Looking to offset your carbon emissions? Now you can with confidence, thanks to a new online list of vetted, high-quality projects.
This fall, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) published CarbonOffsetList.org, a site that contains a list of carefully screened, credible carbon offset projects. There are 12 listed and most are landfill gas destruction projects in the United States. EDF says these represent more than 750,000 tons of credible emission reductions. Within the list are links to organizations that sell the offsets for each project, so you can purchase them.
Carbon offsets have come under scrutiny in recent years because of concerns that not all offsets that companies or individuals purchase actually help offset carbon emissions and improve the environment. Carbon offset standards are voluntary and some offsets have been sold against projects that have already been completed, for example, so they are not currently lowering emissions.
What EDF did is put out a request to about 100 organizations for offset proposals, screened the projects they received, and published the 12 that made the cut. The offsets had to directly reduce emissions, be trackable, and produce net environmental benefits, among other criteria. So if you want to purchase offsets you know will have an impact, this is the list to use.
My first reaction when I saw the list was that it’s very short. But it does allow you to purchase offsets for as little as $13.12, through TerraPass for the Greater Lebanon landfill gas-to-energy project. As for the list getting larger, apparently maybe not. An EDF representative told me via e-mail that “We hope that under President-elect Obama’s administration, a national cap-and-trade system will be implemented that includes clear and credible quality standards for offsets, precluding the need for this list in the future.”
You can learn more about carbon offsets from Wikipedia or in this Worldwatch magazine article. When I’ve bought offsets in the past, I’ve used a carbon offset calculator to figure out how much carbon my actions emit each year. Then I purchase the offsets to equal those emissions, if I can afford it. I admit I’ve only done this once, through TerraPass, and I think it cost me about $120 to offset home heating and cooling, as well as transportation impacts my wife and I incurred during the year. So it’s not cheap.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that a two–person household generates carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions of approximately 41,500 pounds — or 19 metric tons — per year. You can use EDF’s carbon calculator to figure out how you stack up. The EPA also has a calculator, as do various other Web sites.
Remember, carbon offsets make a great holiday gift for the planet!
Offsets are a scam. The whole galaxy is going through a warming trend. Don’t fall into green it’s about green (Money)
A national cap and trade program has another name. It is called taxation. It will have effects. It will raise the cost of doing business here in the United States. It will lower the living standard for Americans. It will raise the cost, power and control of the federal goverment. It will necessitate the formation of large buracracies. What it won’t do is to have any effect whatsoever on the global climate. And, keep in mind, the Chinese are not going to scale back anything. Neither are the Russians. What this is about is the destruction of the United States of America and to further the communist/collectivist one world government. In short, the enslavement of the entire race of man.
Obama knows absolutely nothing about economics, climate or physics. Obama and his crew are politicians. Pure and simple.
Carbon offsets, as Greg so aptly stated, are scams. They will take money from the unwary and deliver it into the pockets of the folks preying on the foolish. Don’t buy it.
“If government is the answer, it is a stupid question.”
Actually, the carbon offsets I mentioned in my post are not scams. They’ve been vettted and they fund real projects that reduce carbon emissions. These projects also help us fully utilize the resources and energy at our disposal, by turning landfill gases into electric power, for example, or enabling 18-wheeler trucks to plug into the electric grid at rest stops, so they don’t waste diesel fuel — and pollute the air — by idling.
Projects like this make sense and help our country conserve fuel and energy, and emit fewer greenhouse gases. Actions like this may have a small impact when done in a few states, but if the U.S. would support such projects nationally and internationally, other nations would follow and we could make a dent in greenhouse gases worldwide.
-Dan
Landfill gas usage has been around for a long time. If the government subsidizes it, it seems to work. It is very expensive and is not without technicla problems. I have built methane collection systems for landfill, so am not unfamiliar with their construction and operation. They do convert methane into electricity and carbon dioxide. But at a cost.
I own two class 8 trucks and have used the IdleAire system. It is not ubiquitous and the cost to use it has escalated to the point where it is only marginally cost effective. I have an APU on one of the trucks and it is OK. It has been trouble ridden but does heat, cool and provide electrical power onmuch less diesel than running hte main engine. But, California, in its infinite wisdom has now declared the unit no good after 2010. We in the industry cannot afford to upgrade every year or two to keep up with the vagaries of idiot politicians.
I still see no carbon offsets programs that do anything positive.
CAN ANYONE ANSWER THIS ONE???????????
With the recent downturns in Factory production, miles driven, electricity use etc, when should we see a downturn in atmospheric Co2? If all our emissions really are causing the problems then it seems we should be able to detect a fall in the rise of Co2 somewhere in the future?
The Global Warming/it’s all our fault? Can we really change a natural cycle with $1,000,000,000,000,000
Skeptical in Arkansas
lloydwoolypod@hotmail.com
Hi
I think I struggle too with understanding the idea and especially the ethical side of offsetting. It seems to me it gives some organisations buy the right to keep polluting and negating this by buying carbon credits elsewhere.