Carbon Credits are not Indulgences

Since carbon credits have gotten some media attention, pundits love to compare them to Catholic indulgences. It is an easy analogy to make; however, there is one clear difference. Indulgences could not and did not buy away your sins whereas carbon credits potentially could offset carbon emissions. Until our government gets its act together, this is really the only practical option beyond the usual stuff (greater efficiency, less energy use) to help the environment. The analogy with indulgences does ring true if these carbon credits do not in fact off set carbon emissions and solely exist to give us peace of mind. Since these carbon credit companies are not regulated and privately owned, this is true to some degree. If it is implemented properly though, people should be able to purchase credits that go towards planting trees and investing in alternative energy sources that are not economically competitive with coal and petroleum.
This does raise the argument of who should pay for the green future (assuming it happens). Should the wealthy be able to fly private jets as long as they offset that with carbon credits? This runs the risk of becoming of a regressive tax and something the conservative pundits love to say (or our "president" saying Al Gore cares more about owls than working people in 2000). The cost of reducing our carbon emissions to 1990 levels is something like 1% of our GDP, which should be fairly imposed on the population based on income. Conservatives love to say this will ruin our economy but global warming will have exponentially greater cost. The only real solution will come from the government that will subsidize the green movement and force manufacturers to produce green products.