Carbon offsetting

It's rich people trying to look less guilty about their massive carbon footprint.

Carbon offsetting is false utilitarianism, because the amount of carbon in the world that can actually be "offset" is extremely limited. This basically functions like a zero-sum game: Every ton of carbon you offset is a ton of carbon that someone else can't offset. This manifests itself economically as a bidding war (which is why carbon offsetting is so expensive that only rich people do it).

At the end of the day, we have to actually emit less carbon.

See also

• Carbon capture
• Climate change