Carbon Offsets

I've been reading where Gore, Feinstein, and Schwarzeneggar are being blasted for their public pleas for the average American to reduce their carbon emissions by taking public transportation or carpooling, but privately they are hopping Gulfstreams to jet them about the country while the rest of us fly commercial. Their excuse is that the commercial airlines don't offer the flexibility they need with their demanding schedules. So are their schedules more demanding than ours? Aren't they asking us to inconvenience ourselves to fit into a carpooling or public transportation schedule? Shouldn't they lead by example? Instead they want one set of rules for us and another for themselves, which is the whole premise of elite liberalism.

They justify their use by saying that they pay to offset their carbon consumption. Their money goes to organizations that plant trees or invest in green energy. I'm not a scientist nor an elite liberal, but I'm pretty sure that money doesn't magically take their carbon emissions out of the air. What I equate it to is driving down the highway, throwing my McDonald's trash out the window because I can't be inconvenienced to hang on to it until I find a trash can, but then donating money to environmental groups that clean up our highways. My trash is still out there. If we all did that we would live in a landfill; there would be no way for the environmental groups to keep up with the amount of litter that would pollute our land. What makes the carbon emissions and offsets any different?