Greenwashing

Unfortunately, they are influencing farm prices, we sold 1,000 acres of prime Western districts dairy land for over $9,000/acre last year to trees, their pricing having jumped $2,000/acre on the budgeted credits they would receive on two rotations of trees that will likely be chipped and exported.

I have 30ha of pine trees in the rough areas of my farm at the bottom of NZ, and claim 25t/ha/year of carbon sequestration (circa 40k on today’s market). They look real, the trees are growing…but ‘are they really going to make a difference to climate change?’

I asked ChatGPT  ‘What is Greenwashing?’

In the context of carbon offsetting and electric vehicles (EVs), greenwashing refers to the practice of making misleading or exaggerated claims about the environmental benefits of these technologies.

Examples of greenwashing in this context include:

1. Carbon offsetting: Companies claiming to be “carbon neutral” by investing in carbon offset projects, while continuing to emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases.
2. Electric Vehicles (EVs): Manufacturers or governments promoting EVs as “zero-emission” vehicles, while ignoring the source of the electricity used to charge them (e.g., coal-fired power plants). This can create a false impression of environmental benefits.

In reality:

– Carbon offsetting may not always lead to genuine emissions reductions.

– EVs charged with coal-generated electricity can have a significant carbon footprint.

Greenwashing in this context can mislead consumers, policymakers, and investors, undermining efforts to address climate change.

In a perfect world Carbon off-setting is common sense, however even in Australia and NZ (with low corruption) the current systems are abused and attract anyone wanting to make a quick buck. All government driven in a panic to meet their Paris climate change targets/commitments. They are so desperate they pay credits for savannah burning in the Northern Territory, and soil carbon/vegetation projects in bushfire areas.

I suggest this is our own government green washing to appease climate change paranoia. It gets better….now instigating a $500 billion renewable energy revolution while we export 300 million tonnes of coal for other countries to generate electricity with…..and expect them to offset the related pollution effect.

Most of it goes to Asia where they have swapped out half their vehicles to Electric cars and use our coal to produce electricity to charge them…..

A typical electric car battery weighs 450 kg, about as big as a suitcase. It contains 11 kg of lithium, 27 kg of nickel, 20 kg of manganese, 14 kg of cobalt, 90 kg of copper and 180 kg of aluminium, steel and plastic.. In total, you have to extract circa 225,000 kilograms of soil for one battery.

Energy consumption is increasing at a faster rate than renewables are being developed, these graphics showing world coal production which hit a record 8 billion tonnes last year, 1t for every person.

The Paris Agreement was adopted by nearly every nation in 2015 to address climate change and its negative impacts. As you can see India has doubled coal production since then, China and Australia are up 50%…..

Whilst the US has reduced its coal use, natural Gas has largely filled the gap, and their 75,000 wind turbines produce 10% of the electricity.

Each wind turbine weighs 1,688 tons and contains 1300 tons of concrete, 295 tons of steel, 48 tons of iron and 24 tons of fiberglass. Each blade weighs 40 tons and has a lifespan of 15 to 20 years, after which they must be replaced. Blades cannot be recycled.

Clearly Wind turbines and Electric vehicles have less carbon emissions but likely take half their short lives to be considered ‘clean’. Globally energy demand is increasing with population growth and a growing middle class…..consumption is the issue.

I suggest climate change is unavoidable, there is good logic in rationalising fossil fuel use, but nanny state Australia wasting $500 billion on renewables and exporting coal to those less fortunate is blatant greenwashing.

If the goal here is to slow global warming, someone needs to tell the politicians carbon dioxide has no borders, and just maybe there is better bang for your buck if you develop a global perspective.

We need to remember the 20% of us in the privileged western world emit 15t of Carbon/person/year, 40% in China, India and South America circa 8t and the rest living on less than $7/day only 1t…..I looked in the mirror and discovered the problem.