by Michael Capraro

Created on: May 19, 2008

Carbon Offsets Some Dollars and Sense

While researching "World Environment Day" or WED (www.unep.org/wed/2008), I checked out a related link that enables you to calculate your own carbon footprint. It seemed one of the better such instruments. My result came out just under 10 tons/year - not bad compared to the US average of 20.4 tons, but way above the worldwide average of 4 tons and the established (UN) world target of just 2 tons per person per year.

Two tons/year? How to get from here to there? Become a monk? Luckily, there's an alternative. Supposedly, I can offset my carbon* footprint by donating 72.67 pounds (British) to the "Clean Energy Fund," or 98 pounds to plant 14 trees in Kenya, or 164.5 pounds to plant 14 trees in the UK. With the conversion rate around 2.0 nowadays, this means I can assuage any carbon guilt I might have for as little as $145 (~$290 if you're at the US average). Hey, that's not so bad! I can purchase carbon offsets each year, as some celebrities have done, and be proud that I've done my part.

Not so fast, Buckey. Buying certified carbon offsets (you already know to watch for scammers, right?*) can help some, but consider this - if everyone in the world simply donated their $58 (based on the 4-ton average) to the "Clean Energy Fund," but made no adjustments to their current lifestyle, we'd still be way above our emission targets, and (whether or not you believe in man-made global warming) we'd still be depleting our natural resources and fouling our environment.

You can't simply buy your way out of this one. Since you're reading this and related articles, you've likely a sharper sense of responsibility than that. There are simple things we all can do to lessen our impact on the environment. Perhaps you should visit the WED website, calculate your own carbon footprint, and review the many things you can do to make it smaller. None of us can do it all, but we all can do something.

* We're talking primarily CO2, carbon dioxide, but saying "carbon" encompasses some other greenhouse gases like methane, CH4, and lets us avoid use of those pesky subscripts which Helium apparently does not support as yet.

* Some of the more respected carbon offset certifiers are Green-e (www.green-e.org) for US domestic programs and the Swiss-based CDM Gold Standard (www.cdmgoldstandard.org) for international offset projects. In case you wondered, CDM stands for "Clean Development Mechanism."

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