More evidence was released today demonstrating the complexity and oxymoronic nature of “ethical capitalism.” This time it has to do with carbon offsets.
According to “A funny place to store carbon,” a report issued today by the World Rainforest Movement, villagers living along the edges of Mount Elgon National Park in east Uganda, the site of a Dutch-owned carbon offset project, have been beaten, shot at, and repeatedly denied access to their land by armed park rangers guarding the “carbon trees” inside the park.
The FACE (Forest Absorbing Carbon-dioxide Emissions) Foundation’s carbon credits are sold to European offset companies with clients that include Amnesty International and the Body Shop.
I mean really, whether it’s carbon offsets, biofuels, coal-to-liquid, whatever, how long will we continue to think that we can buy our way out of this mess? The cost of our refusal to make actual changes to our lifestyles is beyond our imagining.
