It's about the same as going to confession, confessing your sins, then
paying a "donation" to the Church. It allows one to sin as much as he
wants, as long as he donates to the "franchise."

No, it's different in several important ways.

1: There is no heaven or hell.

2: There are no other sinners on the recieving end who are prevented or
dissuaded from sinning by dint of getting the donation. All the money
is simply collected by the church.

3: "Sins" do not pollute and build up in the environment, at least not
in the same way as material pollution.

The point of carbon credits is that the person receiving the credit
(money) will use it to modernize their (already polluting) system so it
pollutes less, enough to offset the gains elsewhere. All human (and
animal, for that matter) activities pollute, and it's more efficient to
reduce the total at some places than others. This system reduces the
total pollution.

At least that's the idea, and it's sound. Whether in exeution it works
out that way is another question, one which I have not researched.

Jose
--
Get high on gasoline: fly an airplane.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.