Fun with trees and math
If you've bought a plane ticket recently, you're probably familiar with the concept of carbon credits or offsets. How many miles is your flight? 3000? OK, purchase 5 credits, which will in turn fund the planting of 10 trees. Voila: your trip is now "carbon neutral".
Carbon offsets are not just for air travellers. By using a carbon footprint calculator, you can learn how many trees you'd need to plant to offset your personal greenhouse gas contribution, then pay to have them planted. I did it immediately after seeing An Inconvenient Truth this spring, and felt good about it.
But not that good. While that film's producers praised themselves for running a carbon-neutral shoot, I couldn't help but think it is just not possible that the five trees I have planted in Mississippi have a half a fig's impact on the exhaust coming out of my car in New York.
The UK's Guardian newspaper did some digging, and while they didn't answer my main question -- the Mississippi/New York one -- it turns out I was right. It's a controversial business, and not surprisingly, hardcore environmentalists would rather people not salve their consciences with a few clicks of the mouse, but work towards true carbon reduction. It's the old reduce-reuse-recycle conundrum. Yes, recycling is great and we should all do it, but it's the reducing that's going to make a real difference.
Still, check out a carbon calculator. It's educational and, uh, fun. And plant the trees. Who doesn't like trees?
Carbon offsets are not just for air travellers. By using a carbon footprint calculator, you can learn how many trees you'd need to plant to offset your personal greenhouse gas contribution, then pay to have them planted. I did it immediately after seeing An Inconvenient Truth this spring, and felt good about it.
But not that good. While that film's producers praised themselves for running a carbon-neutral shoot, I couldn't help but think it is just not possible that the five trees I have planted in Mississippi have a half a fig's impact on the exhaust coming out of my car in New York.
The UK's Guardian newspaper did some digging, and while they didn't answer my main question -- the Mississippi/New York one -- it turns out I was right. It's a controversial business, and not surprisingly, hardcore environmentalists would rather people not salve their consciences with a few clicks of the mouse, but work towards true carbon reduction. It's the old reduce-reuse-recycle conundrum. Yes, recycling is great and we should all do it, but it's the reducing that's going to make a real difference.
Still, check out a carbon calculator. It's educational and, uh, fun. And plant the trees. Who doesn't like trees?
posted by Excellent Walker at 4:33 PM
3 Comments:
That's amazing. I'm going to plant the trees too. And tell everyone I know.
I see that it's a panacea rather than a solution. But more trees? That has to be good, right? And every little helps?
The whole carbon offset thing reminds me of the old Catholic practice of selling indulgences.
Carbon neutral flights is an oxymoron. It will take the trees 80 or 100 years to re-absorb the CO2 released in the flight. By which time we could easily have gone beyond the global warming tipping point. Yes we must offset by planting trees - visit treeflights.com - but dont be under the dangerous misapprehension that your flight is carbon neutral, It isn't and it wont be for a very, very long time.
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