There was a lot to watch in the offset world this week! CarbonPlan, ProPublica, The Guardian and others reported on major issues with some California forestry credits allegedly being overestimated by a substantial amount. This episode also shares some reflections on the Texas electrical grid, and some hopeful thoughts on new national parks buoy us up!
Carbon Removal Newsroom is hosted by Nori's Supply and Methodology Program Manager, Radhika Moolgavkar. This week's panelists are Dr. Holly Jean Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Buffalo; and Christopher Barnard, Policy Director of the American Conservation Coalition.
Articles referenced:
"Systematic over-crediting of forest offsets" in CarbonPlan
"Carbon offsets used by major airlines based on flawed system, warn experts" by Patrick Greenfield in The Guardian
"A New, Deadly Risk for Cities in Summer: Power Failures During Heat Waves" by Christopher Flavell at The New York Times
"Texas Failed Because It Did Not Plan" by Robinson Meyer at The Atlantic
"Inside Clean Energy: Some Straight Talk about Renewables and Reliability" by Dan Gearing at Inside Climate News
"Mozambique Mints a New National Park — and Surveys Its Riches" by Jen Gunton at The New York Times
"Meet America’s 63rd National Park" by Zack Montague at The New York Times
Full Transcript
Announcer: You’re listening to Carbon Removal Newsroom, a weekly show about current events in the world of carbon removal, from technology and innovation to policymaking and job growth. Brought to you by Nori, the carbon removal marketplace.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom, our second episode in the same week. We were just so excited. We wanted to do another one today. So I’m welcoming my co-hosts, Holly Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Buffalo in New York. Hey, Holly.
Holly Jean Buck: Hey.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Thanks for joining me two days in a row.
Holly Jean Buck: I appreciate it.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And Chris Barnard, Policy Director at the American Conservation Coalition. Hey, Chris.
Chris Barnard: Good to see you again.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Good to see you too. So this week we’re going to start with what in my mind has been burning up the carbon removal circles or the cap and trade circles or the general CDR world, which are these two articles that have come out about forest and carbon accounting. At a very high level, one article was talking about the fact that the different offsets bought by airlines and airplanes through a company or an organization called Corsia were probably or maybe overreporting the amount of emissions they were reducing through preventing the destruction of forests and reforestation efforts.
The second piece was a ProPublica piece that was based on A report by carbon plan that essentially alleged that the carbon cap and trade program in California was vastly overreporting the number of emissions that they were, emission reductions that were occurring through their forestation program due the way they categorize trees and carbon, the carbon uptake of those different geographic locations. So with that, Polly, I’m curious, what did you make of those stories and what was your thinking on it?
Holly Jean Buck: Well, in some sense, I feel like we’ve been through this cycle before, but maybe it’s because the corner of academia I inhabit has been talking about the problems with offsets for decades, actually, and so have NGOs. And I do think there’s been some policy learning and some thought. So there’s been some disappointment that these kind of improved protocols aren’t delivering what people want to see. So these two articles were a bit different. There was one by The Guardian and Unearthed, a researcher of Greenpeace, and it was saying some familiar things about additionality about the challenges and measuring co benefits basically the models that predict where deforestation would have taken place had some flaws in them.
And then this other study I found really interesting. So this was done by carbon plan and you can read the pre print. I assume it’s going to be a peer reviewed paper as well. And it was focused on California. So the other article was focused on a global scale. But this is really about California’s system. And they looked at a whole bunch of offsets, found that 29% of them were over-credited. So a value of about $410 million. And the reason they were over-credited has to do with a fairly wonky technical thing about Averages in the system, which we could get into the details of if we want.
But I mean, both of these get to some interesting questions about the layer of information or knowledge or computing that you need to really make sure all of this is measured and monitored and tracked.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah. So, Chris, what were your initial thoughts after reading those articles?
Chris Barnard: Yeah, I mean, it’s true that it’s been a problem that’s kind of bugged the carbon offset space for a long time. And it’s a real shame because if there were a system that could more easily show that these particular offsets are actually contributing to emissions reductions and sequestering carbon, the marketplace would be really solid. And I think that’s one of the main challenges that it will have to solve and companies like nori are trying to solve is how can we make sure that these carbon offsets are actually additional rather than just claiming to sequester carbon when they’re actually not or sending money to projects that don’t actually need the money and things like that so.
It really is one of the big problems that will have to be solved. But I do think that there is a lot of potential for these solutions anyway. And so I feel like the market will come up with mechanisms to try and make sure that they can have these carbon credits be additional. And I know there’s certain policies in coming out of Congress that they’re trying to do that as well. So I hope that they’ll be able to solve that particular problem.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, I mean, I think for me, the issue, the thing that I thought about, I had two initial reactions or thoughts. One was, and Holly and I were kind of talking about this before, how do you provide, how do you prove a counterfactual? Like additionality at its very core, at its core is nearly, it’s impossible in my mind to actually prove because you can’t prove something that never happened. And so you have to make these rather large assumptions, which then can be maybe taken advantage of in certain situations. And then the other part of me also kind of was like, in some ways, does it matter?
I mean, I understand why it matters from a mission and a cap and trade, very specific perspective. Like you’re saying you’re doing an emission reduction. And so you should do that emission reduction. So that’s not my point. But my point is like the more broad and the argument that many of the people in the program made was like, but look at all the benefits we gave and look at the things that we created. And from an overall environmentalist perspective, I was like, yeah, I would rather these projects have gone forward because I thought they brought a lot of co-benefits outside of the carbon sequestration that were important.
But there’s that unfortunate that they were hooked into a carbon emission, you know, avoidance reduction kind of scheme rather than just stand alone as environmentally beneficial projects. So I don’t know what you guys think of that thought. But that’s what ran through my head. Molly, you’re laughing.
Holly Jean Buck: I think that this question of additionality is why some people have started to argue for just carbon removals, forget about offsets, only pay for carbon removals. I’m not sure what the other argument, I’ve seen a few takes arguing that’s too limiting.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And why would that be too limiting, because you don’t, where you define a carbon removal, maybe?
Holly Jean Buck: I guess so, yeah, that you’re narrowing kind of your options or something. But I don’t, I wouldn’t say I fully understand the argument against that. I buy the, just focus on removals piece.
Radhika Moolgavkar: I mean, obviously I’m at Nori, so we buy that 100%, but... I think, and I also think that there is an importance that often gets lost maybe in this esoteric wonkiness of what I just mentioned is that there are benefits outside of carbon removal to these different schemes. And so maybe they should be standing separately. And what we’re doing is trying to conflate too many things into a single project. And, you know, if we just said, California just said, keep forests up because it’s important for many reasons and we’ll Support that in some way.
Maybe that makes more sense than tie it to some sort of emission reduction scheme.
Chris Barnard: Yeah, that’s a really interesting point. Actually, in the UK, there’s an organization which is called, I believe, the Green Environment Bank. And their whole model is that when a... When a company like, for example, a housing company builds a bunch of new homes, then that they would also buy biodiversity credits that would in a way offset the loss of biodiversity from building those new homes by protecting biodiversity elsewhere or restoring a certain landscape or whatever. And that’s specifically focused on Biodiversity and ecosystems and habitat rather than carbon emissions. So it’s certainly true that there is a lot of value with that as well.
And there might be a different way to monetize that like the Green Environment Bank is trying to do. But obviously you’d have to differentiate that from carbon emissions reductions versus just purely protecting biodiversity.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah. Holly, did you have something to add? It looked like you. OK. Just making sure. I’m going to put this to you a little bit, Holly. I think we should do a quick overview of what the difference is between an offset and a carbon removal, even though, as we were talking about before the show, there might be some areas where it seems a little gray. You want to take a crack at that real quickly?
Holly Jean Buck: So one of these is a removal and the other is a reduction. And a lot of people find this line blurry, but basically a removal is taking carbon out of the atmosphere after it’s been emitted. And a reduction is saying, hey, this would have been emitted, but we’ve reduced it.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yep. And then in the cap and trade world, essentially, you know, they’re saying we are going to prevent emission reduction. We’re going to prevent emissions from being done in other areas because we are emitting so much in this area. So you have a utility of whatever’s emitting so much, and then they buy into projects where that prevent where carbon is being Not emitted or being drawn down and the two are supposed to sort of match one another. So this is the what sort of the famous carbon accounting problem that a lot of people are trying to work on is how do you actually manage what is going up into the air by drawing down what is already in the air and also reduce it even more so you end up with negative emissions and lower our overall carbon in the In the atmosphere.
Hopefully I got that right. It’s pretty complicated, a little wonky, but kind of important.
Chris Barnard: So both of you mentioned you’re in the kind of carbon removal camp, but I’m just looking at this from a policy perspective. Isn’t the incentive for companies to buy carbon offsets because they can offset their emissions and they want to do that right thing? Like where do the incentives fit in if it’s purely removal rather than offsetting emissions they’re producing elsewhere?
Radhika Moolgavkar: Well, I guess I think of them in a sort of a continuum in my mind, like, and I think it’s funny, we’ve been having this conversation, even at Nori, it’s all about maybe the temporal in my mind, like as a consumer, I get onto an airplane, I know I’m emitting so much. So in that moment, I want to buy a removal that draws down that same amount of carbon and maybe even more. So I’m a negative. So I want to support a regenerative agriculture practice. So to me, The incentive should be that, and I’m not smart enough or wonky enough maybe to know, but that people need to be in a negative emission space.
So how the government pushes that, which would, I think, mean not getting rid of wholesale types of businesses like airlines, but how do you make them find other projects that are verified and truly bringing down carbon, but that aren’t in all Attached. I think the linkage between the utilities and the projects they’re choosing also doesn’t help because they all, they have an incentive, so they should be completely separated in my mind. Holly, what do you have to add?
Holly Jean Buck: I mean, I think at the end of the day, we have a limited number of land-based removals anyway, and so we have to think really carefully about the emissions that we’re trying to compensate. With those and if they’re really actually hard to eliminate. So I think that eventually we’re going to need regulation that specifies which sectors are allocated some amount of residual emissions, how much those are, and allocate the removals there.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, interesting idea. Chris, you look like you’re pondering it. Do you have anything you want to add?
Chris Barnard: I’ll have to think about that one a little bit more and process what that would look like. But I did want to bring up one interesting stat that I found from some of the readings that we were doing before. And one of them mentioned that the kind of problem with carbon accounting and offsets not actually being offsets or removals not actually being removals said that it was about 29%. So it does appear that there’s still 71% of projects that do remove carbon, which I think is a silver lining here, right?
It would appear that the vast majority of projects still do what they’re intending to do and that 29% is deeply regrettable and we should try and change that. But I’m at least grateful that it’s not 71% not doing the good job and only 29% doing the good job. So just wanted to throw that out there.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, I like that. I like that perspective, Chris. And I’m happy to end on something positive like that because in a way, you are definitely correct. That it was better than what it could have been. With that, because we are talking about utilities, I want to pivot to the other conversation we’re going to talk about today, which was in the New York Times this week, there was an article linking to a paper discussing how over the next number of years, we should anticipate hotter summers, which will lead to more blackouts.
For the utilities, more rolling blackouts, which would ultimately likely lead to higher levels of death from the heat that ironically has caused the blackout because the air conditioners no longer work. And we have sort of saw the opposite of that in Texas where they know this summer or this winter they had that unexpected freeze caused multiple days without heat. And at the very least amount of damage to some people they had Enormous electrical bills, which was how the system was designed. But at the very worst spectrum, people potentially could have died from hypothermia due to the cold.
So Chris, I know this is an area that you’re pretty interested in and familiar with. So I’d love to get your thoughts on that article and what you were thinking.
Chris Barnard: Yeah, absolutely. And the first thing I’ll say about the article is it’s Very interesting. You mentioned the contrast between the fact that they’re predicting more of these heat waves and droughts in the summer, which will lead to blackouts. And in Texas, it was like the opposite that happened, which was a very rare winter event for Texas, at least. But the interesting thing is that if you look at Texas’ track record on... On summer heat waves, it actually stands out far and above compared to any other energy grid in the country because they’re used to it, right?
It’s something that they’re used to responding to. And so actually the Texas energy grid is very good at dealing with those summer surges in demand and it has a very good track record on that. I’m confident that Texas will be able to, based on their track record there, be able to deal with the increase in heat waves and things like that. Obviously the problem specifically recently in Texas was in the winter and the complete opposite problem with cold weather. The main issue there was they simply weren’t prepared in the state for such cold temperatures and so Pretty much every single source of energy was halted, nuclear, natural gas, wind turbines, all of it.
And that’s because they weren’t weatherized and they weren’t expecting such a cold snap. And they’d actually published a kind of a worst case scenario risk assessment. Which didn’t even come close to what the actual worst case scenario was. So it’s deeply unfortunate that they weren’t weatherized, but I’m pretty sure that they will be now, either because they’re going to be forced to by regulators or whatever, or because they see that they have to and they can’t afford not to. So that’s just my general thoughts about the problem there. Was there anything in particular that you wanted to talk about there as well?
Radhika Moolgavkar: No, I mean, but what I’m curious about is, you know, as the free market person on the panel, there were no incentives for the Texas regulators to weatherize. So now, in order to get them, and maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like the only way to get them to take care of what may be a rare event, but also maybe a more likely to occur event as climate change happens, Is to bring in government regulation. So doesn’t that defeat the original purpose of the Texas plan or what did they get wrong at first?
Chris Barnard: I would say that the Texas obviously is a state that is much more prone to heat waves than to cold heat, put it that way. And so the track record of Texas on enduring heat waves is much better than other regulators. And so In a kind of general perspective on Texas versus other states, that’s what Texas is going to experience the most and that’s what it’s better at. And so in that, in that, from that perspective, it’s a, it’s a win. It’s a, it’s a positive thing to have this competitive energy market clearly because they seem to manage that well.
I was reading a really interesting article about whether there was actually incentive to weatherize or not. And, and the reality is that in hindsight, Whatever utility would have weatherized would have made millions and millions of dollars. And so in kind of taking into account the risks versus the benefits of certain investments, there was an incentive to weatherize, but they just thought it was so rare that this would happen. So the incentive didn’t really materialize in their mind. And it was just more a lack of imagination than it was a lack of incentive.
And if you look at, for example, The Southwest Power Pool, which is kind of right near there, and that’s a regulated energy grid, they also had weatherization problems. Why? Because that’s also in the South, and even the regulators didn’t think it was worth weatherizing. And so I think it’s just a larger problem where it was a freak event that happened that they just really weren’t anticipating. And so You can argue that they should have been anticipating it, especially because it happened a little over a decade ago in 2011 as well.
But it’s just one of those things in Texas that you don’t think about. In my, from my perspective, more lack of imagination and lack of incentive. But I do think now that the incentive is there because they won’t want to avoid this at all costs again. So I do think that they, if not forced, even Greg Abbott has been saying that they’ll be required to do it. But I think that they would probably do it themselves anyway.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So Holly, do you have any thoughts?
Holly Jean Buck: I mean, not particular to this, but it’s interesting. It strikes me as another example of Something that can be forecast and predicted if you have the right models and the right data and the right lens of analysis, right? So not unlike the offsets. I mean, the information layer has to be working. It needs to be responsive. People need to be adjusting the models if they’re not doing a good job. And for both of these things, I think having a more transparent information layer is a solution. These datas and this projection about whether a forest is going to be deforested or whether your grid is going to be resilient in different ways that ordinary people or experts that are adjacent can come and check.
Maybe you have a more resilient system overall.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, I mean, I think what I am wondering about from both of these articles is that these, I think, I agree with Chris for sure on this, that California hasn’t done it better either. And if anybody, and nor has, you know, Texas did it better to the point, but once the system was under a huge stress test, it kind of failed. And you also have the additional problem that people were charged outrageous amounts of money who were able to retain electricity, which was designed into the system, but maybe not thought that it would be taken to such an extreme.
So what What do we need to think about as a country and as utilities? Because these freak events are not going to be as freaky anymore, right? And so how do we design a system that’s robust enough to handle heat waves in the Southwest and freak weather, cold weather also in the South or wherever without destroying the people’s bank accounts or putting in unnecessary regulation? Is there a system that works, do you think?
Chris Barnard: Yeah, I’ll definitely agree with Holly’s point that it kind of at that point becomes a technical problem, like a technological one in a way, because you need accurate models. And as we just talked about in California, where they have a very regulated energy grid, they also have the rolling blackouts. And so there seems to be more of a knowledge problem there than anything else. And so I think that’s something that the government can be a part of is like What are the things that we need to do to make sure that this doesn’t happen, especially as the climate is changing and there will be more stress on energy grids.
And so we need smarter grids. We need weatherized grids that are able to withstand this. And so I think there needs to be a conversation about... What needs to happen. And then we can talk about how to actually get their markets versus government public private partnerships, whatever it is, I think there needs to first and that’s what they’re kind of doing with all the hearings at FERC and whatnot. Like what, what do we need to do to be better next time? How can we And one thing I’ll say on the issue with those electricity prices going through the roof and people paying thousands of dollars is, yes, that’s the design of the Texas system.
And arguably, that’s why they’re so good in the summer at making sure that those blackouts don’t actually happen because they can quickly respond to price spikes in demand and whatnot. But in the winter, when they were completely unprepared for it, and then while demand surged, the supply of energy just was completely frozen, literally. There was a problem that people kept taking the electricity, even though it was that expensive and so scarce. But the problem, there was a knowledge problem there as well because they weren’t aware of the fact that they were paying that much money.
And I’ve read some interesting things about the fact that there are actually barriers to people being able to just say, I’m going to stop taking electricity right now, turn it off and then kind of take on the role of a consumer. And then it could be sent to places where people were willing to pay for it or in hospitals where it was more necessary and things like that. But many people were just blissfully unaware and kept consuming electricity that costs like $1,000 an hour or something crazy like that. But the problem there was really, there was a knowledge gap when it came to the demand and people being able to turn it off and we should be looking at some of how we can break down some of those barriers.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, I mean, taking this even farther than just around climate, the climate-free climate stuff, the grid is going to get more and more stressed if we really truly move towards electric vehicles and all this other type of infrastructure or electrically driven infrastructure. And I think, I don’t know whether it’s being talked about much, but I don’t hear a lot about the fact that the grid has to be upgraded. We haven’t put forth really good smart technology solutions around things like charge management systems. In my old world, I worked on battery electric buses and there were no good solutions for how you could manage Charging based on peak demand versus other areas that had peak demand and how the grid would stabilize across that.
And what that leads to is rolling blackouts because they can’t control it well enough. And so it sure seems like it’s an opportunity for technology to step in and make some significant strides if the government can be, and the utilities can maybe move out of their Rigid old school ways of thinking into a more dynamic way of thinking. I will give, you know, I have a lot of concerns about what happened in Texas, obviously, you know, but it might have been that’s the only way to get creative is to pull out of the traditional energy system to allow people to create freedom to be creative.
And unfortunately, as you said, Chris, there was a failure of imagination to really take it to the extreme that it needed to be taken to. So I am. I hope, Chris, as you work in the policy spaces, you start to see some more interest in work done on the infrastructure and the different software technologies that can be used around like AI and machine learning that I think could really help drive better solutions to what is currently an ongoing blackout issue with utilities across the country. Except here in Seattle, because we have an abundance of hydropower.
So we seem to not have to deal with it and not very hard weather. Yay. The last topic, unless you have anything to add.
Chris Barnard: I just want to quickly add like just one kind of positive note, a cool potentially creative solution to some of this on the demand side is that there are some talks about Smart apps coming out where people can actually put a limit on how much they’re willing to pay for however much electricity is. And so once it goes above that, they just shut off the electricity to the house and that could then redirect demand elsewhere and spread it across rather than people consuming the very little electricity that’s left. So that’s just kind of one thing where technology could step in and show a potential innovation.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, as long as people know what it means when they shut off their electricity, right? That’s an important piece, like your ventilator will no longer be working, right? I think I read that somebody in Texas, their oxygen stopped, unfortunately. So last little piece that I wanted to highlight, Willie, it’s all about you, Chris, and your report you wrote talking about, so I’m going to kind of turn it over to you to describe this vision that you put forth in your recent report that I think is probably on your website if people are interested, but I’ll let you describe it.
Chris Barnard: Sure, so the report is really, it’s called Tree to Shining Seed, the Enormous Potential of Nature-Based Climate Solutions. And it essentially looks at the many different ways in which nature can be an important ally in the fight against climate change and in sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. And as I mentioned on the previous podcast, the National Academy of the Sciences estimates that up to 37% of all emissions reductions necessary by 2030 can come from nature alone. And so the report looks at kind of ecosystem restoration. Restoration, trees, blue carbon and ocean ecosystems, agriculture, things like that.
But it also looks at the potential for international collaboration on these issues, and in particular, the power of trade to foster good environmental outcomes around the world. And the interesting thing is that the multiple studies show that free trade actually tends to be good for environmental outcomes. Because when you have the free flow of goods and information between two countries, Then the country with the highest regulations or the highest environmental standards will tend to require that of the other country as well, of the country it’s trading with. And so you’ve seen cases in history where consumers in a particular country demanded that the other country from where they were getting their products would also increase their own environmental standards to make sure that they were doing the right thing.
And so that’s just a general argument from my perspective in favor of free trade. But I also see trade as an opportunity specifically to bake in certain environmental provisions. So if we’re talking about the Amazon rainforest, 60% of which is located in Brazil, the Brazilian market would love to have access to the American market. And we could potentially strike a free trade deal that includes some kind of Um, conservation protection for, uh, the Amazon rainforest as part of it. And then you take into account the, the value of reducing carbon emissions by protecting the Amazon rainforest, not only to Brazil, but to the U S and the rest of the world.
Um, and so I think just a really interesting idea to think about how, um, sometimes the most cost-effective climate solutions might not even be at home. It might be thinking about how can we How can we protect the Amazon rainforest? How can we protect the Great Barrier Reef in Australia? How can we protect these natural ecosystems, restore forests, restore grasslands around the world that have enormous carbon sequestration potential? And it might be cheaper and more politically feasible to do that now, rather than make the difficult decisions of Like hugely subsidizing renewable energies or having to move away from fossil fuels and stuff like that.
And when we talk about nature, it tends to be a lot less controversial. So I’m just generally interested in the ways that we can try to leverage these solutions around the world.
Holly Jean Buck: Honestly, when I read this section of the paper, it’s only, you know, a couple of pages and I actually wanted more on it. I wanted a whole briefing just on that topic to kind of Unpack the dimensions. I think for me, it depends a lot, again, on where these residual emissions are coming from. So if you’re preserving vast areas of forest in another country to compensate from, you know, luxury emissions from sport utility vehicles or private planes, I think that does fall under, you know, people’s concerns about green colonialism, right?
But if it really is A carefully tracked impossible to abate emission from producing fertilizer or something like that, you know, maybe there is a justification for looking at some of these arrangements. And I know we’re pretty far from that point, but I think in the next few decades, it’s going to be really a big topic of discussion.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, I actually found what you were writing, Chris, very compelling. It made a lot of sense to me. I think the places where I, and I don’t think you probably would disagree with this, but the things that, to Holly’s point, I’d love to understand more are things like how do you monitor these projects to make sure that they are meeting the standards That we you’ve set forth. We already have seen issues even within the US around some of these cap and trade programs. So how do you and what is the impact to Holly’s point, the idea of green colonialism and coming in and how do you work within the communities, the native and indigenous communities of those, you know, other countries, but I think it’s a very, At the policy level, at the high level, it sure makes a lot of sense.
And it seems like it’s a lot more nimble than in some ways than like the Paris trade, you know, the Paris agreements and stuff, which involves so many more parties, rather some bilateral agreements seem like they’d be much more efficient, but.
Chris Barnard: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, again, that’s where the technical problem, if it exists in America, it definitely is going to exist in many other countries around the world. And that’s a barrier that’s going to have to be overcome But I do think sometimes there’s lower hanging fruit, for example, in the Amazon rainforest. I mean, recently in the US, reforestation rates pretty much match and are slowly outpacing deforestation rates. But in Brazil, it’s still very much the opposite and deforestation still far outweighs reforestation. So that means that just generally protecting Vast sways of the Amazon rainforest will be beneficial even though we cannot maybe fully estimate how much carbon is prevented from being emitted or is being taken out of the atmosphere.
It is a lower hanging fruit and we know that’s a net positive regardless of the exact technical implications. And so I do think that those are some of the opportunities around the world. But again, it’s one of those knowledge problems that will have to be solved through NGOs, through governments, through Market actors, local communities, et cetera, et cetera. So there’s a lot of work to be done, but I’m optimistic about it.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, you got to start somewhere, right? So on that note, as a final little segment, it feels sometimes like when you’re talking about sustainability, the environment, the emissions, everything is sort of negative and like negative as in not happy. And there’s a lot of in the world. So I kind of wanted to start or end every one of our podcasts and we’ll each take a turn highlighting something that is positive in the world, you know, in the environmental world. And this week I get to do the inaugural discussion or Hitch, whatever you want to call it.
And I wanted to talk about two parks that have come up recently. So in southern West Virginia, the most recent national park was just put into place. It’s called the New River Gorge. It was a place where at one point lots of coal mining was happening, but over the last 30 to 40 years, there’s been a slow restoration of the environment, the natural habitat, the trees. And now it’s a place for, you know, Rock climbing and kayaking and rafting. And they’ve also managed to make it friendly to the local community by including the base jumping.
Like there’s a monthly or yearly base jumping competition, which has been suspended with COVID, but they allowed it to keep happening. It’s the only national park that will have that and allowing for limited hunting, which the folks of West Virginia were found very important. Also, there was a new park that was brought a new Park in Mozambique, so a country that was at civil war until 1992 has just dedicated, you know, a huge portion of their landscape to that and they are seeing a large resurgence of the biodiversity that got lost during the Civil War when poachers were using the money to fund the war.
So both positive developments, both the nice things to maybe look forward to, to travel to as these COVID restrictions end and we all get vaccinated and move forward. With that, I want to thank my co-hosts for joining me today. And I look forward to talking with you next week. And for all the listeners out there, thanks for spending a little time with us today. Take care, guys. Bye.
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