Carbon Offsets
July 11, 2008
One way of overcoming the fact that you will have a carbon footprint, no matter what you do, is to purchase carbon offsets. In its simplest form, carbon offsetting is the planting of trees to absorb the carbon dioxide that you inevitably produce in your everyday life. Of course, not everybody has a garden in which to plant innumerable trees so there are now companies that specialise in doing this for you. It takes around 6 trees to absorb one tonne of carbon dioxide and it’s possible to buy these trees from certain companies for as little as $3 per tree. Seems like a bargain to me.
Entry Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: carbon, carbon dioxide, carbon footprint, carbon offset, offset, planting, tree, trees.
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1.
matt | July 11, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Not all carbon offset projects are equal. Tree Planting isn’t always the best project. To receive the full carbon offset the tree needs to live 50-90 years. Many trees don’t live that long, they can die from forest fire, drought, and get cut down.
2.
Rob | August 8, 2008 at 8:14 am
I came across an interesting approach to retiring your carbon emissions instead of reducing them. Carbon Retirement offers consumers and companies a novel approach to offsetting their carbon footprint by letting them dip into the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme, the 27-nation bloc’s flagship weapon in fighting climate change.
I know its a not a new idea but if it gathers pace, it could put pressure on the large scale offenders out there.
A nice idea i think.
Rob
3.
Lee | August 29, 2008 at 3:14 pm
The company that we are involved with has an interesting spin on offsetting via a tree planting project. They plant Jatropha trees on land that was either wasteland, logged or not of any use for planting food crops. Jatropha is very hardy and grows almost anywhere, the roots are nitrogen fixing and re-generate the top soil which in turn allows the local land owners to intercrop (this creates a 2nd income stream for the farmer). Jatropha also yields an inedible oil that can be used as a feedstock for biofuel (helping to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and not competing with food crops).
We help companies and individuals offset their relevent Carbon Footprint through this project.