The Problem With Carbon Offsets

With flight shame growing in popularity, extreme weather intensifying, and the Amazon burning, there’s more demand than ever for carbon offsets to assuage our guilt and make us feel like we’re doing something. But those credits many not be doing what you think they are — or anything at all. This week, we’re discussing the complicated and frustrating world of carbon offsets. There’s a reason why even the United Nations is now calling out their limitations.  This conversation is particularly important as California considers joining the Tropical Forest Standard as part of its cap-and-trade program. Then, we’ll talk about new climate plans from Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang. What’s in them? And who will become the climate candidate? Finally, we dig into a bill from Ohio that bails out big utilities and guts clean energy. The politics of this thing are ugly — and they are only getting uglier. Read along with us:ProPublica: An Even More Inconvenient TruthBloomberg: Greta Thunberg and ‘Flight Shame’ Are Fueling a Carbon Offset BoomNew York Times: Bernie Sanders' Green New DealVox: Ohio Just Passed the Worst Energy Bill of the 21st CenturySupport for this podcast is brought to you by Sungrow. With the world’s most powerful 250-kilowatt, 1,500-volt string inverter, Sungrow is providing disruptive technology for utility-scale projects. Subscribe to The Energy Gang podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you find your audio content.