Please raise your hand if you have heard of buying carbon credits or offsets.  I am sure a few of you may have heard of it. In case you haven’t, very briefly it is a way you can send money to organizations that fund projects to actively decrease CO₂ in the atmosphere. Is it just me or is this the stupidest (sorry to my daughter for saying a bad word) idea you have every heard?  Americans consume more than any other country and someone thought of the idea of our purchasing a credit so we get out of changing our ways.  Does this really solve the problem or just allow us to purchase our guilt away?  It’s just like some guilty parents who don’t spend time with their kids, except we are trying to buy off Mother Earth.  HELLO!!!!!!!!!  The earth is preheating right now.  I am hot now.

Many people may not realize that electricity production, derived from coal-burning power plants, is one of the biggest sources of carbon emissions. Seventy percent of all U.S. electricity is produced as a result of burning fossil fuels, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.   So simply use less energy.  Just like your parents taught you, don’t leave the light on in a room you’re not in.  And do you really need the air conditioning set at 63 degrees?  We need to ask ourselves why ”men’s minds are too ready to excuse guilt in themselves.” (Livy)