Or just buying yourself a clean conscience? Interesting article in the International Herald Tribune by James Kanter (and check out the comment section) raises two important points: the first is the transparency and the efficiency of the groups that offer the carbon certificates - like www.growaforest.com, www.climatecare.org or www.carbonneutral.com; the second is that you feel good by paying to off-set the CO2 emissions, but you don't actually change your behavior.
I think the first point is something that all NGOs and even governments are trying to address. They work for the common good, and nobody questions their motivation. However the taxpayers want to make sure that their money is well spent, and so accountability, from a transparency and efficiency point of view, is becoming an issue. To digress a second, as is social responsibility for business right now, and financial returns are no longer sufficient, we want good corporate citizenship as well. So governments and NGOs are going to have to attempt to quantify their "output", and companies are going to have to prove/communicate their social responsibility.
The second point is even more interesting. It is a bit like buying the old catholic indulgences - you can sin, and then pay for excusing it. Could off-setting carbon footprints be a new version of this old trade-off? Switzerland has a plan to become a 2000 Watt society - which means that each person should limit their energy use to 2'000 Watts (I think Switzerland uses about 6-8'000, and the US 12'000). This combined with off-setting what you use (plant a tree, invest in research for clean energy - or energy efficient technology) could be the ticket. Without incentives to reduce your energy consumption, it is a bit like buying indugences.
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