There's a bull market in environmental guilt, David A. Fahrenthold reports, with thousands of individuals and businesses paying more for nothing -- or at least nothing tangible. Sales of carbon
offsets -- whose buyers pay hard cash to make amends for their sins against the climate - are up.
Generally, a buyer uses an online tool to calculate the carbon footprint -- the amount
of harmful emissions -- of a car, a flight or a year's activities. Then the buyer pays an offset vendor to cancel out that footprint. This is done through projects that stop emissions from
occurring or remove pollutants from the air.
Experts who study offsets say a cultural shift is at work, in which the American public has become accustomed to feeling guilty about climate
change, and, instead of writing letters to members of Congress or donating to an environmental group, they have learned to buy their way out.
Meanwhile,
The New York Times reports that there's a new campaign to
make users of Brita and Pur water feel guilty because the plastic filters used by the systems are not recyclable. Both brands are themselves running ads that mock the wastefulness of bottled water.
advertisement
advertisement
Read the whole story at Washington Post »