F.T.C. Asks if Carbon-Offset Money Is Well Spent

[flashl]

Corporations and shoppers in the United States spent more than $54 million last year on carbon offset credits toward tree planting, wind farms, solar plants and other projects to balance the emissions created by, say, using a laptop computer or flying on a jet.

But where exactly is that money going?

The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates advertising claims, raised the question Tuesday in its first hearing in a series on green marketing, this one focusing on carbon offsets.

As more companies use offset programs to create an environmental halo over their products, the commission said it was growing increasingly concerned that some green marketing assertions were not substantiated. Environmentalists have a word for such misleading advertising: “greenwashing.”

With the rapid growth of green programs like carbon offsets, “there’s a heightened potential for deception,” said Deborah Platt Majoras, chairwoman of the commission.

The F.T.C. has not updated its environmental advertising guidelines, known as the Green Guides, since 1998. Back then, the agency did not create definitions for phrases that are common now — like renewable energy, carbon offsets and sustainability.

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If anyone understands these carbon credits, I would like to learn more about them. The carbon credits as I understand them, is just another form of derivatives, but this time its environmental microeconomics.

[Common Sense Party]

1. There is a HUGE potential for fraud and robbery here.

Who is going to regulate this system? Who is going to ensure that contributors are not merely being bilked and scammed?