Letters to the Editor
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The real solution
As "Anonymous" said, buying carbon credits is like the medieval practice of buying indulgences. You write a check, which takes no real effort, and walk away with your soul cleansed.
The true solution is population reduction. There are too many people. Birth control should be free on demand all over the globe. I understand that men lined up for free vasectomies in Thailand some time ago. Wouldn't it be great if there was a free snip clinic on every corner?
One may argue that a potential child might be the one to solve the problem of global warming. That's the kind of conceit that makes me snort coffee through my nose. No one person is going to solve that problem, and in a world of six billion people, the odds are really long that one given child is going to be the M.K. Ghandi of the environment.
I was with a group of women and one had just had a child. She was sitting there mooning about how she's environmentally conscious, but still wanted one more child because "What could one little baby do?" She drove off in her SUV after the meeting. A year later, she'd proudly announced that she had a second child. She sat there mooning about how much she loved babies and mused on having a third, because "What could one little baby do?" If I were not an atheist, I would have prayed for a general strike by her municipal santitation department, so she could see what one little baby could do.
Buying land and trees is a feel good solution, but future generations of people who just want money or subsistence are going to cut those trees down, buy that land, and chuckle at what a bunch of chumps those carbon credit people are.
If you want to help the planet, do everything you can to make birth control and good medical care for children* worldwide available, preferably for free.
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* If people know their children will live to adulthood, they're more likely to stop at 2, rather than 8.