Carbon Hunters Documentary was a Fair Primer on Carbon Credits

I watched with trepidation and more than a little anxiety about how my chosen vocation would be portrayed in a documentary aimed at the general public. There is a tendency among critics and journalists take potshots at carbon ‘traders’. In fact, there is a lot that is wrong with the industry. It’s an easy target. There are cowboys out there who will mislead and rip people off. This is a new industry that is rife with corruption and con artists trying to part honest folk from their dollars. Of course, those are the fringe players, but they exist nonetheless and they manage to tar the rest of us with their bad behavior.

But the Carbon Hunters was fair. I think it explained the mechanism of carbon trading fairly well. It covered a fairly complex topic and captured the difference between micro-credits, small offset projects, and larger certified units. It also drew a nice chronological narrative from the mechanisms beginnings with footage from Maurice Strong, one of the architects of the Clean Development Mechanism.

If you missed it the first time, the documentary will be replayed tonight on CBC Newsworld at 10pm Eastern. If you’re interested in learning about carbon credits and carbon trading it’s worth checking out.