What really triggers me about The #Guardian's and #ZEIT's research on the dysfunctional #CarbonOffset schemes is the fact that they don't even ask the most important question up front:
How the f*** is this even considered climate action?
Just to be clear: Offsetting means nothing more than emitting the CO2 that would've otherwise been emitted by cutting down trees. In other words: the CO2 is emitted *anyways*. If the scheme works, that is (fun fact: it doesn't according to the newspapers' research).
So, the scandal isn't that the CO2 wasn't removed (i.e. offset). The scandal is that it was emitted at *twice* the amount and even with a little bit of free #greenwashing included.
The general rule remains: If it's too cheap, it's probably a #scam.
Case and point: #Atmosfair calculates a 1 person round-trip from Frankfurt to Honolulu to emit about 7.2t of CO2. At an estimated CO2 price of 200 € (estimation #Umweltbundesamt), this should cost ~1400 €. Atmosfair claims that this flight could be compensated with 166€ (LOL).
Oh, and btw: The round-trip costs ~1400 € with Lufthansa and less than 800 € over an flight portal.
Can we please just stop doing such unbelievably stupid things?