The problem is, Native Energy is only buying a small portion of these alternative energy suppliers but they’re declaring a benefit as though they bought the whole thing. They buy a 1 percent piece of the action but claim 100 percent of the benefit.

That’s like buying 1 percent of a race horse and keeping 100 percent of the winnings. Not good.

Furthermore, Native Energy is buying little pieces of companies that are already designed and financed, then acting as though their investment was critical to the whole operation.

The offsets they sell aren’t making, creating, or saving anything additional. That wind farm or methane plant was going to get built anyway—with or without the sale of their offsets. So, in reality, buying offsets from Native Energy does nothing to benefit the environment—just as buying indulgences do nothing to benefit your soul.

But, none of this is about reality, anyway. It’s all about caring, and compassion, and green guilt.

Take it from someone who knows.

Zarembo includes a quote from Davis Guggenheim, director of “An Inconvenient Truth,” who says this about the selling of voluntary carbon offsets: “It’s a powerful first step … The choice of doing this rather than nothing is not a choice … All of us knew when you’re doing offsets that the theoretical and symbolic quality to doing this is as important as the practical quality.”

The symbolic is as important as the practical? That’s liberalspeak at it’s finest.

We have to “Do something!”

Since their founding, Native Energy has sold about 1 million tons of CO2 offsets. At, say, an average of $10 a ton, that’s a lot of “something.”

So, the clearest thing that has been done through the sale of offsets is the rise of a very profitable, middleman industry capitalizing on guilt.

Too bad it’s not “doing something!” to actually reduce a single carbon footprint.