The reason that offsets are cheap and easy and take no skin off your nose is precisely because they are not going to have any significant effect on anything.

We need to decrease our net CO2 output by over 80% over the next ten years.

Reduce our greenhouse gas output by 80% when every single thing in our world depends on burning fossil fuels!

This isn't going happen through the twenty-first century equivalent of indulgences where you pay a few dollars and buy an offset.

It's going to mean an 80% reduction in all of our lifestyles, and things that are particularly consumptive like meat will have to be cut particularly deep.

We can't just go and plant a few million or even a few billion trees in this land that's just lying around waiting to be planted, because it doesn't exist - you are going to be cutting down existing wild areas, of which we already don't have enough - and even if we could, it wouldn't be anywhere near enough.

We're going to have to cut back on absolutely everything and that means if your partner has to have meat with every meal, they've blown through their carbon output in that one category.

Oh, don't worry - tell your partner it won't happen.

Nope, people will continue to eat meat and dairy and drive and fly everywhere and not change anything and we'll decimate the biosphere and send the temperature up and the rest of history will be cleaning up after the mess just a few generations made due to compulsive consumption.

But don't worry - you purchased offsets, so you'll be spared.