Comments on: Are Carbon Offsets Real?

Are Carbon Offsets Real?

alms — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:50:51 -0800

It may feel hip to go carbon neutral, but are carbon offsets real? Now you can find out by reading Clean Air Cool Planet's Consumer's Guide to Carbon Offsets which asseses 30 providers of carbon neutrality and sets out criteria for understanding which are doing the best to help you save the planet. The consumer's guide reads more like an enviro geeks master's thesis, but it quickly becomes clear that the core of the matter is additionality, i.e. to what extent will this investment create emission reductions in addition to those that would have occured in its absence. If this is all too much for you and just want to cut to chase and save the world, you should just take the pledge at Treasure Our Planet. It's pretty simple stuff.

By: alms

alms — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:58:56 -0800

Apologies for not labeling the second link as a PDF. Jessamyn?

By: Bighappyfunhouse

Bighappyfunhouse — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:25:16 -0800

Look, I'm going to crap on your face. But I'm going to pay someone else to not crap on your face. See, that offsets my crapping on your face.

By: bumpkin

bumpkin — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:41:01 -0800

Thanks for the information, I'm always collecting these resources since I am trying to move my organization in this direction. Previously: Green Blue

By: ericbop

ericbop — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 20:54:18 -0800

im in ur suv, killing ur f00mz

By: porpoise

porpoise — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 21:17:34 -0800

How much carbon is released to make a bunch of stickers to tell everyone that you've released less carbon into the atmosphere?

By: anthill

anthill — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 21:45:48 -0800

The embodied energy of a sticker will have to do as an estimate for you, porpoise: (from here) Paper: 36.4 MJ/kg PVC: 70.0 MJ/kg Assuming a sticker weighs about 5g, 4 of which is vinyl and 1 paper, the embodied energy of the sticker is about 315 kJ... or about the energy value of the gasoline consumed in 1/5th of a second worth of full power from the 325-horsepower Hummer H2.

By: anthill

anthill — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 21:47:26 -0800

Oops, forgot to fill in the anchor links for references: one two three

By: mrnutty

mrnutty — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 21:57:37 -0800

My company (powells.com) just started (two weeks ago) looking into offering carbon offsets for all the books we ship to customers. CarbonFund.org is the only company that has a specific shipping offset program (CarbonFree Shipping), so we're looking hard at them. But Climate Trust is a local Portland organization AND is in the top ten providers, according to this report. On the whole, though, I feel that getting this information more out in front of consumers (even if the offset is not as good as it could be) is better than not...

By: nofundy

nofundy — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 06:44:13 -0800

In this order: reduce reuse recycle reimburse? [carbon offsets]

By: pezdacanuck

pezdacanuck — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 09:39:24 -0800

OR you can do like I did and buy a Smart Car. Canucks get the diesel standard which is even more fuel effiecient than the gas engine. 5L/100km. That's 50 miles/gallon. I would say that helps in offsetting some carbon. Oh and if you're thinking that the diesel is more poluting, you'd be wrong. Low sulphur diesel being burned using common rail and an O2 infuser has reduced NO2 emissions to almost neglegible. Far less than the tail emissions for a similar gasoline version.

By: davejay

davejay — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 12:32:18 -0800

Boy, that really sums up my thoughts on the subject, Bighappyfunhouse.

By: rfbjames

rfbjames — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 22:33:27 -0800

I wish I had the extra money to be carbon neutral.