Are we greenwashing?

In the lower right column, you can see that we have offset a little over six pounds of your carbon. OK, we haven't really offset it, but CO2stats.com has gotten advertisers to offset the carbon generated by this site.  Or has it?  The FTC wants to know:

Corporations and shoppers in the United States spent more than $54 million last year on carbon offset credits toward tree planting, wind farms, solar plants and other projects to balance the emissions created by, say, using a laptop computer or flying on a jet.

But where exactly is that money going?

The Federal Trade Commission, which regulates advertising claims, raised the question Tuesday in its first hearing in a series on green marketing, this one focusing on carbon offsets.

As more companies use offset programs to create an environmental halo over their products, the commission said it was growing increasingly concerned that some green marketing assertions were not substantiated. Environmentalists have a word for such misleading advertising: “greenwashing.”

I don't know if the carbon is really being offset.  But I sleep a little better knowing John put that little green ticker on the site--even if it's part of the Grand Illusion...

America spells competition, join us in our blind ambition 
Get yourself a brand new motor car
Someday soon we'll stop to ponder what on earth's this spell we're under
We made the grade and still we wonder who the hell we are...

Comments

[John Whitehead]

Tim,

You're a troubled young man, I can tell.

[Tim Haab]

Not a Styx fan?

[Tim Haab]

Duh, I just got the joke. The lack of google hits has thrown my timing off.

[Ironman]

Some might say the problem is too much time on your hands....