Blog Trades Carbon Offsets for Links
by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, St. Louis, MO on 05.29.06
Nearly every post we publish about carbon offsetting services generates healthy discussion on the merits and disadvantages of buying offsets to neutralize the carbon emissions of a range of activities. While we don't know if this story will produce similar discussion, it's certainly one of the most unique promotional efforts we've seen involving offsets: DeepMarket.com, "a blog that researches new techniques for stock market analysis," is teaming up with CarbonFund.org to offset 1 ton of carbon emissions for every blog that links to it.
“In working with Carbonfund.org, I hope to encourage bloggers to go beyond the debate about climate change,” said Eric Cahoon, who writes the DeepMarket.com blog. “This challenge to bloggers is to help create awareness of actions they can take now – such as taking advantage of energy efficient appliances and reducing the energy they use. In working with Carbonfung.org, they can have further impact by reducing carbon emissions, supporting renewable energy and reforestation projects.”If anything, this is certainly a clever way to build inroads into the Green Blogosphere -- clearly, it's already working. It will be interesting to see how many bloggers take DeepMarket up on this offer, especially bloggers that don't focus on environmental issues. We'll also be watching to see how well this effort creates not only awareness, but also discussion about climate change within the blogosphere at large. :: DeepMarket.com and Carbonfund.org via Hugg“Solving the problem of global warming and our addiction to oil and fossil fuels will take innovative ideas and creative thinking,” said Carbonfund.org President Eric Carlson. “Deepmarket.com is showing that good business can go hand in hand with a better environment. We applaud Deepmarket.com for this creative, unique and effective way to educate millions of people about global warming while also supporting the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.”
According to the program, Deepmarket.com, which is already a supporter of Carbonfund.org and has offset its carbon footprint, will offset one ton of carbon dioxide emissions with Carbonfund.org for every blog that links to Deepmarket.com. The program costs fellow bloggers nothing to participate.
Just curious but why aren't carbon emissions wet scrubbed?
The picture fascinates me. What is it? What is the source?
Pieter-- I found this photograph at the citizenX blog.
According to one of the online carbon offset organizations my car uses the following…
Vehicle: 2000 Subaru Legacy Wagon AWD automatic transmission
Emissions: 9,586 lbs CO2 per year
Therefore I should pay $50/yr to offset my car (actually they .say that amount will offset 12,000 lbs CO2 per year).
They say my home is about 27171 lbs of CO2 per year and I should pay $140/yr (28,000 CO2 offset) to offset my home.
The same site says that that each incandescent bulb you replace with a CFL saves 120 lbs of CO2 per year.
Given that math to offset my home and car I need to offset 36757 lbs of CO2. This would be 307 CFLs so instead of spending $190 per year I could give away 307 CFLs to others. At $0.50 per bulb that I bought them for that is only $153.
I have given away 40 of my 307 so far. My offset has the benefit of helping those around me and the environment faster. They save money and the environment benefits.
Let me know what you think and check my math. My intention is not to say these groups are not doing well just that we can do better by starting in our own homes and helping those around us first.
Aaron (http://baranoff.typepad.com/cheaper_electric/)