Do We Impose Undue Risk When We Emit and Offset? A Reply to Stefansson

ABSTRACT

We have previously argued that there are forms of greenhouse gas offsetting for which, when one emits and offsets, one imposes no risk. Orri Stefansson objects that our argument fails to distinguish properly between the people who stand to be harmed by one’s emissions and the people who stand to be benefited by one’s offsetting. We reply by emphasizing the difference between acting with a probability of making a difference to the distribution of harm and acting in a way that worsen’s someone’s prospect.

KEYWORDS:

• offsetting
• risk
• redistributing harm
• emissions
• prospects
• epistemic probabilities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This is true of any action that carries some non-zero probability of making a difference to whether someone is harmed; so it seems true of anything that anyone ever does.

2. Figures are available for the annual number of years of potential life lost in the US through motor vehicle injuries to pedestrians aged 0–19 in the period 2000–2010. Using these figures, together with the average contribution each US driver makes to the total miles traveled, a 50-year driving career carries an expectation of 80 hours of life lost amongst that subset of motor vehicle accident victims alone. (Sources: www.fhwa.dot.gov, www.cdc.gov.)

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DP180100355].