Green Guilt 101 For Those Riding the Short Bus
Sept 9 (TheSentinel) - Much as been said about carbon footprints, credits and offsets. But what, if anything, does it all mean? Well, your carbon footprint is what your existence on the planet contributes to the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere and, therefore, “global warming.”
The theory goes like this: if you live the life of a contributing member of society, your existence is more of a blight on the planet than that of your Neanderthal ancestor. Of course, your odds of being eaten by a pterodactyl are considerably lower than your Neanderthal counterpart- a reasonable trade-off, most thinking people would agree.
And, by thinking people, I don’t mean the granola eaters who believe humans are a pox upon the planet. Since most of us are not willing to leave the planet, or move from our homes to a cave, the Enviro-Nazis and their Gulfstream jet-owning guru have developed carbon offset schemes to enrich themselves while lightening our wallets.
The basic premise of the carbon offset scheme is much like the cuss jar concept. My friend, who used to smoke like the Marlboro Man and swear like the old man on “A Christmas Story,” had a baby. Suddenly, she felt as if the world should be nicer just because her little nipper had arrived. She decided that there wouldn’t be any smoking or cussing in her house. 
To enforce her new found righteousness, she put out a swear jar: each cuss word cost 50 cents. Supposedly she would save the money for her little spawn’s college fund. On my first visit I tossed a twenty dollar bill into the jar and said I was fudging covered for the week (“only I didn’t say fudge,I said the word, the big one...”). Now, grant it, my behavior was boorish, but at least the $20 was going to a good cause; and, since I paid for it, I felt free to let loose with the f-bomb as often as possible.
Carbon offsets work the same way: they allow corporations and individuals to continue to emit carbon at any rate they choose because they can always buy more credits.
As an observation, care to guess who benefits from the carbon offset schemes? Ten carbon credits for you if you guessed Al Gore. That’s right, the Enviro-guru who flies around the country in his Gulfstream jet, and wants you to live like the Amish, sits on the board of a carbon offset company. When Gore buys his carbon credits, he buys them from himself.
Much like the cuss jar not reducing the amount of cussing in the house, carbon offsets don’t reduce the carbons in the air. Offsets do, however, make people feel like they are “doing something,” and that’s what is really important, right? Feeling like you are solving the problem is more important than understanding if there is a problem. Theoretically, the money collected by the offset organizations is reinvested or redistributed to fund renewable energy projects. However, due to a lack of auditing methods and oversight, actually tracing where the funds are going is difficult.
Why would individuals play along in this modern day “indulgence” scheme? Mostly guilt. There is also confusion between the affect humans have on greenhouse gasses and global warming, versus the natural evolution of the planet.
Frankly, the evidence that humans are causing global warming just isn’t that strong. What would make me speak such a heresy? Well, there are a number of scientific studies that support it. Additionally, there is a $500,000 unclaimed prize waiting for “the first person to prove, in a scientific manner, that humans are causing harmful global warming” at http://www.junkscience.com. Surely if there were scientifically verifiable evidence about global warming someone would have claimed the prize and donated the money to some environmental cause.
Am I denying global warming? No. Globes warm. They also cool. That’s what globes do- it’s a cyclical process that no amount of indulgences or cuss jars can affect.
