It has been more than a month since our Green Business Forum, and I have finally found the answer to a pressing question that was repeated several times that July 12th afternoon, “Can I personally purchase carbon offset credits on the open market, a-la Ebay or a similar auction site?” Surprisingly no on had heard of any projects offering such services, and to be fair I have been looking for this type of information for quite a long time without any luck. I happened to come across an interesting site today, PopTech!, that has a clear mission, “A network of remarkable people, extraordinary conferences, powerful ideas and innovative projects that are changing the world.” Being the serial entrepreneur that I am, I was immediately intrigued to dig deeper. In doing so I came across PopTech!’s carbon offset program. They got it right, they made it simple to understand, an easy to use platform integrated with Ebay, and a moderately successful PR campaign (frankly I never heard about it) to push the message. Although the auction period has long since expired, you can easily get the point of what they are trying to achieve–allow the masses to particpiate easily in creating a social change in the appreciation for the environment and a call to action at the individual level to effect change.

But, here is the thing that still has not yet been answered, and please someone comment on this blog. Does carbon offsetting really work, or are we just passing the buck to the guy who can do it cheaper that allows us to feel better about the CO2 we are individually pumping into the air? Does it not make more sense to simply reduce our dependency on the activities that necesiate fossil fuels that in turn pollute? That sounds a heck of a lot easier than any solution out on the table today. Combine that with actively taking the steps to offset whatever carbon emmissions you do emit, and you have a truely well armed environmental change agent.