# Cheat Offsetting?

*Published:* 2007-03-22
*Author:* Bill Chameides

Climate change can be a gloomy topic – sometimes you need a laugh! So I thought I’d share a funny item that caught my eye this week.

Carbon offsets have been in the news a lot lately because Al Gore said he used them, much to the derision of some misinformed people (see [my post on carbon offsets](https://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2007/03/08/carbon_offsets/)). The funniest of these potshots came from the Web site [cheatneutral.com](http://www.cheatneutral.com/), which says:

> ##### What is Cheat Offsetting?
> 
> When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in the atmosphere.
> 
> Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience.
> 
> ##### Can I offset all my cheating?
> 
> First you should look at ways of reducing your cheating. Once you’ve done this you can use Cheatneutral to offset the remaining, unavoidable cheating.

This is certainly good for a laugh, but its relevance to carbon offsets is purely illusory. Carbon offsets work because the atmosphere doesn’t care where the carbon comes from – it only cares about the total burden. Now I’m just guessing, but I suspect that your partner does care who cheats!