Re: [admin-discuss] Next steps towards a net zero IETF

[John Levine <[e-mail]>]

It appears that Greg Wood  <[e-mail]> said:
>While skepticism about carbon offsetting is not unwarranted, I can say with confidence that the IETF LLC staff, Secretariat and other people who have worked on the project were and are focused on
>doing what we can to improve the actual situation, and not just appearances. IETF participants have fairly consistently indicated they are in favor of being more environmentally sustainable, and
>this seems like a reasonable step towards that goal, while also being in scope for the IETF LLC.

I don't think anyone doubts your good faith or the LLCs, but I
also reiterate the point that carbon offsets are for suckers.

Earlier this year I virtually sat in on a seminar series at the Yale
forestry school about how you design forest carbon offsets and it
became clear that you have to make some extremely optimistic
assumptions. You have to believe that whoever has sold you the offset
will be able and willing to prevent logging in some remote forest for
fifty years, and also that they won't turn around resell the same
offset to someone else next year and the year after that. They talked
about how one might audit these things, but it wasn't very persuasive.

We can certainly look at ways to decrease the amount of CO2 our
meetings generate, e.g., by looking for venues that require less air
travel, but we should not imagine that we can fix the rest of it by
buying phantom offsets.

R's,
John