At first, I thought I'd pulled a Rip Van Winkle and gone to sleep for a month. But, after following the links from a post titled Carbon Neutral Flatulence to an actual news piece in The Australian, I realized that what I'd hoped was an April Fool's joke was real–and really damaging to the credibility of carbon offsets.

In last week's rant, I felt compelled to counter the point of view that carbon offsets are counterproductive. In that post, I outlined the three major categories of skeptics:

1. those who argue that carbon offsets are not effective
2. those who see carbon offsets as the easy way out, allowing people to pay someone else to deal with the problem
3. those who say carbon offsets interfere with other effective measures to combat climate change because they allow people to distance themselves from the real problem

Now there will be a fourth group of skeptics: those who don't/can't take the threat of global warming seriously because some carbon offset company will offset the methane in your cat's farts for a mere $8/year!

To top it all off, the offset company in question–Easy Being Green–looks to be a legitimate player in the carbon offset world. It's chief executive, Paul Gilding, is a former head of Greenpeace International. With all his campaign experience, you would think he would know better than to make a joke when so many folks are already skeptical of climate change and the potential of one of its highest profile remedies.

Serious problems call for serious actions, not levity.

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