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Offset your CO2 emission for your house, car and flights
Happy New Year!
For all you who asked me how and where to offset your CO2 emission for your house, car and flights, after much research I found the organization MyClimate.org to be one of the best out of the lot. They are based out of Switzerland, but they have a partner company in Canada: planetair.ca
Carbon offsetting is unfortunately still a voluntary measure that some individuals and organizations sign up as a measure to lessen their negative impact on the planet. The organization myclimate.org sponsors projects of renewable energy in the Global South (i.e. developing and emerging countries). This has the double benefit of reducing CO2 emissions as well as improving the livelihoods of the people living in these areas. Myclimate.org is one of the few organizations that use the Gold Standard for carbon offsets (high additionality criteria, see below for explanation).
It is quite simple to offset your CO2 emissions, go to http://myclimate.org/ select what you want to offset (flight, car, house) and a calculator will pop up and guide you through the process of calculating your CO2. Remember offsetting is a temporary solution, ideally we would move away from consuming fossil fuels. So first of all, fly less or none, drive less, take public transport, bike, and turn off your lights!
In our house of 7 people, the BigWhiteHouse, we bought 6.77Tonnes CO2 equivalent for emissions entailed in heating (gas) and electricity for the year 2007. This was a reduction of 27% from our last year (2006 - 9.32Tonnes) achieved through switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs, lowering the thermostat to 15C and using energy efficient appliances. We then bought another 2.5tonnes CO2 equivalent to take into account the CO2 emitted due the transportation of our food for the last year.
If you are still puzzled check out this webpage:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/What_You_Can_Do/carbon_offsets.asp
or send me an email.
All the best for 2008!
Julian Last update: 28-02-2008 16:20
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