this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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A Greenwashing Lawsuit Against Delta Aims to Set Precedent | A class-action lawsuit targets the airline’s claim to carbon-neutrality, which has in the past rested in part on its use of carbon offsets (www.bloomberg.com)
submitted 1 year ago by silence7 to c/climate
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[–] solartimely 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

many such projects would have happened regardless of an offset purchase — thus failing to meet a crucial requirement known as “additionality.” A carbon project is considered additional only if it would not have happened absent the offset. The suit against Delta, which cites the Bloomberg Green investigation, claims the airline took credit for projects that lack additionality. “It really is meaningless to state that you offset emissions if you're gaining credit for things that would have happened anyway,” said Jonathan Haderlein, a lawyer for the plaintiff.

Imagine if a company said it was working towards achieving NET zero murders by 2050. That's not promising much is it, even without the problems of carbon offsets.

Yet the commercial described in the article sounds like it could do real harm. People might take MORE flights based on it. Perhaps the privledge of advertising is better limitted to companies that are not demonstrably harming the public. We can't trust them to get into the public's heads when their products do so much damage.

Under pressure to address that footprint, many airlines are exploring decarbonization strategies, but most of those approaches — including sustainable aviation fuel and battery-powered planes — are not yet ready for primetime.

I don't understand. If these technologies are important why persue them via pressure on these airline companies? Simply tax them more and fund public research. Why let the research be private where its pace will be unknown and its discoveries hoarded for private profit and competitive edge?

[–] silence7 1 points 1 year ago

It's a bit hard to restrict advertising like that in the US. In most case, about all you can do is to ask that they not make fraudulent claims, which is what Delta was doing.

The "sustainable aviation fuels" are things we know how to make, but they're either very limited in supply (biofuels, where we're burning a large chunk of the maize and soy crops already) or incredibly expensive (synthetic fuels from captured carbon marketed as 'e-fuels') The corporate research around these isn't really designed to turn them into something which will get used at scale, but seems more like the PR exercises we've seen the fossil fuels industry repeatedly conduct in the past.

The batteries are coming, at least for short-haul flights. The factory to make the first ones with a high enough energy density to support commercial flights is being built as we type.