The simile you use is compelling, but misleading. People can't help but emit CO₂ as they go about their lives – go to work, keep warm, feed themselves, and so on. Buying offsets negates these unavoidable emissions. This is an effective way to combat global warming because total emissions is what matters.

When a boat is filling with water and sinking, the goal is to bail out all the water. But our goal is not to remove all CO₂ from the atmosphere – that's neither necessary nor possible. (See my previous article, Vacuum up Greenhouse Gases.) Our goal is to cap CO₂ emissions so atmospheric concentrations don't continue to rise.

Ultimately, we need to convert our fossil-fuel based energy system to a low-carbon one based on things like wind, solar, and clean coal. But that takes time – time we don’t have given the urgent need to act on global warming now. With offsets, we can reduce net carbon dioxide emissions over the next decade while we convert to a low carbon energy economy. It's a bridging strategy.

In an earlier post on March 8 entitled Carbon Offsets Count he states, “The concept of carbon offsets is simple. If your lifestyle uses a lot of energy and you like the way you live, you can still reduce your carbon footprint by funding the negation of carbon emissions elsewhere.”

I would like to use some allegories to make my point here. Let’s compare the Earth and it’s atmosphere filling with CO 2 gasses to a boat sinking and filling with water. Along with water coming in through a leak, one man, for whatever reason, is dumping water into the boat as well. When confronted he says, “But, I’m also helping to bail the water out. I’m actually bailing out more than what I am dumping in!” Now, while his bailing may be helping, he is still contributing to the problem. As a matter of fact, the water he is pouring in is slowing down both his and other people’s efforts to save the boat. If he really believes there is a problem, he, himself, should not contribute to it.

Using the reasoning of using carbon offsets is similar to the reasoning of a driver caught speeding and going 90 mph in a 60 mph zone. His explanation to the police is, “But 5 miles back, I was only driving 30 mph in this 60 mph zone, and that makes up for my driving unsafely now!”

This type of reasoning “sounds” logical, but it does not work in real life. Those who feel that burning CO 2 fuel is such a problem should stop contributing to the problem themselves, otherwise they are slowing down efforts to stop the problem, including their own efforts elsewhere, and they become people who say, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

If things are really as serious with global warming as many say, wouldn’t it be ironic if people working so hard to prevent global warming in their public lives are the ones to actually tip things over into a really critical situation with what they are doing in their private lives. It would be like a person working strongly and getting hundred’s of people out to vote for a certain candidate in a local election, but because he himself fails to vote, his candidate loses by one vote. In either case, even though a person is doing a lot for a public cause, his efforts could be in vain if he doesn’t follow through in his private life.

Sincerely,
K.C. Weber