Umlauts, in case you did not know, are defined as:

1.) noun. A mark (¨) used as a diacritic over a vowel, as ä, ö, ü, to indicate a vowel sound different from that of the letter without the diacritic, esp. as so used in German.

2.) noun. Two floating dot things that add instant authenticity, awesomeness and a sense of superiority to any word, especially fake foreign junk foods or ’80s metal bands.  Usage: “Häagen-Dazs kicks TCBY’s ass” or “Mötley Crüe kicks Quiet Riot’s and Twisted Sister’s asses put together, combined.  But the ass-kicking capacities of Motörhead and Queensrÿche are statistically, about even.”

Leave it to some persnickity bureaucrats at the United Nations to rain on the parade.  Those picky snoops just suspended TÜV SÜD’s verification of offsets in the world’s largest offset scheme.  Here’s what the UK’s Telegraph newspaper had to say:

“In the past week, the United Nations has been forced to suspend the world’s second biggest carbon offsetting auditor TÜV SÜD under its “clean development mechanism” (CDM) programme over concerns about its practices that were revealed in a spot check. This follows the temporary suspension last year of the biggest and third biggest auditors – between them, the top three are in charge of verifying 70pc of the world’s $30bn offset market.”

So, let me get this straight. The UN has had to suspend the number 1, number 2, and number 3 largest verifiers of carbon offsets in the last year…and those auditors approve the vast majority of the offsets being bought an sold in the world today?  And the liberal media wants us to be upset with these auditing companies?  Or, to distrust carbon offsets themselves?

Högwäsh!!!

First of all, the author of the Telegraph article gave her smear-piece the ridiculous title: “Carbon offsetting needs to stop looking like a medieval religious practice.” Now, I’ve already written about the importance of embracing medieval ideals.  Don’t make me get medieval on you for getting on me for getting medieval.

Second, as C.R.O.C. points out all the time, carbon offsets are the best way to make it look like we’re doing something about global warming.  This is about appearances.  Because appearances make results. Superman without tights is just Clark Kent.  Batman without a cape is just Bruce Wayne.  Hipsters without bad clothes, Apple products and PBRs are just insecure posers trying to get over the psychological damage of being unattractive, mediocre and consistently picked last in gym class throughout high school.

Did you know Häagen-Dazs is a nonsense name for an ice-cream brand started in Brooklyn by Polish immigrants?  They made ba-gillions of bucks fooling people into thinking that stuff was a super-food blessed by the queen of Sweden or something.  Well, the Queen of Sweden herself was born in Heidelberg (editor’s note: not in Sweden) to German/Brazilian parents.  Nothing in this world is what it looks like…so we may as well all look good and stop asking questions.  Appearances, baby.  Umlauts, baby.

No one ever said carbon offsets are supposed to actually prevent every ton of carbon pollution they claim to stop.  Proving that would be near impossible.  And totally hard.

We’re all way better off by concentrating on trust, not doubt.  Faith, not skepticism.  The cover of a book, not what may or may not be written on its pages.

If an offset auditor with umlauts in its name says an offset is a-okay, we should take them at their word.  That should be good enough for us and good enough for the climate.  What’s the alternative?  Keep suspending the world’s largest offset validators?  Stop the Earth from spinning?  Replace dirty coal plants with clean wind turbines?  Invest in green jobs to help revive the American economy?  Keep Tommy Lee away from Jack Daniels?

Yeah.  Göödlück with that.

-Carl