Hold onto your hemp sandals, treehuggers.  Don’t drop your vanilla soy lattes, yippies.  According to a new offset plan:

CLEARCUTS + SMOKESTACKS = AWESOMENESS for the CLIMATE!!!

I told you to hold onto that latte.  While you’re cleaning the coffee stain out of your pants, let me explain.

California is building a cap and trade system.  And instead of always requiring polluters to clean up their act, the State — in it’s infinite wisdom — is allowing polluters to buy offsets so they can keep polluting.  You’re thinking, “Ok, whatever, Carl.  Big deal.  California should join the Give-Polluters-a-Pass-With-Offsets-Club.”  Hold on.  Here’s where it gets great/weird.

Because calculating the value of offsets involves plenty of math and lots of ifs, ands and what-have-yous, there is room to be creative.  So, like master artists molding clay, logging company lobbyists have talked state officials into believing that clearcutting — something linked to climate pollution — is actually good for the climate.  Too good to be true?  If you don’t believe me, read a bono-fide news article about it by clicking on this “hyperlink.”

Anyway, here’s how you do it.  First, you promise to do a little less clearcutting than you “planned.”  If you are a logging company, your “plans” are totally up you to and you can change them all the time.

Then, you can talk about the baby trees you will plant in the clearcut — and how are starving for CO2.  You explain how they are hungry little carbon sticks that just can’t wait to offset pollution somewhere else.

Next, stir in some calculations (don’t be stingy with the math!) about how much carbon is theoretically stored in the wood you got from trees in the clearcut and… PRESTO!  You can conjure up a mountain of offset credits worth millions of dollars!

So, the air can get dirtier in Los Angeles as long as corporate polluters buy offsets from clearcuts in the Sierra Mountains!  Clearcut for the climate! Another win-win made possible by carbon offsets!

Does it get any better than this?

No, not really.  So relish it now.  Take a minute and savor it.  Breathe deep…but not too deep if you are near a new coal-fired power plant outside of Fresno or something.  Offsets may be unbelievably miraculous, but they can’t cure lung cancer…yet.

Ever have one of those days when the sun seems to be shining especially for you?  When your hair looks sharp and you don’t spill coffee on your slacks?  When you find matching socks right away and didn’t have to look in the dirty clothes bin?  When there’s no barking from the dog, and your mom made breakfast with no hog?  That’s the kind of fantastic day I’m having.

Why?  Well, because I found one of those really great inspirational quotes.  You know, the kind of quote that people put at the end of their emails, often in purple “comic sans” font to inform and/or amuse others as they clean out their inboxes.

Quick backstory.  The esteemed Rick Boucher, a Congressman from Virginia, is a friend of big utility companies.  And why wouldn’t he be?  They are his Number One fan…if, by “fan,” you mean cash donators.  They coughed up $231,597 for the guy the last time he ran for re-election! Damn.  I’ll be your buddy for less than that!

Anyway, some folks have given ol’ Boucher guff about voting for the “American Clean Energy & Security” or “ACES” bill.  They said – “Hey Rick! What are you, a climate-hugger or something?”  They thought he was getting soft and turning his back on big polluting energy conglomerates.

Dumbies.  Boucher knows what he’s doing.  He pointed out in the press that the 2 billion tons of offsets in the ACES bill gets polluters off the hook:

“…Boucher said the bill now includes 2 billion tons of carbon offsets available to industrial emitters to help them satisfy their reduction obligations.

‘That means an electric utility burning coal will not have to reduce the emissions at the plant site. It can just keep burning coal,’ he explained.”

Boo-yah!!!  In your face, doubters.  With enough offsets, utilities “can just keep burning coal.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.  More proof that offsets are a win-win for polluters and politicians.  Suck on that, Greenpeace.  I wonder if Jean can show me how to put that quote on my emails.

I’m gonna have to friend Boucher on Friendster and “poke” him on Facebook.

Carl

Wow!  Seems like the world wide interweb is a good way to make friends!  We’ve been online the “net” for only a day, and we’re already hearing from tons of Offset-ateers out there fighting the good fight.

To paraphrase the Beastie Boys, “you gotta fight, for your right, to OFFFFF-SET!!!”

‘Cause if we don’t stand up for offsets who will?  Big polluters like American Electric Power, Duke Energy, BP, ConocoPhillips, DuPont, General Motors, Dow Chemical and Shell?  I don’t think so.

Sure, they may have dropped millions of dollars lobbying Congress for billions of tons of offsets, but what makes you think they’ll get that?  Congress won’t listen to big business.  Never have, never will!

That’s why your help is needed.  You don’t need to be a professional lobbyist for polluting industries (though it could help).  Use the Earned Devastation Calculator!  Spread the word virtually to your real cyber friends on the Facebooks, and to your space on MySpace…and if you are into birds, do the Twitter too.

Can’t let the doubting doubters with their questions win.  We need an Amendment for offsetting.  How many Amendments are we up to in the Constitution?  Ah forget it.  Put it in the Bill of Rights.  Better yet, the Declaration of Independence!

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of ga-zillions of tons of offsets so we can keep polluting as much as we (and giant coal companies) darn please.”

Hey, I think I’m onto something.  Got a nice ring to it doesn’t it?  Who’s with me?  I mean, besides big polluting multi-national corporations?

Carl

Hi dee ho. This is Carl Cordova, official C.R.O.C. spokesperson and, apparently, chief blogger. I was told that to reach the teeming masses of youngsters out there in cyberland, we absolutely had to have one of these.

So here I am. Typing. If you’re reading this you must really love the environment, because at C.R.O.C., we do too. We love it so much, we want to make sure that environmental destruction goes hand in hand with theoretical environmental protection. Makes sense, doesn’t it? We think so.

If you don’t get it, you will. C.R.O.C. is here to help people like you reap the benefits of carbon offsets, then wreak havoc on the environment you love so much. If you haven’t checked out our Earned Devastation Calculator, do it now. It’s the quickest way to find out how much environmental destruction you’re entitled to do. Before you know it, you’ll be acting like a big ol’ multi-national polluter – doing some good things here and there so you get off the hook for bad things you want to do.

Bet you never thought that hybrid of yours would give you the right to set fire to an old-growth redwood forest. Well, today’s the day. And tomorrow looks even brighter, if you don’t think about the pollution. And we sure don’t. It’s been offset, right? You’re damn right it has.