iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Replies

George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

The soil carbon market is going to collapse - and that's a good thing. One of the issues I explore in this week's column, about the dreamworld of climate fakery our legislators have created. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

Trump’s science-denying fanatics are bad enough. Yet even our climate ‘solutions’ are now the stuff of total delusion | George Monbiot

The ‘progress’ made at Cop29 has been on carbon markets: a world of magical thinking, over-claiming and distorted truth, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

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Philip GH @philhamm.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

All climate change mitigation ideas are the stuff of delusion. Everything about modernity and civilization is only possible because of the incredible bounty of hydrocarbons that humans have learned to exploit. Adaptation is the only possible course.

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theselocalgods.bsky.social @theselocalgods.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

I'm the kind of weirdo who tries to do DIY carbon sequestration, mostly by composting cardboard into the soil. It takes ages and I reckon I sequester, at most, 0.5 tonnes of carbon PA for an indefinite period of time. It's good exercise but now I'm thinking I should get paid...

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daverha52.bsky.social @daverha52.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Capitalism is creative, but amoral. While there are examples of merit, the really big money is being directed into scams such as Monbiot exposes in this essay. Read it and understand how the capitalist are grifting the climate crisis for profit

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Kaitlin Is Just Getting Started @gothamgirlblue.com · 21/11/2024

📌

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nigelinoz.bsky.social @nigelinoz.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

thanks for taking this up. I’ve been arguing this for ages. The whole principle of an emitter buying the right to pretend not to emit from say a forester who must now pretend their wood has no carbon in it, with no net reduction in emissions anywhere is plainly bonkers!

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Matt Mc @matty1mac.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Soil carbon credits are messy, but so is soil. Soil health underpins life, and soils have been degrading for a long time. Credibility and measurement challenges are real, but carbon markets could still fund large-scale restoration. Flawed markets don’t mean flawed solutions!

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Paul Haynes @paul-haynes.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

I was thinking I could use a similar approach to carbon credits to assuage my guilt at being rich - by paying a poor person to give me 'poverty credits'. Unfortunately, they have to stay poor for this to work, so I'm afraid I can't pay them very much.

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Ian Willey @ianwilley.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

The illustration is very similar to one I drew for the Mirror nine years ago.

Editorial illustration.
A hand on the left is passing banknotes to a hand on the right.

Text says “Housing Benefit” above the hand on the left and visible shirt cuff has a cuff link with the “UKgov” crown on it.

Text says “…Landlord Subsidy” below the hand on the right. A visible blazer cuff has two buttons on it. There are simple silhouettes of houses on the buttons.

The top banknote in the wad that is being passed is a £20 note. Incorporated into the design of the note is the text “Free Money” and “Rentier Revenue”. The banknote is signed by the Governor “Billy Bunce”.

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Ian Fraser @ianafraser.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Carbon markets are something I find hard to understand, to the extent I do wonder if they are a legalised scam, akin to the subprime mortgage crisis that triggered and contributed to the global financial crisis. At some point, though, someone is accruing wealth.

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Jim Thomas @scanthehorizon.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Other part is massive emissions inherent in facilitating soil carbon market. Bayer, Deere, Corteva generate soil credits via AI enabled digital agriculture backed by intense computation + rural data transmission. Data centre emissions already outstrip aviation. Extending to farm data is disastrous

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Jim Thomas @scanthehorizon.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Agree caution over hyping biochar is warranted. Application appears to lead to pulse of incr C02 release altho longer impact on soil ghg releases mixed and depends on land management - see meta studies eg ainfo.cnptia.embrapa.br/digital/bits... .and acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

ainfo.cnptia.embrapa.br

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Time is Sliding @timeissliding.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Carbon credits are just like the “end-of-pipe” pollution control bolt-ons that industry has often opted for instead of minimising the production of a pollutant at source. They can be the easy way to avoid changing how or what is being done…a sticking plaster for business as usual.

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Nick Jowett @jowettnick.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Some caricaturing of US Christians in this - sort of assuming they're all the same. There are many different denominations and theological approaches and a proper respect demands that writers take care to be accurate about precisely who they are writing about.

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Roy D. Runner ☭ @roydrunner.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

The truth is that capitalism per se has no solution to this problem

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Sarcasmo @sarcasmodemiami.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Trading credits aside, is small scale biochar production w/ (e.g.) kontiki kilns using dying trees (a result of emerald ash borers in the US) a beneficial labor of love? (Assume any such biochar produced is incorporated into my fields).

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Marius Münstermann @muenstem.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

We took a deep-dive into industry-driven #CarbonCredit schemes in chapter 3 of our soil crisis investigation last year, with a focus on the strategies of Bayer, BASF and other big farming players: boden-burnout.shorthandstories.com/chapter-I-lo... #COP29

boden-burnout.shorthandstories.com

SAVE OUR SOILS

To protect the planet's soils from collapse – and thus ourselves – we must radically change the way we farm

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Ozzy Osgood @ozzmanosgood.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Actually, the so-called "deniers" had been trying to tell you this all along. This is no surprise to me.

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Paul Webb REA EU research @paul-rea.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

A lot of good points. But I do think it is important to have estimates of the value of good soil, indeed this would be a better measure for rewarding farmers than traditional subsidies.

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John Coltrane Lives @aminhnow.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Capitalism is not going to fix climate change no matter how many "markets" get set up.

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Polly @climatecology.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Covers it well. The main difficulty is measuring what is a small CHANGE in C against a large background. Minor quibble, soil C:N ratios are not fixed at 12. Under forests can be 20, 30, 40. Also N not always needed to balance C. The C:N ratio can widen under different management practices.

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Gijs Kaper @gijskaper.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Biochar made on the agricultural land itself from the biowastestream allready there can still be an insetting for agricultural methane emissions.

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Wilson Fink @wilsonfink.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

A lot of weak arguments in here, though you do outline some of the key challenges with SOC. But what is missed is that companies buying or generating carbon offsets are also more ambitious in other climate mitigation efforts - these actions aren't mutually exclusive.

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QuetzalcoatlusWellnessInstitute @8t3v3n.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Dear George, please stop doing free scab labour for fascism, and go ahead and delete your X account. Waiting for an en masses move is exactly how fascism prospers. I know you know this. How do I know you know this? You keep adding value to a fascist site with reasons others might stay.

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

What do you make of efforts to increase the plant production of organic compounds that are recalcitrant to microbial degradation, as exemplified by the Salk Institute’s Harnessing Plants Initiative? www.salk.edu/harnessing-p... #plantscience

salk.edu

Harnessing Plants Initiative - Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Overview

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Marquessa Sue of Dudley @wizzitwoody.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Fascinating article, George, thank you. I really had very little idea.

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AdyBee 🐝 @adybee.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Great little series detailing how they got us to this point … www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

bbc.co.uk

How They Made Us Doubt Everything - Welcome to How They Made Us Doubt Everything: The Tobacco Playbook - BBC Sounds

From climate change to smoking, this is the story of how doubt has been manufactured.

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Orticoltore @bosco.eurosky.social · 21/11/2024

Maybe it is possible to obtain a satisfactory proxy for SOC and evolutionary mapping. sentinel.esa.int/web/success-...

sentinel.esa.int

Copernicus Sentinel-2 data to estimate soil organic carbon in croplands - Sentinel Success Stories - Sentinel Online

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martin-for-change.bsky.social @martin-for-change.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Spot on - just creative accounting

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Ian Thompson @iantho.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Hard to build soil C without additions, harder to retain, still hard to measure. If it can be done, not sure that farmer won’t need it for their own emission reduction measures. Any effort to build soil C though is good for soil and production. Isn’t that enough?

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