New Scientist doesn't offer free online access to its articles, but their trial subscription rate of $4.95 for four issues is more than reasonable–even if you only read the article titled Look, no carbon footprint!

Over the course of 2500+ words, author Fred Pearce thoroughly explores the world of carbon offsets–top to bottom–from offset schemes officially sanctioned under the Kyoto Protocol, to the 30 or so nonprofit and for profit vendors currently selling voluntary offsets on the open market. The bulk of Pearce's story examines the burgeoning commercial marketplace–one that has grown from offsetting 3 million tons of CO2 in 2004 to as many as 50 million tons of CO2 in 2006.

Pearce delves into the hard questions. His conclusion: Buyer Beware.

For those of you looking for the Cliff Notes, Pearce offers six key questions every careful shopper should ask before buying carbon offsets:

1. Do your offsets result from specific projects, and what are they?
2. How long will it take for the project to offset my emissions
3. Can I follow the progress of the offsets I invest in and read reports of independent verifiers?
4. Do your projects meet the gold standard?
5. Can you prove that the projects in your portfolio would not have happened without you?
6. Can you show you are not selling offsets more than once, or that I am not subsidizing others to meet logal obligations?

For those of you looking to save $4.95, the New Scientist article links to Clean Air-Cool Planet and its consumer's guide to retail carbon offset providers (a free and very useful downloadable PDF).

Carbon Neutral Journal's thoughts are brought to you by Hawtin Jorgensen Architects.

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