I recently received a note from Tim Whitley, the founder and head of the nonprofit group Carbon Offsets to Alleviate Poverty, which I think merits posting as a “Your Dot” contribution because it takes a step beyond the “woe is me, shame on you” rhetoric that has long been favored by people seeking to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Here’s Whitley’s piece, with a postscript from me:

Whitley is modest enough not to suggest his own group, but I will do that for him. To get an idea of how the group’s projects work, explore the details of the effort in Sofala, Mozambique, where farmers get a small payment for the carbon-absorbing value of adding a tree crop, cashews, to their plantings. Here’s a YouTube video by the group:

Longtime readers of my work know I’ve been skeptical of the merits of many carbon offset projects (start with my 2007 article, “Carbon-Neutral Is Hip, but Is It Green?”)

But I’m a fan of voluntary offset projects of this sort where the added value of a payment goes far beyond avoided greenhouse gases. My 2008 piece on a Wildlife Conservation Society carbon and forests project in Madagascar included this explanation from that group of the logic in such efforts: “high-quality emissions reductions delivering multiple benefits — climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable economic development.”