Carbon Offsets 3D Cover

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The Climate Web is a knowledge solution for understanding and tackling climate change, and is built with TheBrain knowledge management software.

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If this topical doorway is your first exposure to the Climate Web*, you might want to take a look at one of these introductions:

Note: Right-clicking on links like those above will keep this page open in your browser so you can easily come back to it.

The doorway below uses active links to let you explore the breadth and depth of topical coverage in the Climate Web. Right clicking on links opens the Climate Web to that exact spot (each thought in the Climate Web has its own URL). Links open into the on-line version of the Climate Web, and allow you to see the range of curated topical resources available to you. Note that the on-line version of TheBrain software doesn’t do a good job of demonstrating the power, the speed, and the ease of use of the software, and this carries through to applications like the Climate Web. We’ll discuss below the ways you can leverage the knowledge curation available in the Climate Web, while avoiding the limitations.

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Carbon Offsets Doorway

In 1988, CEO Roger Sant had a vision. His company, Applied Energy Services (now just AES), planned to build small powerplants around the United States, selling the electricity to local utilities. Roger Sant was environmentally inclined, and was concerned by the fact that the only technology that was economically viable for AES' business model was coal or gas-fired electricity. Sant approached the World Resources Institute in Washington D.C. with the question: "What can AES do to mitigate the climate impacts of building these power plants?" The answer was “offsets,” and working with WRI, AES started "offseting" the emissions of each powerplant it built.

There is a lot of experience with offsets to account for in ongoing discussions of radically expanding carbon offset markets. You can explore the Climate Web’s coverage of the topic of offsets through this Doorway, but note that there are other resources also available to you using the Climate Web.

  • Purchase the entire “carbon offsets slice” of the Climate Web, representing thousands of hours of knowledge curation, and use it to launch your own knowledge management system.

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Timely Questions

While the fortunes of carbon offset markets, both voluntary and regulated, have fluctuated over time, carbon offsets appear poised for massive expansion as part of corporate efforts to achieve “net zero” emissions. The Climatographers have substantial expertise in the topic of carbon offsets, and almost all relevant topics are covered in-depth in the Climate Web. there are many questions about the future of carbon offsets, and the role carbon offsets will play in corporate and societal efforts to tackle climate change.

The list below is by no means intended to be comprehensive. Our goal is primarily to flag the range of topics and questions currently in play, and to perhaps raise some questions that users might not have considered, but that might contribute to finding actionable knowledge.

  • What does the evaluation literature say about the mitigation effectiveness of carbon offsets?
  • How will Carbon Offsets Round 2 differ from Round 1?
  • Would “scoring” carbon offsets fundamentally change offset markets?
  • Why do carbon offsets represent basic hypothesis testing?
  • How do carbon offset supplies relate to 2o C policies and measures?
  • How will Article 6 of the UNFCCC affect the integrity of carbon offset markets?
  • Will natural climate solutions, often facing permanence and leakage challenges, play a big role in future offset markets?
  • What will be the role of air capture and related technologies in offset markets?
  • What is the relationship of Net Zero objectives to using carbon offsets?

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Timely Resources

Included here are links to a small subset of resources specific to this Doorway. Right-clicking on the links will usually go directly to the on-line story, bypassing the Climate Web itself (although that’s where they’re all organized). Note that what’s listed here represents just the smallest sliver of the topical information organized in the Climate Web. If the stories seem a bit dated, we apologize. We’re constantly trying to update these Doorways, but we do fall behind. Feel free to send us a note through the contact form at right requesting an update!

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Topical Doorway into Climate Web

The goal of the links organized below is to illustrate how topical information is organized in the Climate Web. If you’re looking for a much better developed story-line relating to this topic, that literally walks you through the key issues, points to relevant sources and other materials, consider the Premium Roadmaps discussed later on this page.

We’ll start with the highest level of information organization in the Climate Web, and work our way down to more granular knowledge curation (which may be what you’re ultimately most interested in). We think it’s worthwhile understanding how information has been curated in the Climate Web, even if you’re ultimately focused on a specific question.

The highest level or organization in the Climate Web is Index Entries (of which there are more than 3,000). Index Entries are Topical Doorways in their own right, linking you both to other relevant Index Entries, and to curated information. Index Entries specifical to this Topical Doorway include:

Sources Headings organize books, reports, and journal articles. The Climatographers are constantly extracting useful graphics, ideas, and more from these sources, and organizing them under Extracted Materials headings (see below).

News and Opinion Headings organize news stories and blogs, often allowing you to scan the evolution of a topic over the last 5-10 years just by scanning the headlines. Note that with local access to the Climate Web all you have to do is hover your mouse over a specific story to have it open instantly on your screen.

Extracted Materials Headings organize the ideas, graphics, and more that we’ve individually extracted from sources. Individual thoughts are always physically linked back to their source, allowing you to easily follow an idea or graphic back to the report or article it came from, which in turn lets you explore other extracted materials, or click through to the larger Sources Heading.

Networking Topical Headings organize websites, experts, and more:

Video Topical Headings organize videos.

A couple of individual video links:

Insights Pages tackle key questions and topics:

Topical Dashboards pull everything else together to help users come rapidly up to speed on a particular topic. Just a few Dashboards are pointed to below, and more are being added all the time. Note that the contents of Dashboards changes on an ongoing basis as new materials are added. Dashboards can deliver all kinds of information, as explored here. Note that while you can get an overview of Dashboards in the on-line Climate Web, they are confusing to actually use in the on-line version of the software.

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Pre-Set Search Strings

Pre-set search strings are intended to help you explore the latest information on a topic, and to stay current with relevant sub-topics. Topical pre-set search strings in the Climate Web can include: Twitter Hashtag Searches, Google Searches, Google Scholar Searches, Google Image Searches, YouTube Searches, Vimeo Searches, Quora.com Searches, Reddit Searches, DeepDyve Searches (professional journals). They’re a great way to supplement the curated knowledge in the Climate Web. You can see how pre-set search terms work in this 1 minute video

Here are some of the pre-set search strings the Climatographers have found to be relevant to this Topical Doorway. Unfortunately, you can’t tell exactly where the search is going from the links below, even though it’s obvious if you’re accessing these search terms in the Climate Web itself. In fact, all you have to do is hover your mouse over a search string to have it automatically execute on your screen. They’re a bit time saver.

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Accessing the Climate Web

This Topical Doorway has pointed you to a lot of topical resources. Since the Climate Web is open-access on-line, you’re free to explore these resources there. But as discussed above, on-line access is not an efficient way to leverage the Climate Web. The desktop and mobile versions are much more flexible, powerful and at least 500% faster when it comses to exploring the Climate Web (a function of TheBrain software itself).

If you want to take advantage of the Climate Web we strongly recommend taking advantage of the ability to download it, whether through our Your Climate Brain or Premium Access. You’ll be surprised at how cost-effective we’ve made these options as a way to leverage thousands of hours climate knowledge curation, but if they are still financially out of reach please contact us through the contact form at right to explore a free license.

Premium Topical Roadmaps are also an option for exploring topics in more depth, and they can be used even in the on-line version of the Climate Web. Representing hundreds of hours of research and knowledge curation, Premium Roadmaps link together together explanatory materials, topical headings, individual reports, news stories, videos, websites, and curated topical dashboards to explore a topic in depth, even including links to individual ideas and graphics extracted from a wide range of key sources.

Premium Roadmaps tell the story of a topic in far more detail than a Topical Doorway like this one. To clearly see the differences between a Topical Doorway and a Premium Topical Roadmap, you can take a look at both versions for “Under-Estimating Climate Risks:”

Another option you have to access topical knowledge in the Climate Web is to work directly with the Climatographers. We can deliver uniquely cost-effective customized briefings, webinars, E-courses, and more for utilizing the topical knowledge curated in the Climate Web To learn more about topical briefings, for example, take a look at our Climate Briefings page.


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