Personal Carbon Credits

Feeling guilty about driving your SUV through the crowded streets of the city while a grey pall of smog sits on the horizon? Now you can assuage your guilt by doing what some of the biggest industrial polluters do: buy "carbon credits" to offset your personal greenhouse gas emissions. Companies are springing up across North America to arrange these transactions. They'll calculate the annual emissions from your car, and sell you a credit that means someone else's pollution-cutting efforts have balanced off your greenhouse gas creation. For your credit card payment, usually between $50 and$100, you get a sticker that shows your car emissions have been offset. While the business appears ripe for scams, environmental activists say so far there's no hint of scandal, and they support a trend encouraging people to take responsibility for their role in global warming.

(Source: Globe & Mail in June 2006 WasteWatch)

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