From www.friendsofscience.org comes this section:

MYTH 1:  Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.

FACT:  Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas (“heat islands”), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas (“land use effects”).

There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.

MYTH 2:  The “hockey stick” graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature increase for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

FACT:  Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17^th Century the “average global temperature” has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.

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Thanks to a team of US scientists we have now learned that “dark surfaces absorb sunlight while bright surfaces reflect heat”. (“Clean up your snow to fight global warming, Canada urged”, The Ottawa Citizen, June 11). We found that out the hard way back in the seventies upon returning to the vehicle after a hot day at the beach but I suppose none of these scientists ever owned a VW Rabbit with chocolate brown vinyl seats. They now want us to clean up our snow so it is a little less dark and a bit more white so it’ll help the fight against global warming. Good plan! But why stop there? There are tons of things around us that could be a bit whiter. We could all drive white cars, and outlaw that orange Lamborghini. We could paint all of our houses white, including the roofs. The roads could be white with black lines. Purolater and FedEx would be fine, but UPS would be out of business. No more black tie dinners. From now on, it’ll be stritcly white tie affairs. Get the folks at the nurseries to cultivate a new hydbrid grass that is white, or at least one that is a lighter shade of green. Our zoos would only house albino animals. Blondes would be better for the environment than brunettes. Yay Sweden! And lastly, we could slap a label “eco friendly race” on all white people, and “carbon generator” on all darker skinned races. This global waming nonsense has been going on long enough. Let’s get back to common sense.

I don’t care what my carbon footprint is. I really don’t. And I don’t care about yours, or anybody else’s. “Carbon Footprint” represents nothing more than tons of money for a select group of people. Last year over $30 BILLION dollars of Carbon Credit Trading went to China, and for it, their emissions are going up, and up, and up… There are now numerous “companies” selling Carbon Credits. For $50, $100 or $200 you can buy “Carbon Credits”. Most of these “companies” don’t even suggest to try to let you know how this DONATION will shrink your “carbon footprint”. Most of them have vague terms, like “This purchase will offset your carbon”. Whatever that means. From www.zerofootprint.net when purchasing something called “Travel Offset”:

So before the guilt of visiting Grandma overwhelms you, take heart: there is a way to be responsible. Zerofootprint Travel Offsets are an ideal way of balancing out your air travel carbon footprint. Each Travel Offset is equal to one tonne of carbon removed from the atmosphere. Just purchase as many as you need to cover the carbon your flight creates.

And further on:

In 2006, our project developed over 200,000 tonnes of carbon credits in the District of Maple Ridge over an area of approximately 83 hectares, and involved the planting of over 25,000 indigenous Douglas firs, Sitka spruces, Western red cedars, Western hemlocks and cotton woods

So, if I may recalculate: ZeroFootprint sold 200,000 tonnes worth of Carbon Credits, and for it, it planted a grand total of 25,000 trees. At $10 per tonne, Zerofootprint made $2,000,000 dollars, and planted 25,000 trees for it. Planting trees with a reputable firm will cost you around $1 per tree. Not a bad profit there: $25,000 for trees, $2,000,000 in revenues, that’s a profit of 1,975,000 or 99%. And anybody who’s ever done any treeplanting would know, you could plant over 200,000 seedlings by yourself in a planting season. They claim they planted 25,000 trees in one year, which is exactly what one planter can do in about 10 days.

This year, they suggest to be planting 100,000 trees, so in keeping with their math, they sold $8,000,000 worth of credits. Not a bad business to be in!

Last year, in Canada, there were over 600,000,000 trees planted by the forrestry industry. 99.99% of them had nothing to do with carbon credits. They would have been planted anyway. Going through Zerofootprint, you’re spending good money to have 1/8 of a seedling planted per $10. If you were to go to a treeplanting place, you could have 10 trees planted for that money, but it doesn’t give you that same guilt-alleviating satisfaction of being able to say “I offset my carbon footprint today!”

In addition:  a tree is estimated to absorb 1 tonne of carbon per year over its 80 year growth period. After that, the tree lives hardly absorbing CO2 and then dies and rot releasing the carbon back into the atmosphere. So, in other words, you’re only suspending the carbon for about 80 years. You’re not making it go away at all. In fact, you’re spending $10 per tonne to have your carbon stored in a tree for 80 years.

Your carbon output is not reduced, it is temporarily suspended.

And that is why I do not care what my carbon footprint is. I don’t go for these buzz-words that everybody uses to sound like they care. They can still fly and drive their big SUV’s mind you, because they ‘offset’ their ‘carbon usage’ by purchasing ‘carbon credits’. Sounds like a lot of hot air to me.

If you still want to know what my footprint is, you can find it up David Suzuki’s ass.