Carbon Guilt

The new trend is "carbon guilt". People who are worried about the amount of CO2 they create buy carbon offsets, such as a share in a tree planting program. I think this needs to be filed under "Stupid Human Tricks".

First off, if they feel guilty, they're not doing everything they can in the first place. I don't feel guilty about my carbon footprint. I reduce, reuse, and recycle. I walk. I combine trips. I don't drive a gas guzzler. I turn my (programmable) thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer. I support my electric utility's wind generation program. (For a description of real guilt, see my 9/6/07 post.)

Second, these people are wasting their money. Rather than paying someone extra money, they could save money by adopting one or more of the methods in the above paragraph. They'll pay less for gasoline or utilities, and they won't pay a guilt fee on top of that.

Third, these people probably are being scammed. Who will verify that those trees were planted? (Remember the "buy a piece of the rainforest" campaign back in the 1990's?) Who's to keep someone for charging ten people for the privilege of planting a tree -- and then plant one tree and send ten certificates and photos of "your tree"? On top of that, who will verify that the growing, transporting, and planting of that tree didn't expend more carbon that the tree can assimilate? Does the carbon credit come from a 6' tall sapling or a 30' tall mature tree, who knows how many years from now?

Last summer, an "environmental justice" seminar was held on our campus. The participants were giddy about planting twenty trees to offset the carbon they supposedly generated for the seminar. How did they measure the carbon they produced, and how did they measure the carbon these trees were supposed to offset? I know they didn't ask me or my staff about the water (from a well, which uses an electric pump), fertilizer (usually a petroleum derivative, and delivered in a gasoline-fueled truck), digging (with a diesel or gasoline tool), and transport (more diesel or gasoline) of the trees both from the nursery to our storage area then again to the planting site. What about the water (from the same well) we need to keep them alive and growing? I'm getting a headache from this, and there are probably other factors I haven't even included.