Carbon Neutrality

First things first:
I tend to get to work by one of two methods: Bus and bike. It's winter and I've been unwell, so it's the bus at the moment.
If you're driving to work for whatever reason, and are feeling guilty about your carbon footprint, why not relieve some of that guilt by sending some money my way?

For every £1 I receive I'll cycle into work and back instead of taking the bus. I will therefore be using 0 fuel (apart from a hearty breakfast, which I would have had anyway), so you can sit contented in your traffic jam, safe in the knowledge that you're doing good by proxy. I'll even take a snap of myself and send it to you if you like, so you know I'm not cheating you.

OK. Now that my millionaire plan is in motion, a quick word about carbon offsetting.

Carbon offsetting is, for the most part, bad.

The idea behind it was simple enough: pay someone to reduce carbon emissions on your behalf, thereby offsetting the amount of carbon you're creating.

Unfortunately there are several small flaws in the approach:

1. Planting trees does not replenish fossil fuels.
Well, okay, if you left them long enough (a few thousand years should do it) then everything would be great. That is, assuming you started offsetting your carbon a few thousand years ago. You didn't? Oh, that's unfortunate. I know how these things can slip. Still, you're planting trees now and that's got to be good, right? Wrong.

2. Here's the big secret. There are two separate carbon cycles.
I know, I know. It's hard to believe, but all those trees sucking carbon out of the air, they're not part of the carbon store that's being diminished. This is very closely linked with the first issue, but it seems people have difficulty grasping it. Let's call trees a part of the 'living' cycle and oil part of the 'dead' cycle. The 'living' cycle is all about getting CO2 out of the air, and using it to feed plants and trees, which will then grow. Great. You've moved the carbon from the air to the trees. Well done. Does your car run on phosphates? Thought not. What about power plants? Running on tree energy? Sorry. You're not offsetting the right things. Oh, but there's more.

3. Raising trees is not a profitable business.
So, you've googled for a carbon offsetting company, and they promise to plant a tree for every £10 you give them, which will go towards the lifetime upkeep of that tree. Great. Fantastic. Except they're lying. They've found some country where £10 is a lot of money. They've promised some farmers let say: £5 a tree. They've delivered trees, with the promise of fertilisers and money to follow. Unfortunately for the farmers, that's often the end of the story. They don't get their fertilisers. They don't get paid for their (often numerous) trees. In that situation, would you still look after the tree?

Of course, I'm sure there are some companies out there with the best of intentions, but the fact remains that the entire idea of offsetting your carbon is ludicrous. You're paying someone else to make your problem go away. In what other part of society is this acceptable? If you commit a crime is it okay to pay someone else to take the fall? If you overeat can you pay someone else to starve themself? Even after you've done all of this, are you any less of an overweight criminal? No.

Society tried this once before. The reasoning was that certain wealthy people didn't have the time to be good, pious and righteous, so they found some very good, pious and righteous monks, who clearly had some goodness and piety to spare, and they bought it off them.

Apparently offsetting can only be done with things that aren't immediately quantifiable. Funny that.