to all electric to be carbon neutral. But who counts the carbon emissions of the extra electricity of the city (The city says No they say it is on the power company), the power company (No they say the users who are using extra electricity). So, no one counts that carbon emissions.

Another well-known company claims to have been carbon neutral since XYZ. They have taken a offset.

What is that:

A carbon offset broadly refers to a reduction in GHG emissions – or an increase in carbon storage (e.g., through land restoration or the planting of trees) – that is used to compensate for emissions that occur elsewhere.

So that company is not really carbon neutral but using the tricky accounting for carbon emissions to claim they are carbon neutral. Some companies claim they will be carbon neutral in 2040 or 2050. By that time every person who made that claim will be off in retirement.

We will ever really be carbon neutral?

Surely electric cars are the answer. Well Yes and No. We destroy the habitats of where we are mining the key ingredients for the batteries, and have no plan of what to do with the batteries after there useful lifetime. The cars are made from the plastics generated from oil. The same holds true for solar panels. Not all solar panels are of the same quality first off. The second we have no realistic answer of what to do with them when they have ended their useful lifetime. We slowly destroy the earth and the habitat in another way.

We focus on carbon counting with an extra hot summer but loose track of all the manner we are not so slowly anymore destroying our human habitat. I have no brilliant ideas and no agenda to push. We get easily distracted by the media and the latest buzz words or ideas. Instead of spending billions going to Mars/Moon maybe we should focus on taking care of where we live.