Some environmentally sanctimonious people buy "carbon offsets" when they fly to, well, assuage their guilt and supposedly "offset" the carbon they produce by flying. But according to an article in today's New York Times, "carbon offsets" do little more than ease guilt. You see, carbon offsets often plant trees. But trees take years to suck up the CO2produced by one flight. And sometimes the scheme fails all together (links original):
For example, mango trees that were planted in India to offset a concert tour by the band Coldplay were found to have died a few years later.
The other problem with carbon offsets is that they ease the guilt of flying, so people fly more:
“The carbon offset has become this magic pill, a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card,” Justin Francis, the managing director of Responsible Travel, one of the world’s largest green travel companies to embrace environmental sustainability, said in an interview. “It’s seductive to the consumer who says, ‘It’s $4 and I’m carbon-neutral, so I can fly all I want.’ ”
Frankly, I think the whole thing is a scam, anyway. People are trying to make money off your guilt about putting out carbon when the level of CO2 in the atmosphere may have nothing to do with global temperatures. And now the New York Times has come out and said, in essence, "save your money."
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