Don't count on offsetting.

Carbon neutral is the word of the year and carbon "offsetting" has become a big business lately, even utilities such as PG&E are getting into it.

Times online reports:

One mother confides her struggle to stretch an electric cable through the window to plug in her G-Whiz car to the mains, revealing in one stroke that she has both the cash to own a second car and the conscience to make it electric. But she is trumped by another who is “offsetting” all her family holidays, forever. Cue awed silence. In 2007 class snobbery has given way to competitive eco-atonement.

This is the year in which we will grapple with myriad schemes offering green redemption. We will find that some are not quite what they seem.

Did Mrs Offset know how her money was being spent to compensate for the carbon dioxide generated by her flights? Was she planting trees to absorb the CO2, or helping to reduce someone else’s emissions? She didn’t know. The act of writing the cheque was enough to absolve her guilt. Carbon offsetting is easily portrayed as the 21st-century equivalent of the papal indulgences sold in the 16th century by the Catholic Church. Then, you could wash away whatever sins you had committed by handing over a commensurate amount of lolly. Now you can chuck £10 at lastminute.com to offset your trip to NY, or give £5.85 to Carbon Clear to offset two and a half years of disposable nappies. I bet indulgences didn’t come that cheap. But the risk is the same: that by paying up we will feel free to keep on sinning.

However, doubts have come up about the effectiveness of the current offsetting programs. Andy McSmith in the Independent reports:

People who join the new fashion for buying carbon offsets will be urged by the Government today to check what they are buying before they hand over the money. Some schemes may be doing environmental damage in the developing world without curbing climate change.

The Environment Secretary, David Miliband, is to announce the start of a government consultation that will make the UK the first country with a national standard for testing carbon offset schemes. Mr Miliband is expected to warn consumers to be wary of offset schemes involving tree planting, and to direct their money instead into "win-win" projects such as a scheme to generate electricity from pig droppings in Mexico.

In another column Johann Hari raises more doubts:

Paying to put some trees in the middle doesn't make much difference. Trees can store only some carbon - we don't even know how much, with estimates varying by 1,000 per cent - and for a limited period of time. Sooner or later, they die. Oliver Rackman, the Cambridge University botanist, explains it starkly: "Telling people to plant trees [to prevent global warming] is like telling them to drink more water to keep down rising sea levels." The water - or gas - will come out in the end.

Also, questions have been raised recently about planting more trees actually helping fight global warming at all. The best practice is to use resources wisely and not depend on offsetting at all. Offsetting has its place in preventing global warming, I just feel that it should be minor and we shouldn't count on it for much help.