Editorial: Climate change solution?

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

Land Rover Las Vegas is seeking to take the guilt - and, in its view, the environmental burden of increased carbon dioxide emissions - out of the purchase of sport utility vehicles by offering to purchase carbon offsets for every SUV it sells.

Carbon offsets are the latest fad in environmentally conscious, or "green," living in which people concerned about global warming can mitigate the carbon dioxide emissions from their daily activities by donating money to plant trees.

Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, and trees absorb carbon dioxide. So the idea is to plant more trees to absorb more carbon dioxide.

Whether carbon offsets actually work to significantly reduce carbon dioxide or are simply a way for people to buy their way out of feeling guilty without having to change their consumption habits, however, depends on whom you ask.

Las Vegas Land Rover officials told Las Vegas Sun reporter Phoebe Sweet that the dealership - not the customer - pays the roughly $100 cost of carbon offsets on each new or used SUV sold. The money goes to The Conservation Fund, which purchases and plants trees.

The Las Vegas program, which may be replicated at Land Rover dealerships nationally, has resulted in the planting of 3,600 trees along the Mississippi River since the program began this summer, the Sun reports. That's enough to absorb 4,800 tons of carbon dioxide, company officials said.

Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, told the Sun that people "shouldn't think that by planting trees they can then drive an inefficient car they don't need."

A spokesman for The Conservation Fund told the Sun that, regardless of why people buy the carbon offsets, more trees are a good thing and will make a difference in the long haul.

We believe the real solution to curbing global climate change is for people to engage in a combination of energy conservation and mitigation efforts, such as planting trees. And such an effort simply shouldn't start with the purchase of a vehicle that gets 12 miles per gallon of gasoline and emits 23 metric tons of carbon dioxide every 50,000 miles.