Is participating in carbon offsets merely a salve to your concsience for destroying a piece of sky? I%26#039;ve had this sense for a while, for instance that paying $30 to a fund to offset your carbon on a commercial plane flight is much like being allowed to flog your dog because you give to the SPCA. Your participation in that flight irreversibly damages the environment. How could funding a tree in a banana plantation begin to reverse this damage? That%26#039;s if your money ever gets anywhere close to an actual useful project instead of another misguided environmental farce or scam.

Another facet of this is that, as with higher gas prices, the rich are the last ones in the game. You can %26quot;buy%26quot; your way out of any environmental responsibility if you are in the financial elite. At a corporate level, as long as you were profiting handsomely from your endeavours, you could afford to pollute as much as you want to, offsets will be just another cost of efficient, dirty business.

Anyone want to try to persuade me otherwise?

Additional Details

4 months ago

Thank you for all the thoughtful answers so far, O was particularly interested in the response by Agu-Luna, whose response looks like the %26quot;classic%26quot; rationale/pitch for this kind of scheme.

What I perceive as the fatal flaw in offset theory is ignoring how humans think and act, in the most basic way, how we are driven by finding efficiencies in the system. In the scenario Boom paints, it inevitably becomes %26quot;worth it%26quot; for the company to come clean to save the carbon penalty:

%26quot;At some point-perhaps right away-the bean counters are going to go, you know what, it is going to cost us $20 million to NOT install scrubbers, but if we DO install them, we can collect more revenue, it will maintain our margins, and we can advertise how environmentally responsible we are%26quot;

No, if it it works out cheaper to do it dirty and pay carbon tax, you do it that way and engage a PR firm. It%26#039;s the way oil companies work already.
http://www.carbonoffsets.org/
http://www.tufts.edu/tie/tci/carbonoffse...

As long as I can, I will refuse to buy %26quot;carbon credits%26quot; because I am not doing anything wrong. My car has a catalytic converter which changes the exhaust to CO2 and water vapor, which is what environmentalists wanted.

Al Gore%26#039;s %26quot;Carbon offset Taxes%26quot;! Yep, that%26#039;s what he calls them are a scam so he can make more money as well as others who stand to make a killing skimming off money we pay for going about our lives.

And it gets worse, I read an article that tells of some dumb politicians who want to pass a law that makes new mothers pay $5,000 for the birth of each child, plus an additional $800 a year for every year that child lives to offset the child%26#039;s %26quot;carbon foot print.%26quot; The comment was made, %26quot;Why reward them (money given at baby showers) when they should be made to pay.

Isn%26#039;t interesting that the only way to stop global warming is always some method of emptying our bank accounts? Why is that? Why are AGW proponents salivating over the prospect including themselves, at being shackled into economic slavery? Very strange.

In 1970s the EPA and other Earth loving do gooders demanded that pollution be controlled on automobiles. Enter the cataylitc converter. Now cars are polluters once again. So in reality we need to blame the environmentalists and the EPA for their misguided %26quot;solutions%26quot;.

Just wait, when the African countries cannot develop industry or use the recourses they have at hand, then the same bunch that cried to make it so will be looking to blame companies for not investing in the African people and thus starving them.

For many of these people activism is their hobby, and all of their projects MUST have boogie men. If %26quot;global warming%26quot; were to be stopped within the next hour, there would be something else en vouge to protest and cry about.

Anyone remember %26quot;the homeless%26quot;. Big in the 80%26#039;s. Big press, big political issue...hmmm....they all must be in houses now, eh?

USA for Africa...Well, I guess we fed them all. Don%26#039;t hear much else about it.

Oh...AIDS, did we cure that or something. For a while it was all the rage...today?

We are all responsible for climate change and we all must be part of the solution. Agua-Luna Com makes it simple for anyone, or any organization, to reduce and offset their carbon emissions. How does it work? Follow these simple steps that take you through the process.
How does it work?
Even if you have already reduced your driving and electricity use, there%26#039;s more you can do. You can neutralize the rest of your pollution—through offsets. When you buy offsets, you essentially pay someone to reduce or remove global warming pollution in your name.
For example, when you buy 10 tons of carbon offsets, 10 fewer tons of global warming pollution go into the atmosphere. While the pollution you produce yourself is the same, you get the credit for that 10-ton reduction.
You can use our FREE Carbon Calculator at www agua-luna com to determine your own Carbon Footprint, and then take the actions to offset it with our help.
As Agua-Luna actually performs the Offset in a first person chain (Ie Reforestation, Alternative Energy Projects, etc), eliminating the middleman, sales teams, and unnecessary fees. For more info check out www agua-luna com
There are many options to choose from, including, Offests by the Ton, per person per day, per car, per family, per year, per life time, etc.
www AGUA-LUNA com

Hope this helped, feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions if you’d like assistance in making your first self sufficient steps, I’m willing to walk you step by step threw the process. I’ve written several how-to DIY guides available at www agua-luna com on the subject. I also offer online and on-site workshops, seminars and internships to help others help the environment.


Dan Martin
Alterative Energy / Sustainable Consultant, Living 100% on Alternative %26amp; Author of How One Simple Yet Incredibly Powerful Resource Is Transforming The Lives of Regular People From All Over The World... Instantly Elevating Their Income %26amp; Lowering Their Debt, While Saving The Environment by Using FREE ENERGY... All With Just One Click of A Mouse...For more info Visit:

www AGUA-LUNA com
Stop Global Warming!!!

Oh, I don%26#039;t know about persuading anyone, but I do think the idea has merit if properly set up. It is an experiment in operant conditioning that could provide incentives for polluters to change their ways. Let%26#039;s say there is a big company that is polluting a lot and is resisting installing scrubbers on their smokestacks because they cost...ummm, just for purposes of example-ten million dollars. The bean counters are going hey, if we spend ten million dollars on environmental stuff like scrubbers, our profit margins will drop by X%. So we won%26#039;t do it unless we HAVE to. You know that%26#039;s a classic example of how business operates.

Then let%26#039;s say there is another company that is more oriented toward environmental issues that looks at the same problem and decides that it is important to make the investment, so they spend the ten million bucks.

If these two companies are direct competitors and one pollutes less, which one would you prefer to do business with? Personally, I%26#039;d choose the more environmentally responsible business, even if their products cost a little more. And I%26#039;d be upset with the other company for being less responsible.