TerraPass, The Carbon Fund, The Conservation Fund, and Sustainable Travel International will be glad to take your cash to soothe your environmental guilt.
I was recently entertained by a story of a of San Jose State University professor buying a TerraPass to ease her guilt. The good professor felt guilty about driving her Lexus. So to relieve her guilt, she bought a TerraPass from a San Francisco company that sells guilt reduction. In exchange, TerraPass gives her a sticker and says that they will invest the money in pollution-free industries.
The esteemed professor could have invested that money in the same pollution-free industries and received dividends from the investment. She could have used the money to plant carbon dioxide absorbing trees. But, neither of those options would award her with a guilt-saving sticker that she could show her peers. We can only hope that this professor doesn’t teach economics.
The TerraPass doesn’t limit this opportunity to the guilt-burdened drivers of automobiles. To offset the carbon emissions created on a 2,200 mile airline flight, TerraPass will let you relieve your guilt for $5.99.
The TerraPass promotion says, “We all have a ‘carbon footprint,’ the total carbon dioxide emissions we create when we drive or fly or use electricity . . . and you can eliminate your carbon footprint with TerraPass.” I have to hand it to TerraPass; this is a very inventive way to make money. Selling guilt is ingenious. It’s like selling a handful of smoke. It exceeds the ‘Pet Rock’ or anything that Charles Ponzi could have dreamed up. Ponzi is best known for his ‘Ponzi Scheme’ investments that promised huge returns for investors. Ponzi criminally bilked investors, but there is nothing illegal or deceptive about getting gullible people to pay you money to sooth their environmental guilt. I’m jealous that someone thought of selling environmental guilt reduction before I did.
As I began doing research for this column I found that TerraPass isn’t the only organization that will relieve your environmental guilt for cash. The Carbon Fund, The Conservation Fund, and Sustainable Travel International to name a few, will be glad to take you money. The Carbon Fund will be glad to declare your family ‘carbon neutral’ for a mere $99 per family member per year. In return, you will receive a certificate, bumper sticker, and window decal to show your jealous neighbors. The following are the guilt reduction fees the Conservation Fund charges owners of the following classes of cars: ‘Green’ car – $14.95/yr, ‘Efficient’ cars – $19.91/yr, ‘Full size’ cars – $29.92/ yr, and ‘SUV/Mega’ cars – $49.89/yr. Sustainable Travel International will “calculate the CO2 emissions released during your travels, from your home, or office energy consumption. You then neutralize this impact on climate change by investing in ‘MyClimate carbon offset projects.’" As long as you have money in your wallet, these ‘investments’ should reduce your environmental guilt. The economy must be in real good shape when people willingly pay money to purge their soul of environmental guilt.
Starting this spring, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) will begin ClimateSmart. ClimateSmart will calculate how much carbon dioxide households and businesses emit every month. Customers could either reduce their energy use or pay a guilt fee to PG&E to become “carbon neutral.” Like the other Eco-Guilt companies, PG&E is capitalizing on environmental guilt. At least all of these guilt reduction programs are voluntary.
Imagine the potential income of these programs. Al Gore is traveling the globe hyping carbon dioxide emissions and global warming in his apocalyptic environmental horror movie, An Inconvenient Truth. The mainstream media constantly warns the public about the global warming. And Britain’s Prince ‘Chuck’ has described climate change as the "biggest threat to mankind." All of this free advertisement could attract millions of Liberals overwhelmed with environmental guilt. Just think, a completely new industry was created based solely on environmental guilt.
Ain't America great?
I’ve never really understood the fixation on “guilt” that some of our critics have. It’s an incoherent criticism on many levels. And yet it seems such an inexplicably rich source of smugness, perhaps because it plays on certain self-flattering stereotypes held by the critics.
I say incoherent on many levels. Let’s break these down.
To begin with, TerraPass does not “sell guilt.” We sell carbon reductions. This is an intangible product, to be sure, but that doesn’t make it any less real. These reductions are verified and measurable.
Further, even if we suppose that some customers are motivated to purchase carbon offsets out of guilt, critics never particularly bother to establish why this is a bad or invalid thing. People buy things because they want to buy them. Since when do libertarians see fit to condemn free-market transactions based on the motivations of the buyers?
More importantly, the whole guilt angle is demonstrably false. Our customers don’t feel all that guilty. I know this because I talk to them. They feel excited and happy more than anything else, because they taking a positive action. The guilt complex is an invention of critics who fundamentally don’t care about the issue at hand, and can’t understand why anyone else would. It’s fun to sneer about “liberals overwhelmed with environmental guilt.” It prevents one from having to consider the fact that some people actually just value the environment.
Finally, the author of this piece seems to confuse a purchase of carbon offsets with an investment in “pollution-free industries.” This is a rather embarrassing error. The two have no more to do with one another than, say, buying a computer has to do with investing in Dell. The author’s inability to distinguish the two activities suggests that his research for this article ought to have included a refresher in basic economics.
Guilt or concern is the question. In either case here it reflects back on what we call Liberals.
Liberals are for the most part overridden with guilt, although they won’t admit it. Perhaps they themselves do realize it or at least won’t admit it to themselves. As for concern let me say that Liberals do have concern. Unfortunately it is unrational concern in most instances. They tend to make non-problems problems; non-issues issues.
On matters where their concern is justified their solutions usually are not. This is because their view of life is one of trying to make the world into some sort of fantasy world they hope to achieve. Liberals are looking to create something nearing utopia here on earth.
While that may be laudable it is also unrealistic. It is a fantasy, but one they are committed to. As such they are also vulnerable to all sorts of cons and pie-in-the-sky ideas. They are living the impossible dream
What Liberals leave out of their dream is human nature. They believe they can change that by government force. It hasn’t worked in the past nor will it in the future. But Liberals can’t stop dreaming, else their whole life becomes meaningless. That is why they are vulnerable to gurus and charlatans who propose to have the answer to life’s problems.