EROS, 3 Rs & Carbon Off-setting (updated)

Neil Jeffers suggested to me that carbon off-setting is surprisingly like medieval indulgences, though we couldn't remember where the idea had presented itself.

Damaging Mother Earth is one of the few sins left in our culture.

The idea of medieval indulgences (or at least their popular abuse) is that you can go on sinning as long as you pay to tap into someone elses store of merit which they have accumulated through righteous acts (such as planting trees) and avoiding vice (such as airline travel).

Perhaps we could run an online competition to update Tetzel's famous advertising jingle for carbon off-setting by completing the sentance:

When a coin in the coffer rings...

Extra points for submissions that also rhyme in German.

I hasten to add that this guilt by association is not necesserily the best argument in the world as such, but I still think its rather pleasing.

By the way, I was talking to Gerv who said that if one bought all this carbon footprint stuff, you should follow the EROS stratergy:

Eliminate the carbon use that you can
Reduce the carbon use that you can
Off-Set your remaining carbon use.

Gerv argued that we all need to do our bit, however small, since there is no magic switch (no big win corporate solutions). I'm not so sure about that, especially when we have such big states, but that's another argument I'm not likely to win any time soon, so there you go.

He also argued that recycling aluminium cans, glass, and I imagine also plastics is worthwhile. Driving to the recycling centre especially is a bad idea. And I guess if the council are going to collect ordinary rubbish and recyclables seperately they really need to make sure most "bins" of both sorts are mostly full if its not to be counterproductive.

Update:

I believe that reading, writing and arithmetic have now been replaced in our schools by the 3 "R"s of rubbish:

Reduce
Reuse
Recycle
Refuse

I know there aren't 3 but at least they all start with "R" this time.