Don’t know what a carbon offset is? It’s a fake certificate you get for real money because you feel guilty about doing stuff based on people telling you fake stories about how you’re destroying the planet.
How do you get them? Celebrities generally get them for free as party favors. Idiots can buy them now at kiosks at the San Francisco Airport. Not making that up.
Here’s how carbon offsets work:
1. Celebrity says the world will end unless “we” stop or curtail our high-carbon output activities, for example, commercial flying.
2. Celebrity, however, wants to keep flying around, and not in some high-efficiency commercial airliner but in a private jet.
3. Celebrity (or someone on the celebrity’s behalf) pays some money to a company that belongs to Al Gore and that company gives the celebrity a certificate saying the money for the certificate means the celebrity can fly a private jet and the environment is still ok.
4. Celebrity can continue to feel good mocking the resource hogging masses while blasting out carbon like a thousand El Caminos running rich on leaded fuel.
Hey, this is how Al Gore does it with his house, which uses the same amount of carbon-generating electricity as, roughly, the entire nation of El Salvador. He just buys “credits” from the company he owns.
The thing is, buying an “offset” doesn’t mean you aren’t polluting the environment. It just means you don’t want to feel guilty about it. If your private jet flight is hurting the planet, then don’t do it. You’re a douche for doing it anyway if you believe it’s hurting the planet, and you’re a vast ocean of FAIL washing up on the beaches of Lameland if you think buying a credit to engage in your luxury activity gives you the moral high ground.
Hundreds of years ago, the Catholic Church had a similar concept called Indulgences. The rules of the Church, which were strict, applied to everyone. Violate them without penance and you’d go to hell. How did the rich and the powerful get out of it? They bought an “indulgence” which, for a cash donation, meant there was no punishment for a particular sin, meaning they could buy their way out of the rules. Even in that dark age, people finally called bullshit.
Yet, proving that people are as dumb as they ever were, a new religion is using indulgences to keep the rich and powerful in the fold and to scoop up extra cash from the guilt laden. Climate Change (no longer called global warming, since that had only a 50% chance of being accurate, whereas climate change is sure to occur) is that new religion. It has all the requirements of a religion:
1. Reasons for you to feel guilty about normal and natural activities.
2. Things for you to believe in that you can’t see or feel.
3. Reasons to mock the non-believers.
4. The desire by a few to control the many.
5. A doomsday scenario that is coming “soon.”
6. The ability to collect cash from the believers with the hope to tax the non-believers.
Yep, throw in a little child abuse or abuse of women and you’ve got a brand new religion that lines right up with the rest.
Here's how things were in 1208:
Here's how they are in 2008:
I don’t give a fuck if you want to be a carbonut and buy into that shit, but I just want to point out that if hypocrisy were hot air, then the high priests of climate change would have sent the earth into a boil years ago.
Yeah, so, we’re killing the planet if we drive a car with more than two seats, but Al Gore can step into a private jet with a certificate and that’s ok. Makes sense, doesn’t it? What? You think maybe it means he doesn’t really believe the planet is about to die. Don’t look behind the curtain!!
Anyway, here are five more offsets that make as much sense as carbon offsets.
1. Cockpunch Certificates
Punching people is bad. Yet sometimes you still want to do it, but you recognize that you are doing violence to the social order when you engage in that activity. Now, you can buy a kernelofwisdom Cockpunch Offset certificate that allows you to nut-punch one kneejerk carbonut liberal for sniffing over his latte about how people shouldn’t drive pick up trucks because he drives a prius (one of the most environmentally damaging cars ever manufactrured – google it asshole) back and forth between the organic food store and his 600 sq. ft. flat. A portion of the proceeds will be used to research what kind of dolls boys played with when they were young that caused them to grow up to think that any person with balls should ever put his ass in a prius.
That’d be ok, wouldn’t it carbonuts? I mean, the damaging activity is offset by a certificate!
2. Local Climate Change
Yeah global climate change is a problem, but so is local climate change. Are you ever pissed off at work because some bitch or whiny bastard complains about the temperature? Now you can buy a kernelofwisdom Local Climate Change Certificate that offsets your decision to change the office thermostat to whatever the hell you think it should be between 32F and 120F and keep it there until you damn well decide to change it. Just post a copy of your certificate next to the thermostat, and anyone changing it after that is subject to a gut-punch, as a violation of your local climate change decision converts the certificate to a Cockpunch Certificate (see 1 above).
3. The Keanu Protocol
Everytime Hollywood issues a Keanu Reeves vehicle, it must buy 1 billion kernelofwisdom Keanu Offset certificates to mitigate the impact of using Keanu Reeves as an action star, which does irreparable damage to the concept of awesome action stars such as John Wayne and Chuck Norris. Sadly, the United States is one of only a few developed countries not yet willing to sign the Keanu Protocol. A percentage of the offset revenue will be used to buy beer and big screen televisions for men who know that only Johnny Cash had the right to wear black all the time.
4. Big Game Party Certificate
You want to have about 100 friends over to watch the big game, but you can’t fit them all into your eco-friendly doublewide or cookie-cutter suburban make-believe house. Plus, you don’t have a 100 friends, but work with me. You can buy a kernelofwisdom Big Game Party certificate that offsets your decision to bust into Al Gore’s 150,000 sq. ft. house and host your party there, drinking his beer and watching the game on his big screen plasma.
A portion of the revenue will be spent laughing about how anyone can think a guy who lives in multiple mansions, has a 100 ft boat, flies in private jets, can be considered a serious believer that carbon footprints are an immediate danger to the planet that we must “all” do something about.
5. Greenhouse Gas Emission
Purchasing a kernelofwisdom Gas Emission certificate allows you to fart and blame it on a co-worker or nearby animal without smirking, thereby making your excuse more believable. Part of the revenue will be spent on trying various recipes for baked bean casseroles. No, I’m not going to cook casseroles, asshole! The money is spent on hiring off-duty strippers to come over and cook that shit topless, so start farting and buying certificates.
There, now we can all enjoy the convenience of agreeing that an activity should be prohibited while personally remaining able to enjoy that activity guilt-free!
When Al Gore decides to live in a two bedroom apartment and bicycle to his speeches, call me because then maybe I’ll believe he’s serious. Nah, you’re right, I won’t. So don’t call, ever.
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