If hell is real and you get out by praying then this is not a scam. So if climate change is real and it is stopped by emitting less carbon then carbon offsets are not a scam?
So you are either saying climate change is just something to believe in and therefore carbon offsets are a scam, because they fight a problem that is not real.
Or you are a religious person and are saying that climate change is real, and that carbon offsets are useful, despite them being clearly a scam.
Or you are saying that the medieval system was actually a scam, because the monks did not pray as they said they would. But then this is actually a medieval meme, criticising monks for knowingly lying to people, and completely irrelevant in modern times.
Or they're saying that regardless of whether or not heaven and hell are real, both carbon offsets and indulgences are a self-serving practice run by corrupt institutions allowing wealthy people to be publicly absolved from the harm they continue to do.
Carbon offsets working is when they make it so that producing carbon is expensive enough to change how companies behave. Of course, that could be done better with a number of other schemes like a carbon tax (with or without rebate)
When we no longer have an irrational need to increase profits, it becomes much easier to change production lines to emit less and less carbon.
China, by the way, is the leader in clean energy, despite being the country with the most emissions, which is simply explained by the fact that it was until recently also the country with the largest population in the world.
