Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

That seems to be the catch cry for the latest fad. I am guilty, I am guilty.

What exactly am I guilty of, well it seems I am not offsetting my carbon emissions.
How am I supposed to offset my carbon emissions, well it seems that I am supposed to plant a tree and use this to absorb the carbon, that my presence on the planet generates.

Well guess what, its a con. I would have to wait four years for my tree to grow big enough to even remove part of the carbon, I emit.

I would have to plant a forest to absorb all the carbon I generate, does the planet have enough land to plant trees to absorb all the carbon dioxide that we humans create. The answer is no.

Most of the worlds oxygen supply (figures place this at some where around 80% depending on who you believe) is generated by phytoplankton in the oceans. The oceans on this planet are large and the continents are small, so I must say I believe them (the experts who study these things).

So to me the best source of Carbon Offsetting is not to plant a tree, but dump iron oxide, into the ocean, or anything else that stimulates phytoplankton production, more plankton more oxygen, more plankton happier whales, more plankton happier fish, and so on and so forth.

I must admit I am puzzled, with a whole planet a closed biosphere, where does all the carbon come from, is NASA importing it from outer space, or perhaps it is already here and we are merely releasing the carbon from where ever it came from.

Imagine people, we are not Carbon Emitters, but Carbon Liberators, we are freeing the carbon from being locked deep under ground as a fossil fuel, or from a nasty old tree stump, or even from nasty old coal.

Carbon is part of these things, we don't create it we merely release it. All right so we have been pretty busy liberating carbon over the last few hundred years, but that is nothing. Mother nature put it there in the first place, we are Earth's creatures and are only one more step in the cycle.

Every creature and plant on the planet creates carbon, whether it is in the form of Carbon Dioxide gas, or a tree storing the carbon in it's cells, we are carbon based life forms and as such carbon is part of us and everything around us. As humans we even need a certain level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to tell us to breath.

Carbon offsetting is merely a way for others to make us feel guilty for existing.

Yes, we humans have abused the ability to create carbon dioxide and now it is time to reduce what we do.

Carbon offsetting and carbon trading are a good way to do this. We need to limit the wholesale creation of Carbon Dioxide gas, but we need to look at the whole ecology of the planet.

As every creature and plant create Carbon Dioxide, we need to be sure that any future fix takes into account all the plants, and animals, as well as the man made.

Learn more about this author, Robert Mcmartin.
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