I looked into Wren and others a little while ago and raised my eyebrows when I saw that all that was needed to completely offset my impact on the environment was a tiny sliver of my income! I don’t recall the exact number but it was under $60/mo.
That’s it? For my travel, growing and shipping and refrigerating all of my food, digging up and purifying all the special metals in my devices and appliances, throwing all my waste in a landfill?
It just doesn’t add up. If net zero were that cheap and easy, it wouldn’t be a problem.
It seems like they’re selling a way to feel good about yourself without a real lifestyle change. Having said that, though, I do get the impression that the proceeds are put to good use.
Net zero will probably save you money, not cost you money.
But giving you that small amount, or even charging you a small amount doesn't solve the problem, even after you scale it up to billions doing it. Because those billions are currently going to a relatively small number of people who really don't want those billions to stop coming to them and have the concentrated power to stop the vast democratic majority from getting their way.
And one of their techniques, alongside pretending the problem doesn't exist, or blaming other people, is to claim it would be expensive to fix.
Imagine a monopolist arguing, oh it would be really expensive to fix this market failure! and you have the rough idea.
It's a "collective action" problem, not one of missing tech or unwillingness to pay.
Wren got a lot of promotion by YouTubers recently. Maybe they were paid to say nice things? Doesn't prove it's junk though?
Where would you invest if you wanted to help?