Friday, February 23rd, 2007
Pay to Play
Here’s the Thing:
When you fly, offset your greenhouse gas emissions.
|
|
|
Fly right. |
I’ll probably be about 30,000 feet over Memphis when this posts, doing my part to hasten the onset of global climate change, right? Well, only sort of.
You see, I try to fly as rarely as possible, because I know air travel is one of the single most potent contributors to climate change. But when I do have to fly (it’s sort of an emergency this time), I pay a company called Climate Care that invests in projects that clean the environment.
Here’s how it works. They provide a handy calculator to determine how much extra carbon dioxide my trip is spewing into the atmosphere, and translate that into a dollar amount. (Actually, it’s pounds, but who’s counting?) The money supports projects around the world, doing an equal amount of repair to the climate as the damage I’m doing up there in the troposphere. I pay, and travel guilt-free.
The projects Climate Care supports are all over the world, “wherever funding goes farthest and has the greatest impact.” They include bio energy, wind energy, human energy, efficient lights, efficient stoves, and rainforest restoration projects.
Climate Care also helps you figure out your share of climate change from regular driving and home activities, if you want to go completely carbon-neutral. (Don’t forget, cutting down your emissions is the best solution, but offsetting is a solid second choice.)
I’ve enjoyed using Climate Care and I like their approach (no double counting, only projects that wouldn’t have gone ahead without their assistance, verification of results, focus on sustainable energy over reforestation). But there are lots of other good organizations out there doing similar work. A friend (you know who you are, buddy) just pointed out Terrapass to me the other day. They look good at first glance, and seem to be quite the savvy marketers (although I tend to distrust savvy marketers, especially when I’m trying to do something good, because they rarely are!).
So here’s the bottom line. Over the next two weeks I’ve got to fly from NY to Denver to Miami to Washington, DC. (I’ll take the bus home to NY from there.) According to Climate Care, I will be responsible for the release of 1.07 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, which I have pre-offset to the tune of £8.05. That’s right folks, a whopping $15.74 gets me jet-setting in style.
on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 10:55 am:
Just a heads up on doing international transactions, there is typically a credit card transaction fee of 3% for currency exchange.
I used climate care to offset a trip Alicia took recently to FL and I’m going to take in a few weeks to NC. The currency conversation worked out to be normal, though in the actual statement there was an additional 3% foreign purchase finance charge. Now for these two flights that works out to be 34 cents, so no biggie.
Even though I think Climate Care is more noble in its endevours, I’m also going to use Terrapass. I plan to split my usage between the two, using Terrapass for the cars and house, and Climate Care for airline travel. Terrapass’s fancier marketing I think works better in the US and providing the stickers for the car provides an opportunity for others to see it and hopefully move to offsetting their carbon dioxide emissions as well.