Limo companies are just like any other business in that the point of business is to make money. Valera Global – a New York City-based chauffer company – recently decided that it would be too expensive to replace its fleet with hybrids and opted instead to purchase carbon emissions offsets for the miles its vehicles drive. To do so, it joined the Chicago Climate Exchange, and is now legally required to report its vehicle fleet emissions.

Many have criticized the company's efforts, stating that offsetting is just allowing the bad habits to continue. The rich can easily take mass transportation, especially in a city like Manhattan where the options of bus and subway are plentiful, instead of hiring private luxury vehicles that get poor gas mileage to slowly meander through city traffic. In this case, purchasing offsets is really like putting a Band-Aid on a huge, hatchet wound.

The company's CEO, however, decided that a replacement fleet would just be too expensive, and cited the cost of $7,000 replacement batteries required for hybrid vehicles. By merely offsetting, he says he "can spend hundreds of dollars annually instead of thousands to make a green statement. It's a way for us to show our concern and to educate our clients without inconveniencing them."

It's sad that getting into a Prius is considered an inconvenience, and it's sad that this seems to be yet another marketing ploy for a company that considers offsets merely a way to make a statement, rather than a way to actually change the problem. But in the business world, if he was correct in his financial predictions (and perhaps there's no way to know), who could blame him for wanting to make money and not take a financial risk? Would the company have been able to profit if it had replaced its fleet with hybrids, or what if it had only replaced half his fleet? How long would it have taken for the better gas mileage to have paid off, and would customers have preferred his company because of its choice of hybrid vehicles or chosen another company that offered more limos and high-end options? It all comes down to culture – working with it and pushing it to change. We've got to change our culture in order to really change global warming. Offsets aren't the answer, but neither are hybrids. If a large portion of our society believes that luxury, chauffeured-vehicles are a necessity, we'll never move past this problem.