carbon offsets are a scam!"The Financial Times recently did its own investigation of carbon offsets, and found that millions are being spent with no environmental benefits. The central findings:Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.There's not really any way to know how much environmental good--if any--is being done through the purchase of carbon offsets. Trees planted in different climates have different value. In some cases, rainforest is cleared and new trees subsequently planted. In others, carbon offset buyers pay for trees that would have been planted anyway."see:http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/01/carbon_offset_fraud.asphttp://www.junkscience.com/ByTheJunkman/20070719.htmlhttp://newsbusters.org/node/11496http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_13/b4027057.htm