It seems to be a fad in current times for people with a lot of money and a social conscience to seek out that environmental nirvana called “carbon neutrality.” As I understand it, that means that they live their lives such that they dump no more carbon into the ecosystem than they take out. (It seems they’re focusing on carbon dioxide released into the air through various combustion processes. I don’t know why they don’t call it, “carbon dioxide neutrality.”)

Except they don’t actually change their lifestyle any more than is convenient. Instead, they buy “carbon offsets,” which represent other people’s carbon deficit. Or surplus. Whichever. It’s like, if I don’t save up any grain to get me through the winter, and you have more than you need, I’ll buy some of yours and we both get to eat. And meanwhile I can fool around while you do all the work. Everybody wins!

You’ll notice that this transaction does exactly nothing about the actual amount of carbon dioxide finding its way into the air. All it does is change who gets to claim responsibility. The people buying these offsets are literally getting nothing for their money except the warm fuzzy. But hey, if that’s what it takes so they can sleep at night, more power to them.

However, it occurs to me that this offset system provides a golden opportunity for rich, lazy polluters to do so much better than carbon neutrality. Why settle for having a carbon footprint of zero when, for just a little more cash, you can have a negative carbon footprint? Instead of flying around in private jets and pretending you aren’t screwing up the environment, why not fly around pretending you’re actually making things better?

Obviously, you want to do as much as humanly possible to reverse the oncoming ecological disaster. All life on Earth is depending on you, personally. If all you’re paying for is the cancellation of your sins, you aren’t doing as much as you could. Open those wallets. Crack those trust funds. If you have any money you aren’t spending on carbon offsets, you’re killing the planet! Are you going to let Tim Robbins and Al Gore do more than you to save Mother Gaia?

(I don’t actually know if Tim Robbins is into the carbon neutrality thing. I just can’t imagine that he isn’t.)