Green Wealth Argument
To stay true to our 3 principles (people, planet, profits), this wildlife reserve is designed to integrate layered environmental banks that would earn "credits", a value that can be recieved in many cases in the form of money. O expects to re-invest our revenue for current and future projects. We have fun saving the world, and the world rewards us by providing funds to grow.However, the means by which we generate revenue can be placed under question by skeptics, and we would like to air out these issues. The following links below provide pros and cons of carbon credit banking, but they can certainly be considered relevant to all other sorts of environmental banks. They are written by verified experts in the field, so please consider their arguments. I have, and expect any person working within O to understand or at least appreciate the effort we go to making good decisions, even though we aren't currently rocket scientists, economists, or philosophy professors.
First the criticism:
O is moving forward on the environmental banks. We harness nature to produce the food and energy we want and sequester the carbon. O is a producer of valuable products, creater of values, and one of many solutions to the undesirable side effects of global climate change.
O have the right objective: to seek compensation from the market for our good act that we feel not many others would be willing to participate in.
O doesn't make environmental banks only so that O can continue to invest in fossil fuels.
Instead, will limit credit sales to individuals or corporations that have a track record of using credits to support their long-term goal to replace or remove current high greenhouse gas emitting equipment/services.
O reserve demanded exact measurements of emissions at hundreds of locations to determine carbon offset and we make no presumption that the climate cares where we make a cut in carbon dioxide emissions. With the current scientific knowledge lacking, we acknowledge that we can rely only on speculative theory that reduced GHG will benefit the earth as whole.
O, as a independent corporation and a community, acknowledge that it is likely that others might benefit from this market. Big fossil fuel-using companies. Governments that want to delay climate action. Energy traders. Polluting companies that are rich enough to hire the consultants and grease the wheels that enable them to sell certified carbon credits. Hedge funds and commodities traders. Banks and law firms.
O acknowledges who might lose. People fighting polluting fossil fuel developments in their local areas. Communities who find that their local corporate bad citizens have just gotten an extra cash injection from carbon trading. Communities trying to preserve or develop low-carbon ways of life. Renewable energy developers. Consumers who are charged for carbon permits generators have gotten cheaply or for free. And a global public increasingly at risk from climate change.
O undestands that if disaster is to be staved off, it will not be by letting technicians and Wall Street investment firms try to turn the world’s carbon-cycling capacity into a resource to make money out of, but by active pursuit of select investors of our future.
O is about not only saving the forests, but respecting local people's needs, not trying to evict them or turn them into workers on a carbon production line like some of the plantation, dam, logging and oil industries.
I feel this adequately expresses our resolve. I make no apologies about our plan, and look forward to many credits for sale.
-Kevin Shea, Chief Eco-venture Officer
