This is one of those ones that really doesn't have anything to do with Star Wars. Sorry about that, but it's really important.

In many ways, I wonder if my daughter could have been born to a world any crazier than this. I am continually stunned speechless by the rank hypocrisy of the world, and it pains me that I will need to explain to her how to see through the fog of lies that swirl around us in this world. But that is what fathers have always done, I guess.

One thing in particular hit me recently, and set off a reaction that my wife and I have come to call "the fury of the true believer." [For a great TV example of this type of character trait, see John Locke on Lost.]

Carbon credits.

Does anyone remember the credit company scams of the 1990s through today? That's what these programs are. Note that the Oscars, Al Gore, and any of a number of "true believers" are not ALTERING their lifestyles as many of us have.

TerraPass is who gave the "carbon neutral" rating to the Oscars. They're a for-profit company and they are a scam. Go look for yourself. They absolve your environmental sins...because they make money doing it. And they'll invest your money in green energy research.

Great. So can I just make the donations directly and give myself a carbon credit? Or would that do no real good? I would think that no matter what, what makes the difference is if I change my lifestyle.

Right?

If you won't call all these hypocrites to the floor, you may as well allow the Catholic Church to start charging for plenary indulgences again (something that was done in the Middle Ages), which is the same principle: don't change your lifestyle, just pay some money and claim that your sins are forgiven.

This system also favors the rich. Period.

This carbon credit business is a completely unregulated industry, just like the credit card debt companies of the 1990s, whose primary purpose is to make guilty people feel better about themselves.

Why not participate in conference calls instead of fly in a plane, which dumps more pollution into the upper atmosphere - doing more direct, immediate harm than any traffic at ground level. John Travolta himself dumped more than 800 tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere by flying his planes last year. [As a side note, when the planes were grounded for two days in 2001, temperatures over the US returned to expected norms.]

Ted Kennedy and his family [the entire extended Kennedy clan, that is] are blocking the construction of a wind farm...because they don't like what it will do to their view.

As for Al Gore, he consumes $13,000 worth of electricity per month at one of his homes, and flies around the world non-stop. I thought he cared about the environment.

All of this hypocrisy will only damage the actual cause. It will cause people to doubt any of this in general - after all, if the people who preach this stuff won't live by their own principles, why should I believe that it's true?

You want to help for real? Stop flying altogether. Grow your own food. Buy local. Join a freecycle group. And hold these supposedly "green" politicians accountable for their words and claims. If someone is going to try to sell you that they're "green", don't just take their word for it because you might like their political party. To borrow from Obi-Wan, they're politicians and they're not to be trusted.

Giving money to someone else to make yourself feel better does nothing except...make yourself feel better.

Make a better world. Start with yourself, and hold accountable those who preach the gospel of global warming and then won't do anything themselves to change it.