Some carbon credits are legitimate, a market mechanism that efficiently allocates money to projects that offer the most bang for the buck, either reducing carbon emissions or sequestering carbon.

Some carbon credits are fraudulently created as a form of foreign aid, ironically aggravating the CO2 problem instead of mitigating it. Environmentalists buying such credits are wasting their money.

A major design failure of the Kyoto accords was treatment of foreign aid as interchangeable with actually doing something about CO2. If environmentalists want to be taken seriously (and address global warming), we must repudiate this mistake and eject the foreign aid parasites from the system, to allow dollars paid for CO2 remediation purposes to flow to real remediation projects.

What we all can do is behave responsibly, and not turn environmental issues into money making scams such as carbon offsets cloaked in phony righteousness, lies and “solutions”. Some environmental groups say that instead of buying carbon offsets, each person should do the hard work themselves: use less electricity, switch from coal to wind power, drive less, get on a bicycle.

And yes, if you are seriously concerned how about fly less? It’s disingenuous to pay into the carbon offset scam to allegedly “offset” the carbon cost of flights for a filmmaker arriving in the UK from America. Why do you need a film make anyway? I thought this was all about saving the planet, but instead it is again to simply draw attention to your own self-centeredness. People are usually uncomfortable when they are deceitful. For your book promotion flying back and forth across America, and flying your group out to take you pictures of you in Tarawa you put over 92,594 pounds of carbon into the atmosphere, not exactly an accomplishment to be proud of. That is what the average UK citizen produces in carbon into our atmosphere over the course of three and one half years.

If global warming or climate change or whatever you want to call it is so bad that the planet on which we live is literally on the brink of catastrophe, as you have continually told us, I would think you would do anything it takes to get the job done — including giving up your vanity and money grabbing under the guise of environmental concern. Can it really cost $5,000 to make a 200 mile walk? What about using your book advance, stop scamming people.

Leaf blowers will be outlawed and people will have to use nice, quiet non-gas-powered rakes.

Abandoned housing and business developments would be converted back to wildlife habitat via mostly manual labor.

My marriage would be recognized outside of Canada.

You have no idea how that hits home with me. Last Monday I accompanied my and son, grandson and daughter-in-law to the hospital for the birth of my granddaughter. The first thing they did after she was born was to insist that the newborn infant have a hepatitis B shot. I will leave it as this…..I was a completely beside myself. I agree with you whole heartedly.

The more subsidized something is, the less efficient it is, by definition. I analyzed our county government’s bus system 20 years ago, and concluded that it spent so much money that it generated far more car trips (by the people paid by the transit system) than it eliminated (by people who used the transit system). The more you increase a subsidy the more problematic this irony becomes.

Even without regards to the economics of subsidy, the giant diesel-belching buses were simply not efficient transport, compared to modern compact cars, and made the roads less efficient for everyone blocked by these behemoths. Most of the time they drive around mostly empty, and the more subsidy you add, the more and emptier buses there are driving around. Private cars operate only when utilized, and get more efficient every year (apart from SUV’s, and those drivers won’t get on a bus, even if you pay them).

I forget who made the observation, but it is apt: “Most people support public transit on the theory that *other* people will get off the road, but have no plans to change their own driving habits.”

The second thing I would do is have humanity stop working against nature. Nature has cycles and I believe people would be a great deal happier and healthier if they learned how to get in sync with nature instead of challenging it or working against it.

I believe learning both of these things would heal the earth and humanity. The biggest adversary in achieving all of this is fear which makes me believe that people don’t understand or trust the Creator of all creation.

No saltwater fishing? How many people aroung the world will then starve to death?

And I’d put in place Pollution Police to clean the Earth’s rivers and streams. Roz, you have missed rivers and estuaries, unlike friends who cruise on sailboats to South East Asia and many other places. Their descriptions are saddening, at best.