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Ask HN: What are the most legitimate carbon emissions offsets one can buy?

4 points by Robotbeat ↗ HN
Carbon offsets are controversial, and for good reason. Even still, it seems like it could be a legitimate way to reduce net emissions. Some offsets may merely pick low-hanging fruit that was going to be picked anyway or which may have other poor externalities, but surely some offsets are better than others. What are the most legitimate carbon offsets you're aware of that an individual or business can buy? Are there any permanent, direct-air carbon sequestration offsets? Geologic storage of carbon?

4 comments

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danieltillett
Before heading down this path an understating of Jevons Paradox is worthwhile [1].

Rather than trying to spend money offsetting your carbon footprint you would be better off spending your money reducing the cost of new technologies so that carbon is not profitable to burn.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Robotbeat
Indeed. However, that's why I'm asking this question. If the carbon offset actually works, it should make the net climate impact zero. We're not talking about just improving the efficiency of some process (I think some offsets do this?), but actual permanent removal of CO2 from the air.
danieltillett
There is some research going on in this area, but it is still too expensive at this stage to be viable. We need to first stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere while we work on finding viable ways of pulling it out.

The best suggestion I have heard is slash and char of the tropical rainforests. The idea here is that instead of the current slash and burn agriculture is you instead pay the locals to produce biochar and bury the resulting char back in the soil. You can fix around 30t/C per hectare from the regrow and by turning the forest into biochar you prevent the carbon being released again into the atmosphere. There is just enough rainforest to balance the carbon being emitted, although it will soon be overwhelmed by the growth of emissions.

shinryuu
There is a marketplace in development to be found at nori.com

An entity that can remove carbon from the atmosphere will be able to sell it there. So the initial focus will be on agricultural practices because that’s where it can most easily be done.