It's Not Easy Being Green

The New York Times reported on February 12 there is now a way for the flying public to offset the "global warming impact" of flying. They can purchase carbon credits. One company that sells carbon credits, TerraPass, offers travelers the option to buy carbon credits directly on Expedia's travel website when they book air travel. Out of curiosity, I visited TerrraPass.com to see what it was all about. The website discusses how the concept works. Basically, you calculate the emissions you produce and then purchase a TerraPass to offset those emissions. The site has a calculator to help you determine the volume of carbon emissions you produce. I went ahead and entered the information for my wife's Ford Explorer into the site's emissions calculator. It tells me that based on our average annual usage, her 1999 Explorer produces approximately 13,000 pounds of CO2 per year. I find that hard to comprehend, since we generally fill up the tank once a week. At 15 gallons per fill up, and a gasoline weight of 7 pounds per gallon, that comes out to 5,460 pounds of gasoline per year. I can't see how that produces 13,000 pounds of CO2, but I'll take their word for the sake of discussion. Based on that figure, TerraPass recommends I purchase a "Road Tripper" TerraPass to offset the harmful effects of our vehicle's emissions. Maybe I am cynical, but I don't see how buying a TerraPass will offset the "harmful effects" of my vehicle's emissions or the airplane trip I take. Sure, wind farms produce energy a lot cleaner than other methods, and investing in them is a good thing. But will that make me change my driving habits? Will I now ride a bicycle to work? Will the airlines stop flying a particular route? No. The only way to reduce emissions is to change our habits. Funding a wind farm doesn't reduce emissions, it only ensures that emissions are not increased as much in the future. By the way, one of the projects that TerraPass supports is biomass. Basically, methane is captured from sources like cow manure and burned to produce energy. It says that burning methane from biomass is good because methane released into the atmosphere is about 22 times more harmful than CO2 (a byproduct of burning the methane) as a greenhouse gas. And I thought those crazy kids burning their farts in college were just being stupid. I guess the whole time they were saving the planet! Thanks for reading. Joe Escobar