Carbon Offsets

My wife and I made a trip from Fairbanks Alaska to Tempe Arizona last week.

While in Tempe I went online and purchased 8,000#’s of carbon offsets from terrapass. This is considered one year’s flying carbon offsets (offsets for 4 short, 3 medium and 2 long-haul flights) and I paid $50.60.

I got the idea for purchasing carbon offsets after reading Ed Begley Jr’s book Living Like Ed.

Think of a carbon offset as a certificate that represents the reduction of one metric ton (2,205 lbs) of carbon dioxide emissions. If a project is developed that reduces carbon dioxide emissions, every ton of emissions reduced will result in one carbon offset. Developers can sell these reductions as carbon offsets. For a more detailed description access this link, How carbon offsets work.

Terrapass funds three different types of projects:

• Farm Power: by capturing and destroying the methane formed when managing animal waste.

• Landfill gas capture: once again removing the methane formed in landfills.

• Wind farm clean energy: funding wind energy