Carbon Offset – The Get Out of Jail Free Card?

In a phrase, “glorious slacking.” Yes, my driving mileage is crazy out of whack with what it should be, and no I don’t feel bad about it. YET.

Last weekend, my girlfriend and I took a bite out of the Big Apple. The salty and mealy portions of my tongue did backflips during their first encounters with Borscht, Blinztes and Knishes. Yes, Jewish delights were the mainstay of the voyage, but there were other goodies and moments of glory that made soaring by my carbon budget worth it. (By the way, if you think you have what it takes to turn down the temptations of New York just read Ileana’s post, I guarantee you won’t after that.)

But the thing is, even with my car spewing CO₂ - the most pervasive of greenhouse gases and the gas whose annual emissions has risen 80 percent from 1970 to 2004 – I don’t have to feel just that bad yet. Manmade wonder-bundles, a.k.a. carbon offsets, may just be the get out of jail free card I need, for my eco-slacking. But, I have some homework to do first.

Terrapass supplies carbon offsets as commodities to firms and individuals who are interested in negating their carbon emissions. Revenue generated, by the firms or individuals who buy offsets, funds renewable energy projects to go in place of fossil fuel projects.

See, my tummy gets all tied up in knots when it comes to the concept of buying something to offset the carbon I’ve already unloaded. I’m thinking that if I produce a jätte-ton (jätte = Swedish equivalent for helluh) of carbon, than how can I just buy an offset to make the carbon that I produced go away? It’s not like I’m purchasing a giant plant monster to come hoove up the carbon and convert it into oxygen.

Clearly not, but supposedly if I pay for the carbon I’ve emitted, the money that I spend goes toward funding renewable energy projects in other parts of the globe. So like, if I continue my Fat Cat spending and dole out emissions like it were cool, my money will go toward renewable energy projects that will be put in place of fossil fuel projects.

But what if those renewable energy projects weren’t going to be built in the first place? Now we just have extra resources and labor hours getting thrown into projects that spawn from the guilt of Carbon Fat Cats.

Obviously, I am missing something very important here. As soon as I get to the bottom of this, I will enlighten yee loyal readers. Stay posted.

Also, Food Stamps update coming soon.