Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders is spending lots of money on carbon offsets to lessen the impact of fossil fuels used by his campaign to get its socialist message across the country — even though offsets don’t actually have any impact on global warming.
Sanders has remained committed to spending an unspecified, but likely large amount, on carbon offsets. There are no records of Sanders’s campaign paying for carbon offsets in his Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings for 2015.
FEC data shows the campaign spent nearly $185,000 in 2015 on a company which charters private jets. The Sanders campaign told The Daily Caller News Foundation all the chartered flights include the cost of carbon offsets.
Carbon offsets have been heavily criticized by the scientific community. An article in the scientific journal Nature claims “[o]ffsetting is worse than doing nothing.”
“It is without scientific legitimacy, is dangerously misleading and almost certainly contributes to a net increase in the absolute rate of global emissions growth,” according to the article.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pledged to purchase carbon offsets after being caught flying in a private jet last July. The former secretary of state, however, has not made any such payments, according to The Washington Times. Ironically, Clinton paid more than $80,000 to offset her carbon dioxide emissions during her 2008 presidential campaign. Sanders has stated he is using the exact same offset company Clinton did in 2008.
Companies which sell carbon offsets claim they contacted Clinton’s campaign about the pledge, but the campaign declined to respond.
A CNN analysis published in late October stated “there are no records of the Clinton campaign purchasing carbon offsets in their latest Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports released earlier this month and, when asked, multiple campaign aides did not refute CNN’s reporting that offsets have yet to be purchased.”
This isn’t Clinton’s first clash with environmentalists. Greenpeace started taunting Clinton on Twitter in early February after she declined to sign a pledge preventing her from accepting campaign contributions from the coal, oil or natural gas industries.
The Greenpeace pledge, which was sent to Clinton in late January, states: ” I will prove that I work for the people by refusing money from fossil fuel interests and by championing these solutions for a people powered democracy on the campaign trail.” Clinton did not respond to Greenpeace, even though Sanders agreed to sign the pledge.
The energy and natural resource industries have contributed $1,784,943 to Clinton or PACs that support her, according to The Center For Responsive Politics.
ExxonMobil and Cheniere Energy, a natural gas company, donated between $1 to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation, according to Non-Profit Quarterly. Chevron donated as much as $1 million to the foundation.
“We’ve long been concerned about Hillary Clinton’s ties to the oil and gas industry,” Ben Schreiber, a program director for the environmental group Friends of the Earth, told The National Journal. “It doesn’t shock us to see that these companies have been giving to the foundation, but it certainly raises a red flag. We’re concerned about the influence that these petrodollars have.”
Despite her lack of carbon offsets, challenges by environmentalists and energy industry donations, Clinton has been endorsed by environmental groups such as the League of Conservation Voters.
