And if you offset more than just your selfish behind, are you "more moral"? And if he believes the world will collapse and it is so urgent that everybody needs to fear the coming super storm, then wouldn't he act a bit more responsibly? I know if I believed the world would collapse I wouldn't be contributing ever more carbon because I made myself feel better by purchasing an "offset".You need to prove they're ineffective. 1+x=y. y-1=x. It's that easy. If you prevent carbon from being released into the atmosphere to balance your own output, you are living ethically and morally balancing out your carbon footprint in addition to actually leaving a net sum of 0 extra carbon. How would it be ineffective? Ideally you'd buy carbon offsets and not produce co2. But it would be absurd to expect Gore to do that. The most we can expect of him is to walk the walk and leave a net neutral carbon footprint.
Seriously, if the need is that urgent and others will not follow you must act, not just offset your own behind.