I have read this interesting but flawed "idea". It seems the writer/blogger loses the point. The main point of buying carbon credits is to over time create a situation that polluting becomes too expensive for companies so they take action to reduce their emissions themselves.

Let's not forget pollution is a process. First: You pollute, then you need to clean up your mess. If you don't pollute, no need to clean up your mess. What the Priuses and Solar panels do for the environment is to reduce the amount of pollution generated in the first place. It is much better than pollute like a pig and pay to have it cleaned up. It seems to me it is a more responsible approach. Also, as some others have said in this post, investing in clean energy like priuses and solar panels will inevitably lead to better products that will become even more viable, cheaper alternatives in the future. So instead of paying to clean up the mess you are making now, you are reducing your carbon output and investing to reduce it even more.

Second point is that if everybody was doing what the writer suggest (buying carbon credits) We would reduce the price of the unit of carbon emission, which would then enable companies to continue to buy cheap credits and keep polluting more. It seems to me that would not really solve the problem...

So in conlcusion: It seems the writer/blogger encourages us to keep the status quo and keep polluting like little piggies and buy a good consciences with Carbon credits...