I am really trying to understand the issues about carbon emissions and how to become "carbon neutral", via carbon offsets, carbon taxes, credits, or other mechanisms. It seems that the perfect solution, simply, does not exist. I have been reading lots about this, having very interesting dialogues with friends that know about these things and yet, I am confused.

Perhaps the only way for a true 100% carbon neutral is practicing voluntary human extinction.

There may be a few good things about carbon offsets, like create some consciousness in the public, and a few companies are really investing offset money into very valid projects, but I am afraid that in balance, there are more bad things than good things about offsetting. One of them is they create a false sense of carbon neutrality for people that don't understand all the implications behind, and they think that by buying these credits they are really taking action against global warming, so they keep living "business as usual", or worse, I wonder if many of them even increase their flying, or buy a larger SUV, because they can buy more credits to fight global warming. I am sure that the carbon balance for those people, is not neutral !

I have read that a few companies out there where one can buy these carbon offsets are not that ethical, that a good percentage of the money goes to administration, publicity and other unnecessary things, so the money that really goes to programs to balance our emissions is dramatically cut. Other companies are simply taking advantage of naive customers and are a hoax.

I understand that for some key figures in the fight against climate change, like Suzuki and Gore, the only way that they can balance a little all the emissions they are producing from their traveling around the world is by buying carbon offsets. I must say that in their case, their best offset is not the credits they buy, but the incredible contribution they have done, through so many years, in educating the general public in all the matters of protecting the environment. No matter if they have generated hundreds of tonnes of C02, their carbon budget, or carbon balance, for both of them, is by far in their favour, because they have changed the minds of so many people and therefore make a huge difference.

I am not saying that I have already a complete understanding of these issues, nor a final position. Overall, I still think that it is better to avoid flying as much as possible, get a smaller, fuel-efficient car, reduce my energy consumption, etc., rather than buying carbon offsets and pretend that is enough.

People with a better understanding about these things are not sure either. For instance, Alan Durning from the Sightline Institute has a new post called My Own Private Kyoto where he reviews how much his family have decreased their emissions in the past couple of years, yet, at the end he says :

"And that leads to a dilemma: the biggest chunk of emissions is from air travel. In fact, well over half of my family's greenhouse gas emissions are now caused by the flights I take to make speeches on behalf of Sightline, emissions that I sure hope are justified by the effect those speeches have on their audiences! What should I do? Speak less? Inaugurate the year of living flightlessly? Or should I focus on the bigger, systemic forces that push up emissions and not worry about my Sightline air miles? Opinions?"

You can read Alan's post here: www.sightline.org.

Other individuals, like Rob Hopkins, the guy who started the Energy Descent Action Plan concept, has decided not to fly at all, and he is still true to his word.

Almost everyday there are new articles on the newspapers and the Net on carbon offsets, both pro and against the concept.

I just found a new report on this subject that I suggest to read if you have the time. Written by Kevin Smith is titled "The Carbon Neutral Myth" it is 80 pages long. I am still reading it, so I can't tell how good or bad it is. I doubt it has all the answers to this so complex issue. I like the appendix "Offsets and future value accounting" though. You can download the report at www.carbontradewatch.org

Bottom line is, I truly think buying carbon offsets should be our last resort against global warming and when we are in that situation, we should be careful to buy these carbon offsets with the first company that offers them. It is worth it to do some research about them and then decide.

What we truly need is a real transition to a low-carbon economy and this means a genuine social change.

What is required is to make everybody understand that we do need to drastically reduce carbon emissions, not just to pay for them, nor to trade them, not even keep producing them and sequester them with new technologies --still non proven or non existent.

The best way is to minimize the extraction of fossil fuels and minimize our dependency on them and produce less emissions.

I wonder if a big part of this problem is that we live in this economy-driven culture, where everything is around, and about, economics, and we want to resolve everything with money. The main question in any potential solution to stop global warming is what are the economic implications ?

And we keep talking about economic values, how about social values ? how about ethical values ? even spiritual values ?

How about the value of the health of children of the future?

I wonder if this is the core of the problem: we want to give a monetary value to global warming and climate change and we keep debating what are the best economic policies and plans to fix it !

We are in big trouble, that is for sure !