A plastic-bag vignette

Shopping for groceries in the Byward Market this morning, we saw some trifling but real evidence that the people are indeed ahead of the politicians.

At the fruit and vegetable shop, while we loaded our celery and sweet potatoes into our knapsacks, the fellow just before us returned to hand back one of his two plastic bags. “It all fits in this one,” he said.

At the Italian grocery, the guy in front of us stopped the clerk from double-bagging his purchases by rebalancing the load among other sacks he already had. The people after us declined bags altogether: “It’s OK, we’ve got our own,” the woman said.

This is small stuff, but the sheer frequency of it was telling, I hope.

The case against carbon offsets gets stronger

The New York Times looks into carbon offsets — paying someone to plant a tree or something so you can say your SUV (or new corporate HQ, or presidential campaign )is carbon-neutral — and finds that not even their defenders think they’re so great.

“The worst of the carbon-offset programs resemble the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences back before the Reformation,” said Denis Hayes, the president of the Bullitt Foundation, an environmental grant-making group. “Instead of reducing their carbon footprints, people take private jets and stretch limos, and then think they can buy an indulgence to forgive their sins.”

“This whole game is badly in need of a modern Martin Luther,” Mr. Hayes added.

The pro case doesn’t even seriously contend that offsets fully compensate for most carbon emissions, particularly given how quickly you can burn a tank of gas versus how long it takes a dozen trees to grow. Its strongest argument is that buying carbon offsets builds awareness and, heck, at least it’s doing something, right?

I have some sympathy for this, but the point is that offsets don’t get us where we need to be.