The next few months bring lots of travel–family time, skiing adventures, trips to escape the cold. Whether by car or by plane or by sea, there are ways to minimize the impact that your travel has on the environment.
When we travel, carbon is poured into the environment. Buying carbon offsets is becoming a popular means of reducing the damage. Here’ s a simple explanation of how it works. I fly on a trip to CA which is about 6,000 miles roundtrip. This produces 2,000 lbs of carbon dioxide. To off set this pollution I can purchase an equal amount of clean energy, which usually comes on the form of :
- solar or wind power,
- farm power (using manure gases to generate power–fascinating!!)
- landfill power (destroying, by fire, the methane gas produced from landfills).
The cost for this offset is around $10.00. Its very easy to do. Here are some sites I suggest:
- terrapass.com
- carbonfund.org
- Environmental defense fund site, fightglobalwarming.com
Our family loves to travel, we find it’s invaluable family time. I hate to contribute to global warming but I’d hate even more to not take family vacations. Carbon off sets make it that much easier to enjoy the trip.
