Carbon offset standards

This week's Economist on-line has an article in its Green.view column looking at the baffling array of carbon offset options and registries that have sprouted up over the last year.

The main points are:

• Variable quality of schemes - a tonne of carbon offset can mean many things.
• Growing fears of sharp practice by "carbon cowboys" as prices range from 45c to $45 per tonne of carbon offset.
• Clarity will soon emerge with the highest quality standards surviving, such as the Voluntary Carbon Standard and The Gold Standard developed by the World Wildlife Fund.
• Most of the rest will fall by the wayside.
  

Can Clean Tech save the World from Global Warming?

Let's hope the answer is yes. This week's Red Herring investigates:



Topics covered include:

• Ethanol
  
• Energy efficiency
• Advanced batteries
• AC v DC power distribution
  
• Solar thermal v Photo-voltaic
• US Energy bill in Congress
  

Two fishy tales

Two articles from this week's Economist magazine. The first article "Shellfish desires" is about a new type of dredge for trawler nets which does far less damage to the seabed than traditional dredges, which do terrible damage to seabed ecosystems.

Trawling, which is the most widespread form of fishing dredges the seabed by raking it to dislodge the intended catch into a cloud that is captured by the trailing net. Unfortunately, it also throws up coral, sponges, seaweeds as well as other fish, crustaceans and molluscs. This plant life forms the ecosystem of the seabed rather like the plants in a forest. Trawling is the equivalent of clear-cutting trees.

The article tells of a new invention by Cliff Goudey of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which has a series of gentle jets which dislodge just the fish without damaging the seabed itself. Initial trials, catching scallops off the Isle of Man, against a traditional dredge showed less damage to the seabed and to the catch making it a more efficient method than the traditional one. So look out for "coral-safe scallops".

The second article is about the arguments for giving up eating fish altogether from the Economists Green correspondent in his Green.view on-line column. Alas, I have to agree with what he says but I don't think I could ever persuade the wife to do it!