You heard it right, he buys the carbon offsets, those shell game feel good carbon credits that he claims reduces his eco unfriendly carbon footprint from himself.

Here is how.  From Ecotality:

Why the Gore Story Matters

As the controversy over global warming doomsayer Al Gore’s voracious energy-eater mansion rolls on, there’s an angle I think merits deeper investigation than it is currently getting. While much of the focus has been on whether or not Gore is an environmental hypocrite, the story has raised the profile of the role of “carbon offsets” in achieving a “greener,” more environmentally friendly world.

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As Wikipedia explains, a carbon offset “is a service that tries to reduce the net carbon emissions of individuals or organizations indirectly,, through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases.” Wikipedia goes on to explain that “a wide variety of offset actions are available; tree planting is the most common. Renewable energy and energy conservation offsets are also popular, including emissions trading credits.”

So far, so good. So, where does Gore buy his ‘carbon offsets’? According to The Tennessean newspaper’s report, Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management. a company he co-founded and serves as chairman:

Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe…

It gets better:

As co-founder and chairman of the firm Gore presumably draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he “buys” his “carbon offsets” from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. To be blunt, Gore doesn’t buy “carbon offsets” through Generation Investment Management - he buys stocks.

And it is not clear at all that Gore’s stock purchases - excuse me, “carbon offsets” purchases - actually help reduce the use of carbon-based energy at all, while the gas lanterns and other carbon-based energy burners at his house continue to burn carbon-based fuels and pump carbon emissions - a/k/a/ “greenhouse gases” - into the atmosphere.

And as I have noted the entire concept of “buying offsets” is a joke anyway.  It is an elitist environmental version of the old Catholic Indulgences.

In this case, Gore is funding a profit based company with money and publicity, and is using his celebrity status to increase his companies income.

So when someone says “Al must be telling the truth, he has no monetary interest in it” you may want to say…uh yea, right, except for the part where he does, and stands to be a wealthy man on everyone’s guilt.

And now there is a question as to their effectiveness.

But do Gore’s “carbon offsets” payments really compensate for his big non-green power usage?

Wikipedia again:

The intended goal of carbon offsets is to combat global warming. The appeal of becoming “carbon neutral” has contributed to the growth of voluntary offsets, which often are a more cost-effective alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption. However, the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.

Did you get that? Carbon offsets are an “alternative to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption” and yet “the actual amount of carbon reduction (if any) from an offset project is difficult to measure, largely unregulated, and vulnerable to misrepresentation.”

And if that was not bad enough, then there is this:  The NY Times has exposed even more:

Guilt-Free Pollution. Or Is It

Two years ago, Sami Grover, an environmentally minded Englishman, vowed to take his last trip by airplane. Then a summer romance in North Carolina turned into a long-distance love affair — and then into months of busy trans-Atlantic travel.

To compensate for the tons of greenhouse gases the couple’s plane trips helped spew into the atmosphere, Mr. Grover quietly began paying Climate Care, a British company, to help make the world a little greener for him and his girlfriend.

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These days, pop stars, chief executives and politicians vaunt how they offset carbon emissions by planting trees or investing in renewable energy projects — many in poorer countries in Africa or in India.

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The operations reflect a new consciousness about climate change, but scientists and environmental watchdogs say that the carbon trading actually may be producing little of real value to the environment.

“These companies may be operating with the best will in the world, but they are doing so in settings where it’s not really clear you can monitor and enforce their projects over time,” said Steve Rayner, a senior professor at Oxford and a member of a group working on reducing greenhouse gases for the International Panel on Climate Change. “What these companies are allowing people to do is carry on with their current behavior with a clear conscience.”

Yep.  The point of environmental conservation is to reduce waste and preserve resources, that is what my generation learned.  Now the new mantra is not reduce, it is Offset.

Still, it’s a good start right?  Is it?

Another green-looking investment has drawn substantial controversy — the planting of trees, to which consumers often flock as a symbol of saving the environment. Scientists and environmentalists tend to agree, however, that mass plantings are among the least effective initiatives for offsetting carbon footprints.

Any number of problems can arise with tree-planting programs. One of the most troubled tree projects, say these critics, is linked to GreenSeat, a Dutch carbon-offset business. GreenSeat buys offsets from a Dutch foundation involved in the reforestation of Mount Elgon National Park in east Uganda, with a tree-planting program that it guarantees for 99 years, relying on close cooperation with the local population.

The reality, said Jutta Kill, a climate campaigner at Fern, an organization monitoring the carbon market, is that villagers living along the boundary of the park have been beaten and shot at, and their livestock has been confiscated by armed park rangers because of disputes over ownership of the land.

How friendly.  Al should feel proud.

In reality the programs do nothing to reduce emissions at all, they just make you feel better about it.

Useless.  More typical elitist feel good policy.

More at:  Don Surber, Redstate, LIBERTAS, Bill Hobbs, Blue Crab Boulevard, Transterrestrial Musings, Riehl World View