This is from a press release by Washington DNR (Department of Natural Resources).

These are state forests that could be logged for timber,  but won’t, to be used as carbon offsets.

Although this is a bit confusing..

Of the 3,750 acres protected during the project’s first phase, 2,500 were part of planned harvests and will now be utilized for carbon credits. The remaining 1,250 acres are being protected through existing DNR policies. Areas included in Phase Two will be announced within the next year.

I don’t know how people in Western Washington feel about timber harvesting on state lands, but if enough folks are against it, then it seems reasonable for the State to go with the flow and get the credits instead.

The 10K acres involved are in Western Washington so that fires are less likely to interfere with carbon sequestration, and the trees probably grow like weeds (not a silvicultural term).

So forests will be left alone, and make money for the State (the best of both worlds, in the eyes of some).

It will be interesting to observe if everyone supports this effort. I haven’t located any opinions published either way.

There seem to be two main categories of thoughts on this topic:

A. Offsets are never OK, companies should just stop doing things that product carbon.  (I don’t think that this is realistic in any 10 year or so time-frame, but peoples’ views don’t have to be realistic.)

B. Offsets are OK when certain practices are followed. These may include a variety of concerns.

Perhaps we need an FSC- like third party verification of forest offsets? Perhaps there already is one and I haven’t heard of it?

Mike raised some interesting questions last week in this comment to this post.  Here’s what he said:

Mike: It seems like you keep pointing at the enviros as the groups that are being unreasonable. I agree, many of these groups are over the top with their apparent hatefulness towards the oil and gas industry, but the industry has brought this upon themselves with their disinformation campaigns, lobbying efforts to thwart legitimate environmental regulations, disregard for human health issues near oil/gas fields, and the list goes on and on.

I’m just pointing out that the energies feel like hate and scapegoating.  Is hate and scapegoating helpful?  Does my 2007 car use gas due to industry lobbying or disinformation?  Does the county snowplow? Probably not.

Now,other TSW readers know more about the industry than I do, but I don’t think that there is one “industry”.  There are the folks that were hauled before the hearing and questioned about oil prices ( I think they may be called the “majors” but not sure), plus there are all kinds of other businesses involved. So I’ll call them the O&G complex.

I think every industry has environmental impacts, and every one lobbies to reduce regulation, and every one tries to make money.  In our state, for example, we recently legalized marijuana- clearly that has environmental and health impacts.  Including weakening indoor air quality laws (smoking tobacco indoors is bad, marijuana, not).

And then there’s  expansion of wind turbines in Eastern Colorado

Harman doesn’t see much difference between her activism against wind and solar in Washington County and someone fighting an oil and gas well in a Denver suburb. When it comes to approving new industrial land in any community, she said strong local regulations will help ensure people are “good neighbors.”

And the wind industry has shown disregard for human health issues.. like oil and gas, there are controversies among pro and con scientists and health care providers, e.g. this study.

In Ontario and elsewhere,⁵ some individuals have reported experiencing adverse health effects resulting from living near IWTs. Reports of IWT-induced adverse health effects have been dismissed by some commentators including government authorities and other organizations. Physicians have been exposed to efforts to convince the public of the benefits of IWTs while minimizing the health risks. Those concerned about adverse effects of IWTs have been stereotyped as “NIMBYs” (not in my backyard).^6,7

In terms of the wind industry exhibiting lack of concern, check out many stories on the Stop These Things blog, originated by Australians.

I’m not saying that the O&G complex is any better or worse than any other industrial complex.  But why are some so hated, and others seem to get a relatively free pass (except for our remarkably consistent friends at CBD and some other groups)?  I’m thinking ranchers and the forest products industry.  And many critique OHV users, while thinking the Outdoor Recreation industry is swell. We seem to assume the worst about some industries and overlook the problems of others.   The only thing they have in common is perhaps a history of having donated to “the wrong” political party.  But I’m open to other hypotheses.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas folks apparently did lobby for a carbon tax with dividends also.

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Mike: How can for-profit mega-corporations who answer to oligarchs, investors and shareholders with the primary desire of maximizing profits be trusted to work in good faith to transition to a carbon neutral world?

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I wonder about media corporations also .. how can we trust them to tell us stories fairly and not focus on emotional content that drives clicks?

Or pharmaceutical companies not to downplay risks of drugs? Or even scientific disciplines and NIH to police themselves around dangerous research (see this excellent Vanity Fair article exploring various scientists circling wagons after the Covid outbreak).

I guess the answer is regulation and enforcement thereof.  That’s the way it works for cars and airplanes and pharmaceuticals and so on.  That way there are sideboards, and you don’t really have to trust. Still, there are other forces, like the ESG movement. From Tisha Schuller :

The divest-or-engage debate came to a head in February with two interesting decisions. First, the New York State Pension Fund (NYSCRF) announced a $238 million divestment from oil and gas companies it saw to be “unprepared to adapt to a low-carbon future.” This group of companies included about one-half of the oil and gas companies owned by NYSCRF. The decision to divest from select oil and gas companies reflects public-sector investors’ attentiveness to how companies are embracing the energy transition in their strategies, a stance we saw earlier this year in private equity announcements, covered in this Both True.

Environmental and social activist groups applauded NYSCRF’s move as progress towards a greener future. But two of the nation’s largest pension funds — the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) — oppose such moves as less than constructive. “When you divest you don’t solve climate change, you don’t solve the issues,” said CalPERS managing director Simiso Nzima in response to NYSCRF’s divestment.

CalPERS and CalSTRS, which together control over $42 billion in fossil fuel investments, prefer to “constructive engagement” to communicate their concerns while maintaining maximum return.

I agree it would be a wonderful thing for everyone to sit down and do some collaborative problem solving, to come up with a solid transition plan, to put real money towards the transition efforts, and to persevere to stay the transition course, but I don’t see it happening without the heavy hand of government.

Regulation is part of the heavy hand of government. But we can certainly have regulations without hate.. see non-hated industries. Ben and Jerry’s?

Mike: I personally prefer more measured, thoughtful dialogue, but it seems the shrillness of environmental groups is required to get people’s attention to put pressure on politicians to do what is needed to minimize (a relative term) extinctions, loss of entire ecosystems, and human suffering moving forward.

Apocalypticism (or “doomism”) has been discussed pro and con among climate activists.

Example: AP story by Seth Borenstein:

Mann said doomism has become far more of a threat than denialism and he believes that some of the same people, trade associations and companies that denied climate change are encouraging people who say it is too late. Mann is battling publicly with a retired University of Arizona ecologist, Guy McPherson, an intellectual leader of the doom movement.

McPherson said he’s not part of the monetary system, hasn’t had a paycheck in 13 years, doesn’t vote and lived off the grid for a decade. He said all species go extinct and humans are no exception. He publicly predicted humanity will go extinct in 2026, but in an interview with The Associated Press said, “I’m not nearly as stuck on 2026,” and mentioned 2030 and changes to human habitat from the loss of Arctic summer sea ice.

So Mann’s kind of implying that the O&G folks are promoting doomism.. oh well.  And AAAS gave him an award for science communication.

To me, empirically, shrillness hasn’t worked. It’s been thirty years now, at least. There’s that old saw about “if you keep doing what you always did, you’re going to get what you always got.”

And ENGO’s do have a variety of strategies, including more collaborative ones, as with Environmental Defense Fund and reducing methane.

Here’s a podcast with Mark Brownstein from EDF and here’s a link to what they’re doing.

Framing is a choice. We could also frame the climate problem as 1) it’s difficult to change the world economy, which is now dependent on fossil fuels. Especially in a just way with countries in deep poverty.  2) Transition strategies and adaptation are important. 3) it’s complicated and we don’t know the right answer yet, 4) we can’t kick entire industries out of the boat and expect to row as fast, and 5) promoting hatred and division doesn’t ultimately help solve complex problems where we need all hands on deck.

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Mike also linked to this article in which the author Robert Rapier (a chemcial engineer) says something similar.

These are issues in which there seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding — which leads to finger-pointing — between the Biden Administration and the oil industry. Given the circumstances, as I wrote previously I believe the Biden Administration should convene a summit with the heads of the major oil companies. There should be frank dialogue, and the outcome should be clearly communicated to the world.

Trust is built by making agreements, making them transparent to the public, and living by them. That might actually be easier for companies to do than for politicians. Agreement also need to be realistic, and involve doers as well as talkers, writers and exhorters.

Where do forests fit in Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) methods? from Oliver Geden on Twitter here.

He also describes how the IPCC AR6 WGI relates to the WGIII report.  Understanding the IPCC thinking is probably above our pay grade, but this chart gives you some idea what the IPCC was thinking.  Extra points to anyone who can find the location in the IPCC reports of the mechanisms that lead to the effects summarized in the chart.

While the IPCC folks put afforestation, reforestation and forest management into the same category.. it seems like some would argue that forest management has a negative impact on water quality. But then there are fuel treatment/forest management options that help wildfires suppression that can have worse impacts.. maybe it doesn’t make sense to lump these activities together at a global scale?   And still, that’s their charge.  It does make you wonder whether choosing CDR methods on a regional basis (from the ground up- choosing methods with public acceptance) would lead to a different set of preferred methods.

Many of the “framings of the decarbonization argument” are implicit and not explicit.  So I thought I’d mention a few I ran across, one that Rebecca Watson put in a comment yesterday, and open it up to others.  As I tell people about spiritual things… you get to pick your own path.. same thing with framings, everyone gets to pick their own framing.   A test of success is whether your framing is more successful at leading to carbon reduction in the real world.  To do that, it could be argued that the best framing would lead to building coalitions that are successful at moving the decarbonizing ball down the field.  All ultimately political (at all governmental levels), and not particularly moral, judgments. To “work for” climate change can be posed as a moral question (by Pope Francis and many others), but deciding what proportion of what energy source to use, where, in the short and mid-term, is not as clear or easy to moralize about.  Especially, as many have pointed out,  when developing countries, who lack energy today, need energy in the short and mid-term.  Apologies for how long this post is, but I thought more examples would be better. Everyone is welcome to add their own favorite framing in the comments.  You can also mix and match framings and potential solutions.

(1) Here’s an interesting framing  by Ted Nordhaus, in Issues in Science and Technology,  in which he wonders why people who believe climate change is urgent and apocalyptic don’t go bigger.. in terms of choosing to socialize key infrastructure.

Missing from this frame is the notion that abundant, cheap, clean energy and the low carbon infrastructure and technology necessary to provide it is a public good. Historically, nations have provided these sorts of goods directly and governments have done just that for public goods as diverse as national defense, public health, scientific research, and clean and abundant water. In these cases, government agencies don’t incentivize or mandate that private firms build, say, modern water and sewage systems; rather, they either build them themselves or contract with firms to build them. But in either case, it is government that specs the system, procures its various elements, coordinates construction and operations, and finances construction directly from the public purse. The same has been broadly true, to a greater and lesser extent, of road, transit, and yes, electrical systems in most parts of the world.

The most successful clean energy initiatives in modern history followed this public-led model, not any of the three policy models that have dominated climate policy-making. France decarbonized 80% of its electrical system through the state-led deployment of nuclear energy. Sweden did the same through a combination of nuclear and hydroelectric dams. Brazil achieved similar levels primarily by building dams.

Nuclear advocates often highlight the cases of France and Sweden, while everyone else ignores them. But the prominent role that dams have played suggests that there are lessons for climate mitigation efforts that go well beyond the benefits of nuclear energy. What all three cases have in common is the direct public procurement of large, centralized infrastructure to provide clean energy to residential, commercial, and industrial users in large, modern economies.

Treating climate change as a public infrastructure challenge, not a private market failure, brings a range of advantages that pricing and regulation cannot provide. It enables long time horizons that private investors are unlikely to tolerate; planning and coordination across sectors of the economy to integrate technology, infrastructure, and institutions necessary to achieve deep decarbonization; and low-cost public finance that could make the price of the energy and climate transition far more manageable. And assuming a reasonably progressive tax system, it would arguably do so in a manner at least as straightforward and equitable as cap-and-trade or carbon taxes that aim at “correcting” market failures.

I’d add that giving money to projects may be more useful than to give money to a variety of workers disagreeing about accounting practices.  In a sense, white collar workers can’t solve a blue collar problem.

Sidenote: given the Ukraine invasion,the below excerpt sounds different. He imagines that Jay Inslee is elected President based on his climate policies, and takes a series of steps to fix climate change, including national carbon rationing.

A month after his inauguration, Inslee traveled to meet with European allies. There, he announced his plan to convert NATO to a global climate mitigation and relief force. NATO and its wealthy members would directly finance the construction of low carbon infrastructure across the globe. Like the Marshall plan that rebuilt Europe, NATO would provide long-term, low-interest loans for developing economies to purchase and deploy clean energy technology. NATO forces would also lead relief efforts to rebuild after natural disasters and resettle refugees in regions less vulnerable to climate change. “It doesn’t matter whether you are black, white, or brown, American, Indian, or Chinese,” Inslee thundered at the end of the NATO meetings. “We are all Earthlings now, with a common challenge and a common destiny.” As Inslee boarded Air Force One, en route to meet his Indian and Chinese counterparts, the battle to stop catastrophic climate change had finally been joined.

Coincidentally, today I read this article in The Intercept about invoking the Defense Production Act.

Several senators sent President Joe Biden a letter on Wednesday asking him to use authorities such as those contained in the Defense Production Act, which significantly expands the president’s authority to unilaterally alter domestic manufacturing policy in times of crisis, to “support and increase manufacturing capacity and supply chain security for technologies that reduce fossil fuel demand and fuel costs, such as electric heat pumps, efficient electric appliances, renewable energy generation and storage, and other clean technologies.”

It doesn’t mention mining, though, of interest to TSW readers, since mining is an issue on federal lands.  Seems like a potential problem, though, since you can’t manufacture without raw materials. And the letter is big on manufacturing heat pumps but not so big on paying people to swap them out.  Or the electric infrastructure to bear those new loads.  When marijuana was legalized in Colorado, electric substations needed to be beefed up..here is a story about some of that.   I think we need more engineers (a la concepts like “critical path”) at the broader scale (how are we to decarbonize short medium and long-term), and perhaps a Pragmatic Bipartisan Decarbonization political coalition.

(2) Here’s a Matthew Yglesias framing that Rebecca Watson sent in:

A recent article by Matthew Yglesias, founder of Vox, writer at Atlantic, Bloomberg, in his “SlowBoring” newsletter has an interesting perspective on this question. He suggests that the Sunrise Movement [like Jane Fonda] frames the climate argument in the wrong way “and that has generated strategic and tactical failures…” They start from three ill-founded premises: 1. there is a latent desire among the mass public for sweeping change to address climate concerns, 2) this desire for change is being held back by an elite cabal of special interests, mainly fossil fuel companies, who wield power through campaign contributions, 3. “Due to the corrupting influence of fossil fuel money, not only do Republicans take bad stances on climate-related issues but so do Democrats…” which leads to the conclusion that a “broad grassroots movement that can push the political system… is needed. Yglesias’ argument is that this is backwards and he points to some interesting polling data and the evidence of the bi-partisan climate provisions in the 2020-21 Omnibus. “But their contents reveal that the progressive theory of climate politics is fundamentally backward — bipartisan deal-making behind closed doors is not dominated by fossil fuel interests and does not feature moderate Democrats selling out to join with Republicans to promote dirty energy. On the contrary, Democrats consistently prioritize climate in these negotiations and some Republicans are sometimes willing to make concessions.” He adds, “[t]he reason the climate has a fighting chance is that people who care about this issue have disproportionate power in the system. But to fully take advantage of that dynamic, climate activists need a correct analysis of the situation.” Worth the read.

Here’s the link, and Yglesias has other interesting ones on energy.

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(3) In 2009, a group of climate experts thought the framing was wrong, and published their views in the Hartwell Paper.

Without a fundamental re-framing of the issue, new mandates will not be granted for any fresh courses of action, even good ones. So, to rebuild climate policy and to restore trust in expert organisations, the framing must change and change radically.

…

Therefore,
the Paper advocates a radical reframing – an inverting – of approach: accepting that decarbonisation will only be achieved successfully as a benefit contingent upon other goals which are politically attractive and relentlessly pragmatic.

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The aim of this paper has been to reframe the climate issue around matters of human dignity. Not just because that is noble or nice or necessary – although all of those reasons – but because it is likely to be more effective than the approach of framing around human sinfulness—which has just failed. Securing access to low-cost energy for all, including the very poor, is  truly and literally liberating. Building resilience to surprise and to extremes of weather is a practical expression of true global solidarity. Improving the quality of the air that people breathe is an undeniable public good. Such a reorientation requires a radical rethinking and then a reordering of the climate policy agenda

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Reframing the climate issue in this manner also means giving up the idea that all manner of other policy goals can be attained by grinding them onto a sparkling, myriad-faceted gem of global carbon policy which then dazzles so mesmerically that it carries all before it. It does not and it did not. Instead, the all-inclusive “Kyoto” type of climate policy as it had become by late 2009, needs to be broken up into separate issues again, each addressed on its merits and each in its own ways. Adaptation, forests, biodiversity, air quality, equity and the many other disparate agendas that have been attached to the climate issue must again stand on their own. We believe that this will, in many cases, make the possibility of political action more likely than has been the circumstance in recent years when carbon policy was asked to pull the whole load of our aspirations for a better future

I think that this is important (unbundling)- to give stakeholders, practitioners and non-climate academics back their former domain that they know and work in, but this idea doesn’t seem to have gone very far.

I also thought at the time that many are attracted to the framing of “human sinfulness” and that remains powerful in some quarters today.  But it’s a choice of some to frame it that way.  Many other framings, as we have seen, are currently on the table.