Carbon offsets have not worked: they have been plagued by absolutely foreseeable problems that have not lessened, despite repeated attempts to mitigate them.

For starters, carbon offsets are a classic #MarketForLemons. The cheapest way to make a carbon offset is to promise not to emit carbon you were never going to emit anyway.

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They taught a generation that resistance is futile, that anything you do to make a better future is a scam, and you're a sucker for falling for it. They planted nihilism with every tree.

That scam never ended. Today, we're sold #CarbonOffsets, a modern #PapalIndulgence. We are told that if we pay the finance sector, they can absolve us for our climate sins. Carbon offsets are a scam, a #MarketForLemons.

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@spamwise @mmasnick

Regrettably, #ESG is a fraud-riddled #MarketForLemons:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/24/greenwashing/#bargaining

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/26/aggregate-demand/#murder-offsets

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/17/do-well-do-good-do-nothing/#greenwashing

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/11/a-market-for-flaming-lemons/#money-for-nothing

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/15/sanctions-financing/#profiteers

@baldur Information asymmetries arise where one party to a transaction has more information than the other. Or, more often, each party has information unknown to the other, though in different areas.

This means that a key assumption of free and competitive markets is violated: equal access to information. One party is advantaged over the other. In at least part. The topic has been a fairly hot area of research since the 1950s, notably by Kenneth Arrow and George Akerloff (#MarketForLemons).

Information frictions affect both parties, and affect current awareness of long-term outcomes. The issue here is that neither side has a clear view of the ultimate benefit, or cost, of some decision.

This is fundamental to the intersection of economics and technology, because all technologies, as means to some ends, have multiple dimensions:

• Effects: positive and/or negative
• Timeframe: short and/or long
• Manifestation: high and/or low

"Manifestation" is a term I'm using to indicate how apparent an outcome is, near-equivalent terms are "latent vs. manifest funtions" (#RobertKMerton), "overt vs. covert", or "cognizability". A manifest outcome is one clearly perceived, a non-manifest outcome is one poorly perceived. Or understood, communicated, detected, etc.

#capitalism #InformationAsymmetry #InformationFriction

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