God and Nature Summer 2022
across the pond |
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Carbon Credits and Sin Eaters
By Mike Clifford
Regular readers will have noticed that I persuaded the splendid Felix Abrahams Obi to write the last issue’s “Across the Pond” column. It’s good to have a break sometimes, and I’m very grateful to Felix for sharing his stories of life in Nigeria and in the UK.
Recently, I’ve been reflecting on carbon offsetting/the carbon credit scheme. One of the outcomes of the Glasgow COP26 climate change summit was an agreement to create a global carbon credit offset trading market. The idea is that companies can purchase permits that allow them to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gasses. The money from the purchase of these permits goes to projects that reduce, remove, or avoid greenhouse gas emissions. These include things like renewable energy schemes, reforestation projects, or manufacturing clean cookstoves. In the case of cookstoves, the money generated from carbon credits can reduce the price of the stoves or even finance them entirely in situations where people cannot afford the price of the technology.
There are also voluntary schemes, where individuals or organisations can offset their carbon emissions. Many people choose to do this when taking a plane trip; the church I attend is beginning to consider offsetting the energy that we use to light and heat the church building.
Whilst it’s probably A Good Thing to use carbon credits to offset CO2 emissions generated when heating a building, it’s better to reduce energy use rather than to mitigate against the consequences of wasting energy. The carbon credit scheme has its downsides; I think that there’s something a little distasteful about chucking a few quid towards charity to absolve the guilt I feel when taking an unnecessary flight. A few years ago, I was at a meeting to discuss climate change in Edinburgh where the main speaker told me that he’d flown up from Bristol because it was cheaper and quicker than taking the train. It’s much harder to change our own behaviour than to buy ourselves out of trouble.
Carbon offsetting reminds me of a medieval practice associated with parts of England and Wales called “sin-eating”. A sin-eater was someone hired to take on the sins of a recently deceased person. Seventeenth-century diarist, John Aubrey, wrote that
Regular readers will have noticed that I persuaded the splendid Felix Abrahams Obi to write the last issue’s “Across the Pond” column. It’s good to have a break sometimes, and I’m very grateful to Felix for sharing his stories of life in Nigeria and in the UK.
Recently, I’ve been reflecting on carbon offsetting/the carbon credit scheme. One of the outcomes of the Glasgow COP26 climate change summit was an agreement to create a global carbon credit offset trading market. The idea is that companies can purchase permits that allow them to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gasses. The money from the purchase of these permits goes to projects that reduce, remove, or avoid greenhouse gas emissions. These include things like renewable energy schemes, reforestation projects, or manufacturing clean cookstoves. In the case of cookstoves, the money generated from carbon credits can reduce the price of the stoves or even finance them entirely in situations where people cannot afford the price of the technology.
There are also voluntary schemes, where individuals or organisations can offset their carbon emissions. Many people choose to do this when taking a plane trip; the church I attend is beginning to consider offsetting the energy that we use to light and heat the church building.
Whilst it’s probably A Good Thing to use carbon credits to offset CO2 emissions generated when heating a building, it’s better to reduce energy use rather than to mitigate against the consequences of wasting energy. The carbon credit scheme has its downsides; I think that there’s something a little distasteful about chucking a few quid towards charity to absolve the guilt I feel when taking an unnecessary flight. A few years ago, I was at a meeting to discuss climate change in Edinburgh where the main speaker told me that he’d flown up from Bristol because it was cheaper and quicker than taking the train. It’s much harder to change our own behaviour than to buy ourselves out of trouble.
Carbon offsetting reminds me of a medieval practice associated with parts of England and Wales called “sin-eating”. A sin-eater was someone hired to take on the sins of a recently deceased person. Seventeenth-century diarist, John Aubrey, wrote that
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an old Custome in Herefordshire had been at funeralls to hire poor people, who were to take upon them all the sinnes of the party deceased. One of them I remember lived in a Cottage on Rosse high-way. (He was a long, leane, ugly, lamentable Raskel.) The manner was that when the Corps was brought out of the house, and layd on the Biere; a Loafe of bread was brought out, and delivered to the Sinne-eater over the Corps, and also a Mazar-bowl of maple (Gossips bowle) full of beer, which he was to drinke up, and sixpence in money, in consideration whereof he took upon him (ipso facto) all the Sinnes of the Defunct, and freed him (or her) from walking after they were dead.
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Just as with carbon offsetting, sin-eating involves a payment from the rich to the poor rather than a change of behaviour. To paraphrase St. Paul, in Romans 6, shall we go on polluting so that carbon offsetting may increase? By no means! We must stop polluting; how can we live this way any longer?
Mike Clifford is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham. His research interests are in combustion, biomass briquetting, cookstove design, and other appropriate technologies. He has published over 80 refereed conference and journal publications and has contributed chapters to books on composites processing and on appropriate and sustainable technologies.
Mike Clifford is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham. His research interests are in combustion, biomass briquetting, cookstove design, and other appropriate technologies. He has published over 80 refereed conference and journal publications and has contributed chapters to books on composites processing and on appropriate and sustainable technologies.