WHAT ARE CARBON OFFSETS?

Carbon Offsets are "imaginary" credits given out to help pay off a consumer or business' production of carbon dioxide that is created through the use of energy each day. It is an financial instrument that represents a consumer's desire to lower or reduce their carbon emissions.

Carbon Offsets are suppose to be used to help individuals or businesses become carbon independent and environmentally friendly.

A common problem found while using these units of credit is that they are still "imaginary." Imaginary in the sense that there is no value behind them or regulation by an authorized governing body and so producing cases of fraud, falsified documentation, and other unethical information. These can be sold for all different prices, be "produced" by all different means (or lack there of), and truly have no price, costs, or value to them.

For example: Business A decides to become environmentally friendly and decides to go out and buy these units to offsets the carbon dioxide they produce. Business A goes to Business B, who says they produce carbon offsets, and buys 1,000 units of carbon credits. Business B could go out and plant trees, put that money into researching alternative energy, purchase these units from a company who is using less than the usual amount of carbon dioxide in their production, or pocketing this money and just tell you that your purchase has value behind it and not doing one thing with it.

WHAT DOES CAP AND TRADE MEAN?

CAPPING is the process of giving a company, who produces carbon dioxide while manufacturing its product, a certain amount of carbon dioxide they are allowed to produce. The amount is not regulated by the government at this time and the measuring of carbon dioxide production is not monitored by the government.

WHAT YOU SHOULD BE PAYING:

If you desire to pay for the carbon dioxide you produce in your daily life, donate the money to a charity that helps the environment. Do not be deceived by companies that sell "Carbon Credits." These are not true exchangable units with any value behind them. Instead find a company that plants trees with funds that come from donations. These are regulated entities and should be the ones that benefit from the money donated since they are the ones that aren't selling you something with no value behind them.

To see what you would pay an average Company who sells Carbon Credits:
Click Here and work through our worksheet. Download it to do this on your free time.

WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING:

If you truly want to make a difference, become CONSERVATION MINDED and change the things you do each day. This will help the environment more than any amount of money given to any company out there.

DONATE TO CARBON BLUEPRINTS TO MAKE AN EFFECT ON THE ENVIRONMENT

CarbonBlueprints.org is a company that teaches people to be more conservation minded as its first priority, but that is not all we do. Check out our seperate projects we do to help the environment and the people that live in it. If you find a project you may be interested in and desire to donate to it. Click on its link and donate, any amount is appreciated. In addition you will be sent newsletters to tell you how your money has been used and how it has helped the environment. To see a list of our projects click here.