Many airlines offer, for a fee, to "offset" the carbon emissions produced when you fly, but such schemes are almost e...

Emil-Kunkin on June 6, 2023

Hi, for a principle strengthen question we are looking to find a general rule that would justify the argument. Here we are trying to justify the idea that these offsets do not actually prevent emissions, since the projects they find would have gone forward even without the offsets.

Answer choice B is worded toughly, but let's try to paraphrase it. It tells us that if thing 1 would have happened without thing 2, then thing 2 did not cause thing 1. In the context of the argument: if the projects would have happened without the offsets then the offsets didn't cause the resulting decrease in emissions. This is exactly what we needed to justify the argument.