The Oscar-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth" touted itself as the world's first carbon-neutral documentary.
The producers said that every ounce of carbon emitted during production -- from jet travel, electricity for filming and gasoline for cars and trucks -- was counterbalanced by reducing emissions somewhere else in the world. It only made sense that a film about the perils of global warming wouldn't contribute to the problem.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, September 26, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 3 inches; 127 words Type of Material: Correction
Purchasing offsets: A Sept. 2 article in Section A that assessed how businesses and individuals try to become "carbon-neutral" said that one broker, or offset company, Native Energy, did not contact the developer of a methane collector project until after it was mostly funded. Native Energy contacted dairy farmer Dave Van Gilder while he was seeking funding from Pennsylvania for his electricity-generating system. The article also said that the farmer had begun construction when Native Energy signed an agreement to buy future greenhouse gas reductions, which were later sold to the producers of "An Inconvenient Truth" and other customers. In fact, Native Energy and Van Gilder also had signed an earlier agreement, after the state grant had been awarded but more than a year before construction began.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, September 30, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 3 inches; 127 words Type of Material: Correction
Purchasing offsets: A Sept. 2 article in Section A that assessed how businesses and individuals try to become "carbon-neutral" said that one broker, or offset company, Native Energy, did not contact the developer of a methane collector project until after it was mostly funded. Native Energy contacted dairy farmer Dave Van Gilder while he was seeking funding from Pennsylvania for his electricity-generating system. The article also said that the farmer had begun construction when Native Energy signed an agreement to buy future greenhouse gas reductions, which were later sold to the producers of "An Inconvenient Truth" and other customers. In fact, Native Energy and Van Gilder also had signed an earlier agreement, after the state grant had been awarded but more than a year before construction began.For the Record
Co-producer Lesley Chilcott used an online calculator to estimate that shooting the film used 41.4 tons of carbon dioxide and paid a middleman, a company called Native Energy, $12 a ton, or $496.80, to broker a deal to cut greenhouse gases elsewhere. The film's distributors later made a similar payment to neutralize carbon dioxide from the marketing of the movie.
It was a ridiculously good deal with one problem: So far, it has not led to any additional emissions reductions.
Beneath the feel-good simplicity of buying your way to carbon neutrality is a growing concern that the idea is more hype than solution.
According to Native Energy, money from "An Inconvenient Truth," along with payments from others trying to neutralize their emissions, went to the developers of a methane collector on a Pennsylvanian farm and three wind turbines in an Alaskan village.
As it turned out, both projects had already been designed and financed, and the contributions from Native Energy covered only a minor fraction of their costs. "If you really believe you're carbon neutral, you're kidding yourself," said Gregg Marland, a fossil-fuel pollution expert at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee who has been watching the evolution of the new carbon markets. "You can't get out of it that easily."
The race to save the planet from global warming has spawned a budding industry of middlemen selling environmental salvation at bargain prices.
The companies take millions of dollars collected from their customers and funnel them into carbon-cutting projects, such as tree farms in Ecuador, windmills in Minnesota and no-till fields in Iowa.
In return, customers get to claim the reductions, known as voluntary carbon offsets, as their own. For less than $100 a year, even a Hummer can be pollution-free -- at least on paper.
Driven by guilt, public relations or genuine concern over global warming, tens of thousands of people have purchased offsets to zero out their carbon impact on the planet.
