From WNYC Studios, it's Brian Lair, a daily politics podcast.

It's Thursday, July 14th.

Have you seen any of those ads recently that promise that with each purchase,

you will somehow be doing something good to prevent climate

change. For example, there's the one for a credit card that says spend daily with, insert credit

card brand name here, to neutralize your footprint and earn up to 1% cash back. Use your awards to

plant more trees or receive a statement credit. Hmm, spend daily with a

credit card as a way to save the earth. That was the language there, right? Spend daily with our credit

card to neutralize your footprint. So let's see. Buying more things that need to be manufactured and shipped

can be offset by planting trees?

Maybe, maybe not.

And if that's not counterintuitive enough with a credit card, how about this?

At least one major airline, KLM, has been running ads that say flying can become carbon neutral.

They started using the tagline, Be a Hero, Fly CO2, Zero.

And they started running video ads like this one.

Here's the last 30 seconds.

A beautiful planet.

We long to explore, but need to protect.

Fortunately, the way we travel here on Earth is changing.

And together, we can pioneer the sustainable future for aviation and our planet, because that is our greatest adventure yet.

So that from a KLM ad, the company is really KLM Air France, the Dutch airline and the French

airline merged a while back, will sample from another KLM spot coming up in which they ask people to fly less,

...