Indulgent Offsets: can we Buy off our Environmental Sins?

By Anastacia Mott Austin

Is it ever possible to pay for our sins?

Martin Luther might say no, Al Gore might say yes.

An increasingly common comparison is being made between the purchase of carbon offsets to "pay" for our polluting ways, and the practice of buying indulgences to pay off time in purgatory in the early days of the Catholic church.

Let’s compare.

In the early Roman Catholic church, if someone committed a sin it was important to have some kind of evidence (beyond the sinner’s claim) of his or her desire to mitigate the damage done by having sinned. The Church developed a concept called "temporal punishment." The sinner had to go through a period of punishment and repentance, and this later could include doing "good works" in order to balance out the sin.

If someone had not sufficiently taken care of the sin through the doing of good works, then upon death this person would be remitted to purgatory to continue the punishment, until such time as the sin had been paid for, and the soul would then ascend into Heaven.

Eventually the Church decided that its clergy members were doing so many good works themselves, and needed money to pay for the services they were providing, that they would be permitted to in effect "sell" their own good works (of which they had an abundance next to their comparatively low sin tally) to replace those of everyday sinners.

People would pay a certain amount of money to a bishop or other representative of the Church, and be given a piece of paper with the proof that they had served out their temporal punishment (if the amount of money was sufficient), and thus be spared that time in purgatory.

In essence, people who had sinned and who would not or could not serve out their own temporal punishment by doing good works were permitted to "buy" the good works of others to clear their own records.

Now let’s look at carbon offsets: Anyone with a laptop can visit a number of websites that will allow you to calculate your own carbon "footprint;" the amount of personal pollution you emit as a human being. You can then invest the monetary equivalent of your excess footprint into any number of environmentally conscious organizations who will do things to offset your excess; plant trees, invest in environmentally sustainable eco business, etc. In essence, you’re paying someone to balance out your excess pollution.

I’ll allow you to draw your own conclusions, but several troubling questions arise. Even if paying someone else to live the environmentally sustainable life you’re supposed to be living alleviates your guilt, and even helps the environment out a bit, does it actually make up for your excess?

No. (Drawing the conclusion for you there.)

If you’ve got the cash to invest in tree-planting in some third-world country because you want to keep driving your SUV, shouldn’t you a) be investing in that operation anyway, and b) reducing your own footprint…anyway?

Environmental damage is still done, whether you pay for it or not. We’re still wrecking the planet, even if a wind-powered farm in India has its operating costs covered. As writer George Monbiot wrote in his essay on the same topic, "Buying and selling carbon offsets is like pushing the food around on your plate to create the impression that you have eaten it."

Adds Monbiot, "Even if, through carbon offset schemes carried out in developing countries, every poor nation on the planet became carbon-free, we would still have to cut most of the carbon we produce at home" in order to create any real effect toward slowing global warming.

The second irony here is that the developing nations hosting these wonderful carbon-neutral operations are for the most part far less responsible for the worldwide carbon output than the rich Americans paying off their guilt.

Some would argue that the idea of carbon offsetting is better than nothing. At least the polluters are contributing to the solution in some way, right? They’d still be expanding their giant footprints but paying for something else to assuage their guilt – illegal prescription drugs, maybe.

( I say "they" and probably should say "we." I’m not filthy rich and driving a Hummer, but my Volkswagen van sure ain’t no hybrid when it comes to gas mileage. So I should talk…)

Where’s our Martin Luther?

Luther came along in the early 16th century and posted his "95 Theses" on the door of the local church in Wittenburg. One of Luther’s primary objections was the sale of indulgences, as he believed that God alone could grant absolution of sins.

Perhaps our modern "95 Theses" will come from the likes of Monbiot, who closed his compelling article with these words:

"At the offices of Travelcare and the forecourts owned by BP, you can now buy complacency, political apathy and self-satisfaction. But you cannot buy the survival of the planet."