Set yourself off
(go online to offset your carbon emissions)
Learn about carbon offsets and calculating your carbon footprint..
Offset programs
Listed below are a few of the more user-friendly sites that can help you cut carbon emissions Some of these organizations reduce emissions by buying credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange. Others fund site-specific projects like wind farms. Each organization should have info on its website concerning what certified emissions reduction projects you support when you purchase offsets from them.
Auto-related offsets
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Residential offsets
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Travel Offsets
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BeGreenNow empowers you to be part of the global warming solution by neutralizing carbon emissions from your home, car, and air travel. Choose wisely; it’s a small planet. |
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TerraPass provides carbon offsets for travel, residential and auto-related needs, as well as green products and educational materials for eco-conscious living.
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| Prefer to calculate your offset in pounds sterling? Try the UK’s Climate Care site. |
Note: Expedia users can calculate their offsets while making their reservations at What’s an offset?
A carbon offset, in simple terms, is a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions elsewhere to cancel out emissions arising from a particular activity. Say you drive a car to work every day. Every day that car emits carbon dioxide, which alters the climate. If NOT driving the car isn’t an option, you could instead cancel out the car’s emissions by paying to cut emissions somewhere else. So long as your action results in a reduction that would not otherwise occur, the net result is the same: Lower emissions and you get to brag about lowering your “carbon footprint.” (Yes, it’s guilt money, but it works.)
Now you can go online (check out our list above) and buy offsets for carbon emissions from your car, home energy use, and air travel. A number of programs exist to help you fund specific emissions curbing projects. The tricky part is coming up with a system that accurately measures equivalent reductions. Certification systems, sponsored by Green-e and Environmental Resources Trust, help ensure the legitimacy of the projects available to the public.
In addition, a number of large institutions, including universities, municipalities, and Fortune 500 companies, have banded together to form the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) in an effort to reduce their own emissions. The CCX employs an elaborate system of emissions “credits,” which are traded and retired to sponsor investments in a wide variety of activities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. With assistance from organizations that buy up blocks of credits, individuals can also use the CCX to offset their own emissions.
Why it’s important
It’s hot. And getting hotter. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Global warming is one of the most serious challenges facing us today. To protect the health and economic well-being of current and future generations, we must reduce our emissions of heat-trapping gases by using the technology, know-how, and practical solutions already at our disposal.”
Learn More
- Climate change explained here, with popcorn, lots of useful info on the official website of An Inconvenient Truth.
- …and here, sans popcorn, from the Union of Concerned Scientists
- What you can do – info on offsets and other things you can do from the David Suzuki Foundation
- Stopglobalwarming.org - activist site chock full of non-offset personal actions
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