I shake my head in disbelief when politicians, in a desperate effort to win the so-called green vote, boast about how they have “offset” the carbon dioxide released during their travel activities by having one or two trees planted – particularly when the BBC reported this week that more often than not, these “offset” trees are already in the ground and were planted before “offsetting” was dreamt of.
Let’s get these trees in perspective. In the space of a few generations, we humans have released carbon dioxide that it took trees and other plants hundreds of millions of years to lock up in fossil fuels. To believe that planting a few trees now will “offset” or re-absorb this carbon dioxide is ludicrous. There isn’t enough land on earth to plant the number of trees needed to offset the carbon dioxide we have released (and shall continue to release in the years ahead).
To believe this sort of counting is just about as credible as believing that nations can grow wealthy in the long term by simply lowering interest rates to increase the money supply. The politicians boasting about their carbon-offsets and the economists who advocate wealth creation through inflationary monetary policies are well matched in their myopia.