I'm glad to see that Gore and the producers of An Inconvenient Truth have at least purchased carbon offsets, but isn't it just a wee bit hypocritical?

Even if the carbon offsets are 100% effective (and its unclear that all forms of such offsets are - planting trees as an offset just pushes the carbon load into the not-so-distant future), isn't another tenet of environmentalism to reduce resource usage? While Gore travels from continent to continent promoting his movie and other environmental projects, those thousands of gallons of oil used to power his flights are now gone forever.

Shouldn't someone who counsels the rest of us to sacrifice our lifestyles have to make a little sacrificing of his own? The man jets his way across the world at a rate I can only dream about - his resource utilization alone is probably 100x that of my entire family.

Couldn't he telecommute to most of these places, as he has repeatedly urged others to do? It would be a lot more persuasive to me if all the publicity that he did for this movie was done using a webcam on his home computer - or at least his local television studio. "I'm talking to you from my home, rather than in person, as a real live demonstration of the types of changes we need to make in order to save our planet."

It is a difficult balance - break away from traditional methods of promoting and educating (like Gore is doing now) or try it the new way (with telecommuting) with the risk of being ignored (because the new way does not carry the same impact).

Bottom line - offsetting is better than not offsetting - right?

Dear Treehugger Community,

Thank you for communicating this important aspect of AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

NativeEnergy is very proud to offset 100% of the CO2 emissions generated in producing AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

There is so much more that you will learn in the coming weeks about how Al Gore is the leader, no doubt, in "Walking the Talk". That's all we can disclose at this point. Please be patient, keep your eye out for news.

Good for you, Brian, for taking interest and, hopefully, action!

Many of us, like Al Gore, our friends at Paramount Classics, Participant Productions, StopGlobalWarming.org, and Rodale are doing our part to raise awareness about effective solutions to the climate crisis, like utilizing carbon offsets and RECs from new renewable energy projects we actually participate in getting built.

NativeEnergy is also offsetting 100% of the emissions from the American Pavilion at Cannes (lit entirely with green lights for the first time to indicate their environmental stewardship!), where AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH was just seen by international audiences.

For more, check out www.NativeEnergy.com/climatecrisis
or www.ClimateCrisis.net

Thank you for your interest.

- Your Friends at NativeEnergy

I think this is great and it will do a lot to coutner attackers who complain about Al Gore's flying around the country to promote the film.

But, I wonder if they would have been more effective buying credits from the Chicago Climate Exchange rather than the more vague method of planting a certain number of trees.

This whole thing with buying carbon neutral credits is just dumb, it's like ordering a Big Mac, fries and a diet soda, is this calorie neutral?
Only the wealthy will be spew as much green house gases as Al Gore but for you and me, we'll just ride our bikes, I'm riding in to work tomorrow, 38 miles round trip, how many carbon credits do I get for that?

thank you

A new website, http://www.ChangingThePresent.org helps you combat global warming (and address any of 32 other causes) by providing specific donation opportunities.

You can choose exactly what you want to accomplish to make the world a better place. For just a few dollars, you can protect an acre of the rainforest or fund an hour of a cancer researcher's time. You can provide a child with a first book, an AIDS patient with life-saving drugs or a hungry family with a nourishing meal. Take a look.

Want to see what Gore is doing to curb emissions? Just look at his energy usage at his home in Tennessee You know about 20 times the amount of energy used by the average family. Can you say hypocrite?

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash.htm

Lets be careful with Drudge. He has tried to smear gore many times (making false claims about how he drove in SUVs with others to Canne while he actually walked from his hotel) and doesn't even seem to understand the science behind global warming.

there's also this thing:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/26/gore-responds-to-drudge/

Lets be careful with Drudge. He has tried to smear gore many times (making false claims about how he drove in SUVs with others to Canne while he actually walked from his hotel) and doesn't even seem to understand the science behind global warming.

there's also this thing:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/26/gore-responds-to-drudge/