Fighting Carbon

I got an email the other day from my power company.  I don’t mean that I own a power company, I mean that it is the power company that I use to provide power to my house.  Anyway, they sent me an email.  I usually only get one email from them and that is when they want money.  I don’t mean that they need a loan, I mean that they want me to pay my bill for the power that they supply to my house.  Anyway, I had already got the normal, “hey buddy, you owe us money” email for the month so this one was not about my indebtedness to them but it did involve money.  They were suggesting that I consider purchasing Carbon Offsets.  Carbon Offsets (if you are too lazy to click on the link I provided) are…

a financial instrument aimed at a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions

I perused the Wikipedia article (unlike you) and found it quite interesting.  My favorite part was the Controversies section, especially this part…

Some activists disagree with the principle of carbon offsets, likening them to papal indulgences, a way for the guilty to pay for absolution rather than changing their behavior.  George Monbiot, an English environmentalist and writer, says that carbon offsets are an excuse for business as usual with regards to pollution.  Proponents hold that the indulgence analogy is flawed because they claim carbon offsets actually reduce carbon emissions, changing the business as usual, and therefore address the root cause of climate change.

I bolded my favorite phrase.  Talk about trying to respond to one group only using terminology that might offend another.  To disagree with the comparison in one thing, to “dis” the group used in the comparison is another.  Now I know that papal indulgences have not been recognized since the 1500’s, but still.  Overall, I just found it funny.

So back to my email, there was this environmentally friendly looking background picture…

Also, there was a link to the main carbon offset page along with a calculator to determine how many carbon offsets I would need to purchase in order to negate my carbon footprint.  I went through the calculator steps using the typical amount for their customers for a single family home < 1,500 sq ft and selecting that I heat my house with gas.  This told me that I put the equivalent of 2,461 lbs of carbon into the air.  Next I put in both my car’s mileage (15k for the van, 6k for the Buick) which brought my total to 3,876 lbs.  Next I entered that I travel exactly 0 miles (on airplanes) and I was told that I needed to buy 8 carbon offsets at $4 / month to offset my entire carbon production.  So a clean conscious can be had for $32 / month (a little less than $400 per year).  This is about 50% of my bill as is so I think I will pass for now.

This site offers more information if you are interested (don’t think I know that you won’t be clicking on this link even though I spent minutes finding it for you).  Well, I better power down the laptop and stop emitting for now.

Jon