The trouble with “Carbon Offsetting”
"Carbon offsetting" sounds great: continue to use fossil fuels and simply "balance out" the carbon emissions by planting trees and protecting forests. Business as usual. No wonder that airlines and oil companies love talking about them! Problem solved, right? Wrong. Carbon offsetting projects using trees and forests simply don't deliver what they promise, and worse, they're a distraction from the real solution to climate change - that is, a real reduction in carbon emissions entering the atmosphere. Carbon offsetting schemes are simply public-relation schemes for increasingly eco-conscious consumers, and shift the focus off carbon-polluting industries. Here's the problem. Carbon in fossil fuels is "fixed" underground for the long term whereas the carbon in vegetation is in a constant carbon cycle. Using fossil fuels releases more carbon into the atmosphere which can be used by trees, *but* when a tree dies the carbon contained in
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