My, What Big Carbon Feetprints You Have!

New Scientist (full article in PDF):

What does seem fair criticism is that efforts to portray offsets as simple, quick fixes pose serious questions of both commercial and ecological legitimacy. Sceptics argue there is no substitute for cutting emissions. For them, "dump, burn and offset" is the worst possible outcome. In February a radical group called London Rising Tide occupied the office of CarbonNeutral, accusing the company of creating a "smokescreen" behind which corporations will be able to keep increasing emissions. That is a political judgement rather than a scientific one - as far as the climate is concerned, a tonne of CO2 pulled out of the atmosphere is as good as a tonne of CO2 that never entered it - but the group still has a point. Buying an offset implies a degree of certainty that we do not have.

At the very least there is an urgent need for regulation so that - as British environment secretary David Miliband put it when announcing plans for oversight of voluntary offsets - "people can be sure that the way they offset is actually making a difference."

It was a fairly negative article, but it brings up some valid concerns. 

As I've said before, the lack of perfection does not diminish the value of the approaches which can certainly be tweaked.  Also keep in mind that nobody is suggesting these are the only ways to address carbon emissions--offsets are merely one tool in the toolbox that can help individuals become involved in something that can be overwhelming because of its global scale.

ntodd