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
Hi Joe,
Thanks for checking out our web site. We agree that personal conservation, such as driving less and riding bicycles whenever possible, is a key component to reducing emissions and fighting climate change. A TerraPass is no substitute for making changes to personal habits.
However, this statement is not true:
“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.”
Reducing emissions from your own car and reducing emissions from a coal-fired power plant (which is what happens when you create wind energy) are similar actions from an environmental standpoint. Both result in less CO2 in the air.
Regards,
Adam Stein
Co-founder, TerraPass
Thanks for the feedback Mr. Stein.
It still comes down to changing our habits. Don’t get me wrong, supporting alternative energy programs like wind farms and biomass programs are a good thing. But unless we change our habits, overall emissions will not be reduced. If we participate in TerraPass and other carbon credit programs, more environmentally-friendly energy will be produced. How will that change our addiction to energy? How will that change the “habit” of producing energy at coal-fired plants? If the companies that operate those plants continue to produce the same energy output (and why wouldn’t they?), there will not be any reduction in emissions. With more energy potential on the grid thanks to windfarms and other programs, that means energy prices could go down due to increased supply, but there would not be any effect on CO2 in the air.
In the long term, these projects would help us produce energy a lot cleaner. But new technology and best intentions mean nothing without a fundamental change in our habits.
Joe Escobar
Terra Pass is an idea that the Europeans hve figured out to make themselve tons of money from tons of Carbon Dioxide that the earth needs anyway or we wouln’t have any trees without it! Just another media, overkill that gives some greedy scientists a chance to take our hard earned money! It is another scam that unscruplious scam artists use!!
Dick Chapman
Canada
If CO2 is such a problem then why haven’t we developed a system to clean the air and remove the carbon from the CO2, release the O2 and pile up the carbon or put it back down the empty oil wells? I hear a lot of people complaining about CO2 but never see or hear anything about someone really solving the problem. Buying and trading credits just makes someone rich selling something they don’t own, and lets others feel that it is all solved.
Donald Wargi
Peru
I agree with Joe. This Green idea of purchasing carbon credits is a money making scheme. Changing habits and building new plants requires putting money into environmentally friendly methods of producing the energy we need to live and make a living in a comfortable manor, not returning to the caves. I for one have put my money where my mouth is, I have a modest 7200 kw PV system for home and shop that has cut my electic bill by a 1/3 or more. I think the PV panels is a better way of spending money then buying on credits that don’t reduce anything.