Stupid Green Ideas: Climate Change Chocolate...

Several weeks ago while attending a conference and trade show in Toronto, I stopped by the booth for a small but prestigious downtown Toronto law firm. After chatting with the young articling student tasked with the poor duty of standing around all day, she handed me a chocolate bar.

I'm used to getting free stuff at these things, but never an entire chocolate bar. Moreover, this was no ordinary chocolate bar. It was a Climate Change Chocolate Bar.

For each chocolate bar produced, a carbon offset group known as TerraPass will offset 133 pounds of carbon dioxide production in one of their projects somewhere in the world. The 133 pounds is not meant to offset the environmental impact of the chocolate bar itself, but rather the average daily carbon impact of an American person, although I'm not sure how verifiable that figure is.

So basically, when you bite down into the chocolate -- which wasn't half bad -- you can happily pat yourself on the back knowing that any carbon emissions you produce that day will be taken care of by someone else.

Wow! This is fantastic. All of these 'green' folks keep telling me all the things I need to do to reduce my personal carbon emissions. You know, turn off my lights, ride a bike, put solar panels on my roof and other things that will inconvenience my life. Screw 'em! I don't need to change anything. I'll just jump back in my Escalade, eat my chocolate bars and let someone else take care of it. Plus, the labels contain different environmentally-friendly things people can do, just in case you don't feel the chocolate is enough.

Apart from the fact that carbon offset groups aren't seriously regulated, their offset projects don't always work and the actual offset calculations are often arbitrary, I don't see anything else wrong with this.

I may have produced a pound or two of carbon while writing this. Good thing I have this chocolate bar...