Breaking Green

Whale Offsets with Cassandra

November 01, 2021 Global Justice Ecology Project / Host Steve Taylor Season 1 Episode 5
Breaking Green
Whale Offsets with Cassandra
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

As many nations promise net-zero emissions to fight climate change, corporate interests continue to promote offsets as opposed to the actual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at the source. So-called nature-based solutions promote a green economy that commodifies nature and reduces ecosystems to a balance sheet of commodities to be traded for license to destroy and pollute elsewhere. Now there is a proposal for Whale offsets.

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Steve Taylor  
Welcome to breaking green, a podcast by global justice ecology project. On breaking green, we will talk with activists and experts to examine the intertwined issues of social, ecological and economic injustice. We will also explore some of the more outrageous proposals to address climate and environmental crises that are falsely being sold as green. I am your host, Steve Taylor. As many nations promised net zero emissions to fight climate change. corporate interests continue to promote offsets, as opposed to actually reducing the carbon dioxide emissions that they create. Falling under the umbrella of so called nature-based solutions, these offsets often serve to commodify nature, reducing ecosystems to a balance sheet of commodities that can be bought and sold in order to enable ongoing pollution. Now, there is even a proposal to use whales as carbon offsets. In this episodeof breaking green, we will talk with Cassandra, a member of the Board of Directors of Global Justice Ecology Project. Cassandra has worked as a consultant for the United Nations Forum on Indigenous issues, and the International Tribunal on the Rights of Nature. Her areas of expertise include human rights, multilateral environmental accords, like the Paris agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity, intellectual property rights and the arts. Cassandra is committed to raising the alarm about whale offsets and offsets of other large mammals at the COP 26 UN meeting in Glasgow. Cassandra, thank you for joining us.

Cassandra  
Well, thank you so much for having me.

Steve Taylor  
Now you have experience with United Nations. What has been your role with the UN in the past regarding climate negotiations?

Cassandra  
Well, for over 20 years, I have been supporting indigenous peoples who attend the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conferences, as a resource person and a Spanish interpreter. And I also was instrumental in supporting the logistics for the convening and founding of indigenous peoples caucus on climate change.

Steve Taylor  
So you will be going our since this is pre-recorded have been to Glasgow, the the cop 26. And what role are you going this time?

Cassandra  
to warn the world and the peoples of the world that there is a very concerted and strategic effort to put whales in the carbon market.

Steve Taylor  
Well, I'm breaking green, we've talked about carbon offsets in the past. And what's really troubling is, there's this climate crisis we're facing, we desperately need to reduce emissions at the source, but there seems to be a heavy reliance on offsets. So could you explain to us what is a whale offset?

Cassandra  
Well, before I get into the nitty gritty of the fallacy of whale offsets, I would like to begin by giving the whales themselves the floor.

Cassandra  
So I wanted to begin by giving the whales the floor because I am profoundly committed to people and all beings speaking and singing for themselves. Whale offsets are calculated by the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund based on how much carbon dioxide whales absorb and how their iron rich excrement serves as food for phytoplankton, who also absorb carbon dioxide. However, the United Nations pretends that eco systems and forests and whales store carbon dioxide forever, and they don't. Carbon dioxide is held in whales and trees and even our own bodies temporarily. So whale carcasses take decades to fully decompose, but decompose they do. And um in the process they are fed upon and whoever eats them sooner or later also dies and releases carbon. Nature's not static. Whales are not a vacuum cleaner and safe deposit box for the world's carbon.

Steve Taylor  
So that's very interesting. This is the first I've heard of a whale offset. We've heard of all types of offsets, how much of a carbon burden are they trying to foist on to this dubious concept of whale offsets?

Cassandra  
The International Monetary Fund released a report called nature's solution to climate change, a strategy to protect protect whales, which can limit greenhouse gases and global warming. They're saying that the whales are trillion dollar climate change fix. This is... whale offsets are supposed to be a silver bullet to all of global warming. But it's utter nonsense. And it's not just nonsense. It is profoundly perverse. Because what they want to do is, according to the IMF, is, quote, compensate those causing the threats to whales, a group that includes countries businesses and individuals, that is to say that whale offsets will pay those who threaten the survival of whales. So, um, apart from the fishing industry and the shipping industry, other causes of whale deaths include the gas oil and deep sea mining industries. Can you imagine that Exxon be paid to avoid spills or change its operations in some way to supposedly protect whales. And and that this be a solution to climate change paying oil industries? Who are at the top of the list of the climate criminals and the top polluters and emitters of greenhouse gases to supposedly save the whales? I mean, it's it's just insane.

Steve Taylor  
So have these companies proposed any changes in their behavior or is this just you know, being talked about in very broad terms?

Cassandra  
There are already something called biodiversity offsets. And whale supposed protection is being used for those biodiversity offsets. So in the Arctic, and the last remaining critically endangered western Pacific whales, which number around 250 are also being pushed to extinction by oil and gas offshore exploitation by Gazprom. And Shell Oil and Exxon and Sakhalin Energy and BP and others. And this is in Russia's Far East  off the coast of the Sakhalin Island. And there there's all kinds of infrastructure offshore platforms being built and noise and toxic discharge and a web of marine pipelines, which is reducing the food sources of the whales and to such a point that they're malnourished and marine biologists call them skinny whales. They're also suffering from lethal ship strikes because of all of the traffic of related to the oil and gas industry. But this in this area there, they are piloting biodiversity offsets. So the oil companies say that they're making efforts not to hurt the whales, and they get credits for doing that, and then they can offset the destruction that they're causing somewhere else and in the area.

Steve Taylor  
So sounds to me that you you really don't trust the the gas and oil industries to do what they're saying they are going to do?

Cassandra  
No, I don't, obviously, you know, their oil spills, whether it's in Alaska or in the Gulf of Mexico, are poisoning whales and sometimes resulting in not just the death of whales, but entire pods are set on the path of extinction. In the case of Prince William Sound, it wasn't just the transient orcas that were decimated by the Exxon Valdez spill, but also the resident orcas as well, and marine biologists are predicting their extinction. Chevron oil in off the coast of Australia is also getting biodiversity offsets. And they are getting permission to pollute for monitoring the damage and mortality that their operations and construction of a liquid natural gas plant is causing on whales and dolphins and turtles who are all endangered. And you know, entrusting the fate of whales to Chevron is like a hiring a serial killer to babysit your daughter. I mean, it's just madness.

Steve Taylor  
This is your host, Steve Taylor. And we will be back right after this.

Theresa Church  
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Steve Taylor  
Welcome back to breaking green. Offsets themselves seem to be somewhat problematic. And it's hard to know whether the bookkeeping is accurate. And whether or not a corporation is really reducing its its its carbon footprint, especially when it is a resource extractor. But do you think a whale offset is going to worsen conditions for whales or actually lead to the death of whales?

Cassandra  
Absolutely. Let's be perfectly clear, whale offsets could kill whales. Why? Because whale offsets would provide permissions to pollute to polluters who would then pollute more, increase climate change, which in and of itself is a driver of death for whales and is in fact crashing entire whale populations.

Steve Taylor  
Could you tell us a little bit about your perspective on offsets overall?

Cassandra  
A report from the World Trade Organization and the United Nations where which is called trade and climate change. And in that report, the WTO and the UN candidly admit that nature cannot absorb increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Because the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems in the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide is in fact plummeting. For example, the capacity of the North Atlantic to absorb co2 has decreased by about 50% in the course of a decade. And quite simply, you know, nature is gagging on the excess of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which have flooded the atmosphere because of the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. That atmosphere is super saturated . Nature  cn no longer absorb and release carbon dioxide. And so that's why, you know, the Amazon is turning from being a card what they call a carbon sink and absorber of co2 to a source of co2. So, the whole premise of offsets is false.

Steve Taylor  
Cassandra, where did the idea for whale offsets come from in your opinion?

Cassandra  
Well, the IMF is quite frank and say that the model for well offsets comes from Red, reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation that is to say, forest and plantation offsets, which have been an utter disaster for human rights for indigenous peoples, for peasants, for the climate, and even for investors. So that certainly does not bode well as a model for whale offsets.

Steve Taylor  
Are you concerned with who's going to be monitoring our this, this these programs?

Cassandra  
Absolutely, because the whale killers want to be the self appointed guardians of whales. They're already talking about setting up a global whale fund. And by the way, the IMF has calculated that every person in the world needs to cough up $13 to fund whale offsets. So you are supposed to bank roll this insanity. And then they want to take your money and put it in this fund, that the World Bank or the IMF or the UN is going to control to pay whale killers, supposedly not to kill whales, even though they're polluters, and they're causing climate change to increase, which is crashing whale populations.

Steve Taylor  
So it sounds to me like you're not very, not very optimistic about the proposal.

Cassandra  
Well, no, I'm alarmed because um letting whale killers be The self appointed owners and guardians of whales constitutes a historic theft of agency of the real whale protectors and an unabashed confiscation of the sacred. I mean, it's the heighst of the century. And it's not going to save whales, it's going to kill whales, and we can't let it happen.

Steve Taylor  
So you're going to Glasgow, so you're going to be basically carrying the message on whale offsets.

Cassandra  
Yes, but I am going to also call for an immediate halt to the planet grab. That is being promoted in the name of offsets and in the name of saving the climate.

Steve Taylor  
So it seems like the whale offset from your perspective is just another, it's a big piece, but it's another piece of the puzzle of this so-called green economy and capitalization or the privatization of nature.

Cassandra  
Yes, absolutely. But it is the first time that they've dared to propose generating carbon offsets that is permits to pollute with a living being. And watch out because humans could be next before you know it. You could be a walking carbon offset yourself.

Steve Taylor  
Biden is trying to get his infrastructure bill passed. And there's a lot that's allegedly supposed to address climate change. Do you know of anything that's happening in the United States Congress regarding offsets? With Wales? 

Cassandra  
Yes I do. Thank you for your question. Um, regardless of how far fetched well offsets may seem, in fact, rapid strides are already being made to include whale offsets and the oceans in carbon markets in both national and international law. The ocean based Climate Solutions Act in the US Congress was introduced on World Oceans Day in June 8 2021. And on page nine, it proposes to explore the potential for a market in carbon credits and hopes to develop and use protocols for the inclusion of blue carbon projects, which is code for carbon offsets with the ocean with sea grasses with fish and with whales. But, uh, it's not just in national law, that we're seeing efforts to include whale offsets. The International Monetary Fund is very eager for whale offsets to be included in the objectives of the Paris Agreement that 190 countries signed on to in 2015. And that's not all. The IMF also has a strategy to include elephant offsets, in carbon markets. So all the big mammals are obviously being targeted for this privatization and commodification as part of the green economy, which is the next chapter of capitalism, based precisely on the expropriation and mercantilization of life.

Steve Taylor  
So who is promoting the the whale offset? And any, any corporation or think tank in particular?

Cassandra  
Well, the United Nations, the United Nations Environmental Program, the International Monetary Fund, 41 countries, WWF, The Nature Conservancy. Yeah, that's the entities that are leading the charge on whale offsets. But certainly, the oil industry and other industries are very eager for these cheap ways of getting out of having to reduce emissions at source.

Steve Taylor  
Is this somewhat of a shell game that's going on?

Cassandra  
Oh, absolutely. It's, in fact, it's been demonstrated that the UN's carbon trading and offset system itself has allowed for an increase in emissions, and it's completely bogus. It does not reduce emissions, it, in fact, allows pollution to increase for global warming to get worse, which means we have more hurricanes and severe weather and flooding and disasters. And that we go over the cliff of climate chaos. And there's a the very future of humanity is at stake.

Steve Taylor  
So right now, what is the greatest single threat putting offsets aside, what's the greatest threat the whale population right now?

Cassandra  
It's polluters, and it's climate change which is caused by polluters and the key polluters are multinational corporations, the gas and oil industries and are unsustainable paradigm of production..

Steve Taylor  
If listeners are interested in addressing this shell game of whale offsets and other offsets Is there a resource that they can go to?

Cassandra  
Yes, global justice ecology project and is proud to have this research posted on our website. And this is cutting edge research. This is really a stealth attack. Very few people even know about this, and it is crucial that everybody get the word out and denounce whale offsets to save the whales.

Steve Taylor  
So thank you, Cassandra. And good luck and Glasgow.

Cassandra  
Thank you so much.

Steve Taylor  
You have been listening to breaking green, a global justice Ecology Project podcast. Find us at Global Justice ecology project dot org. Visit to find more interviews, podcast organizations, and ideas for addressing climate change.

Breaking Green Introducion
Introduction to Episode
Introduction to Casandra
Casandra as UN facilitator and translator
Casandra's work in Glasgow
What is a whale offset
How much carbon do whale offsets allegedly account for?
Will behaviors change?
Will corporations do what they say?
Break with Theresa Church
Will whale offsets harm whales?
General view on offsets
Where did the idea come from?
Who will monitor the offsets?
Carrying the message to Glasgow
The Green Economy
US Congress and whale offsets
Who is promoting whale offsets?
Are offsets a shell game?
What is the greatest threat to whales.
For more information
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