Are Carbon Offsets Really Offsetting Anything?
Every year on or around Earth Day, the subject of carbon comes up. What exactly is carbon though? We reference it in many different ways, from reducing our “carbon footprint” to the carbon in the air and the carbonite that Han was frozen in. So what is carbon? Carbon is the chemical basis for all known life on Earth. Not just life, but carbon is present in all materials, organic or otherwise. It’s everywhere and in everything. Besides oxygen it’s the most abundant element in the human body. Carbon is in the air we breathe, in the food we eat and in the clothes we wear. Carbon is in the video games (plastic from hydrocarbons), the comic books (paper) and the action figures (rubber, plastic) that populate our carbon-based bookshelves (wood). On the Periodic Table, carbon sits comfortably in group number 14, atomic number six. Carbon was known about during prehistorical times, of course with less scientific realization about its nature. Carbon was known most familiarly in those times as c
