Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowboy89
Look up "Buying Indulgences" from medieval Europe. Back in those times the church would accept money in exchange for forgiveness of sins. So in theory if you were rich you could sin all you wanted as long as you paid the church money for them.
It's the exact same principle with "carbon offsets." The organizations that offer these things uses the money given to them to fund projects that reduce carbon in our atmosphere either through cleaner energy proposals (Wind, Tidal, etc.), planting trees in South America, etc. Where the whole thing falls apart in my opinion is that these projects are not taken to task to ensure that the money is spent wisely (Ie not going into the hands of some corrupt government official in a third world country) or that said projects even reduce carbon by the amount that the purchaser of such an offset would need to actually offset the activities that they purchased the offset for.
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.... or that said company doesn't take a significant 'cut' for 'administrative purposes'...