This LA Times article provides some suggestion as to what I’d wondered about for some time:
Beneath the feel-good simplicity of buying your way to carbon neutrality is a growing concern that the idea is more hype than solution.
According to Native Energy, money from “An Inconvenient Truth,” along with payments from others trying to neutralize their emissions, went to the developers of a methane collector on a Pennsylvanian farm and three wind turbines in an Alaskan village.
As it turned out, both projects had already been designed and financed, and the contributions from Native Energy covered only a minor fraction of their costs. “If you really believe you’re carbon neutral, you’re kidding yourself,” said Gregg Marland, a fossil-fuel pollution expert at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee who has been watching the evolution of the new carbon markets. “You can’t get out of it that easily.”
The race to save the planet from global warming has spawned a budding industry of middlemen selling environmental salvation at bargain prices.
Also from today’s LA Times:
Often under the tutelage of liberal-minded clerics, he was also encouraged to question the Koran and its teachings. He found himself leery of the ways of coreligionists with roots abroad, especially the older generation. Often, he said, they tried to impose their own cultural habits as religion.
“They say a tattoo is haram,” or sinful, he said. “Why? Where is that in the Koran? They say, ‘Well, the prophet never had tattoos.’ I say, ‘Oh, do you drive a car? Did the prophet drive a car? I don’t see you riding around on no camel.’ “
Cyrus Farivar is an Iranian-American freelance technology journalist, radio producer and author, currently living in the city of Bonn, Germany.
His book, "The Internet of Elsewhere" – about the history and effects of the Internet on different countries around the world, including Senegal, Iran, Estonia and South Korea – was published by Rutgers University Press in April 2011. 
Regarding the LA Times story –
The reporter, Alan Zarembo, did get some things correct, but he failed to communicate some critical facts and background that complete the picture without a misleading slant.
We have posted our Letter to the Editor of the LA Times on our website
http://www.nativeenergy.com
And, we have posted a more powerful and personal message in response, the Van Gilders’ Letter to the Editor
http://www.nativeenergy.com/News/LATimes_Dovan_letter_9-7-07.pdf
Recognizing the complexity of the carbon offsets market; NativeEnergy has had to correct similar media inaccuracies during the past 7 years.
Aware of the factual errors made in this article, we simply wanted to bring the accurate details to your attention and clarify the misleading statements, as they could be further mistaken as legitimate in future media coverage.
First, NativeEnergy typically contracts with projects before they are constructed and begin operation. We then turn to the marketplace to allow individuals or businesses, to purchase the offsets — together they fully subscribe the offsets, enabling the payment that is made to the project for its expected lifetime of carbon offsets.
A project may be fully funded and operational by the time the offset is sold – but this does not invalidate the carbon offset. Rather, it is NativeEnergy’s promise to the project that helps it secure the other necessary financing, such as grants. And as you know, when done properly and with a reputable carbon offset partner, offsetting is absolutely real and does make a difference in reducing the amount of CO2 that otherwise would be emitted.
Next, in reality, the offsets for “An Inconvenient Truth” related carbon footprints are actually from 4 different, new ‘help build’ projects that were moving toward construction; 3 of which have now been completed. Indeed, the footprint of “An Inconvenient Truth” is relatively small – that’s a good thing – and offsetting is a good deal. There is no other way to get to zero global warming impact. It’s easy, effective and inexpensive. And, in this country, it is currently 100% voluntary.
In regards to NativeEnergy specific projects, we began discussions with the Van Gilder family at their kitchen table in 2003 – not in 2006, as Alan writes – and agreed to purchase carbon offsets from the Van Gilder’s to allow them to meet their portion of the financing package early in 2004. The project proceeded with construction in 2006 after additional funding from other sources was secured, including additional payments from NativeEnergy. Certainly we were not the reason the farm wanted to build the project, but we were an important funding component. Although they may have been surprised that there was a market for the carbon offsets – an unexpected bonus, perhaps – the role in helping them finance the project is an indisputable fact.
David Van Gilder has confirmed this in his Letter To The Editor of the LA Times.
Concerning the Alaska Native Village wind project, Mr. Zarembo got some facts right, but missed a few and trivialized an important feature of the complete “barriers” tests used to assess project-specific additionality. The situation was quite different for AVEC’s wind project in Alaska. As we openly discussed with the reporter, the role of offsets in this case was to provide operations and maintenance funding – not to add more capital dollars that were being met mostly by federal grants. This important distinction was not mentioned in the LA Times story. In this instance, the issue is not “whether the blades turn or not,” but whether they turn often enough. This project met NativeEnergy’s strict additionality criteria due to the first of its kind installation and technology barriers. Performing a critical role in enabling the replicability of these projects is a creditable use of carbon offset funding.
These are a few of the misconceptions and errors conveyed in this article. We hope this clarifies some of the murky waters and prevents perpetuating inaccuracies to the general public. NativeEnergy highly values education and transparency; as this complex issue quickly becomes mainstream, the truth emerges, and with increasing community and business support we continue to succeed in building a more sustainable energy future.
Thank you again for your continued interest and partnership, for working with us to help support high quality carbon offsets from new projects like the Dovan Farm project.
Respectfully,
Billy Connelly
NativeEnergy, Inc.
http://www.NativeEnergy.com