It figures that my first post not having to do with chocolate would be on Valentine’s Day. Not that I’m not a romantic at heart. Just look at this great new service I signed up for, in honor of the occasion! That’s right, soon my fidelity to my wife will be earning me big bucks, as people pay me to stay faithful in order to “offset” their cheating ways.

Obviously, this site (and my post so far) is satirical in nature. But there’s a very real point behind it: how much do we really know about the now-burgeoning carbon offset industry? Thanks to Al Gore, well-meaning eco-citizens can offset their entire carbon footprint here, or even here if they’re feeling particularly Jewy. But as with anything meaningful in life, it’s not as simple as we’d like it to be.

But that’s OK. Both Valentine’s Day (ideally, at least) and Earth Day are about being in relationship - with our loved ones and with our planet. And to bring this point home Jewishly, we have this week’s Torah portion, mishpatim. In it, Moses seals the covenental relationship between God and the Israelites with an animal sacrifice and blood offering at the foot of Mount Sinai. Within a few chapters, all types of sacrificial offering (korban (קרבן) become the primary vehicle for communication between the people and their God. In a sense, this is the most ancient form of carbon (korban?) offset: one carbon-based lifeform for another. The Hebrew word korban literally means to ‘draw near,” and it is through these sacrificial offerings, brought (or bought) from the people’s own agricultural efforts, that the people first learn how to exist in relation to the Divine. Perhaps the hope was that consumption (some offerings by the celebrant, some by God’s fire) take place in holy community, with a true sense of awe at the cycle of production and destruction.

While becoming “carbon neutral” can in some ways help our planet (and ourselves), it may also allow us to momentarily escape the true effects of our own consumption. As we offer our dollars up as our own personal carbon korban, what other paths can we also take to draw nearer to a solution for a warming planet?