Oregon Public Broadcasting

Activists around the world dubbed April First ‘Fossil Fools Day’ to draw attention to carbon emissions.  In Portland Tuesday, several pranksters on a downtown sidewalk tried to seduce people into buying infidelity off-sets.
Pete Springer reports.

With music and balloons and donuts, the mood was light but the message was not a joke.

A group of activists took aim at the Climate Trust, a non-profit that sells carbon off-sets.

The activists say carbon off-sets make about as much sense as cheating on a spouse and then buying a cheating off-set.

Brian Sloan says carbon off-sets make it seem okay to pollute, as long as you spend money to off-set your pollution.

Brian Sloan: “If we instead are spending a lot of time and money and hoopla focused on individual actions that really only the rich people can afford to buy these offsets, then we’re getting distracted from the real problems that are gonna affect all of us very soon down the road.”

Two employees with the Climate Trust stopped to chat with the activists.

They pointed out that off-sets are not the only solution to global warming, but simply one of many ways to deal with climate change.