Hamartiology: Notes on the Greening of Sin and Carbon Offsetting

Image: Ron Barrett

The New York Times (2007)

I.

Sin - a concept crucial to Christianity - was defined by Augustine as a transgression against God's eternal law, be it by word, deed, or desire.  

Today, however, when everyone is environmentally aware and more concerned about global warming than seeking spiritual salvation, sin seems to involve a transgression against Nature or a defilement of the Earth (sometimes personified as the Greek goddess Gaia).

In other words, we no longer condemn people for missing the moral mark, but eagerly judge individuals, corporations, and governments for failing to hit targets to reduce their carbon emissions or recycle plastic waste ...   

II.

Because no one really wants to be punished for their sins, the Catholic Church came up with the clever idea of an indulgence - which is a kind of get out jail free card that allows for the remission of sins or, at the very least, mitigates the temporal punishment that one might otherwise have expected to receive for wrongdoing.   

By the late Middle Ages, indulgences were hugely popular but abuse of the system was widespread; a problem which the Church recognised, but seemed either unable or unwilling to address. Chaucer famously mocks the idea of holy relics and the unrestricted sale of indulgences in The Pardoner's Tale and, later, Protestant reformers were relentless in their attacks on what they regarded as a sign of worldly corruption. The only thing that indulgences guaranteed, said Luther, was an increase in profit and in sin.  

Finally, in response, the Church did take action: in 1562 the Council of Trent suppressed the office of pardoners and reserved the publication of indulgences to bishops only. Shortly afterwards, Pope Pius V cancelled all issuing of indulgences involving fees or other financial transactions.

But now, however, in this age of green sin, they're back in the form of carbon offsets ...


III. 

A carbon offset is a sleight of hand in which an emission of greenhouse gases made in one place is offset by a reduction in emissions made elsewhere, thereby guaranteeing the blissful state of carbon neutrality.

There are two markets for these carbon offsets: a compliance market, in which large companies and institutions buy them up in bulk in order to comply with international regulations and agreed caps; and, secondly, a much smaller scale voluntary market in which individuals as well as companies purchase carbon offsets so as to mitgate their own greenhouse gas emisssions from things like transport (particularly air travel).  

Carbon offset vendors - i.e., the new pardoners - will happily meet all your needs; even providing other services should you require them, such as measuring your very own carbon footprint.

I'm not the first critic to liken these carbon offsets to indulgences; i.e., a way for the rich and powerful to pay for absolution rather than changing their extravagant lifestyles or harmful business practices. Indeed, several environmental organisations have expressed concern that carbon offsetting is merely a convenient way to virtue signal on the one hand whilst continuing to pollute and consume on the other.   

Think Harry and Meghan, for example, whose sins are bright scarlet, even if they paint themselves as green as green can be ...