Carbon Offsets May Ease Our Guilty Consciences But Do They
Really Help the Environment? Continued from previous page In
Bangalore I meet a man who owns a small solar-panel company. He
tells me the city has the highest concentration of solar panels
in India. Amid the city's birth as a tech haven over the past
decade and a half, its population has mushroomed, stretching its
power supply beyond the limit. In response, the city began
encouraging residents to install solar water heaters. Almost
everyone I meet in Bangalore has them; washing with water warmed
by the sun has become a mundane part of life. These people have
shifted to solar, but they didn't do it for carbon credits or
with an eye on potential offset money. They heat their water
with solar rays instead of fossil fuels because it delivers heat
to the faucet, which alleviates demand for power. This
initiative doesn't require wading into the morass of
establishing additionality, no certification agent must be
brought in, there is no abstract swapping of