Buy Your Way Out of Greenhouse Gas Guilt?

This Merc story caught my eye because I've been meaning to blog about TerraPass, a company that basically sells shares in anti-pollution. Or, as some might see it, sells relief from environmental guilt:

Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, Mercury News: Businesses will put clients' money to work to help alleviate gas emissions -- and guilt

I've been thinking of signing up, to assuage my own guilt over driving a very poltically-incorrect, climate-destroying 4Runner. And, I suppose, we should pay a little more to offset the greenhouse gases caused by our family Prius, too. As far as I can tell, TerraPass, is a legitimate operation that really does invest its proceeds in projects and credits that offset greenhouse gas production. TerraPass is pretty small, though, and it's not clear if what they do could scale up.

The other thing that caught my eye is that the Jason Buberel they interview in the article was (loosely) a contemporary of mine. At the same time I was circulating petitions to get on the 2004 primary ballot as a Libertarian candidate, Buberel was circulating his own petitions to get on the ballot as a Libertarian candidate for California Assembly District 22. We had a small group of Libertarian candidates who were running our campaigns as an informal team, sharing experiences and emphasizing similar issues. We tried several times to get in touch with Buberel, but never succeeded. I thought he had qualified for the ballot, but, since there isn't any information about him in SmartVoter.org, he must not have gotten enough signatures.