A carbon offset zeros out (offsets) all or part of the carbon dioxide emissions of a party, by reducing the emissions -- or increasing the carbon dioxide absorption -- of another party. This reduces net greenhouse gas emissions with the aim of combating Global Warming. Effectively offsetting the emissions of an activity makes that activity "carbon neutral".

Virtually everyone is responsible for the release of large amounts of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. The US average is 22tons per capita. Now this is not from breathing, but rather the energy directly and indirectly used by every person. This includes every day activities such as the electricity used at home and work, the petrol burnt when driving a car, and energy expended on food production. Even the energy used to make and transport every day goods and consumables.

Carbon offsets can be purchased by individuals, businesses and governments from a variety of commercial and non-commercial organizations. For example, the UK government purchased offsets for the air travel required for the 31st G8 summit.

Offset activities can vary widely; the most frequent are planting trees, followed by various energy conservation activities, sometimes certified as “Clean Development Mechanism” credits, Carbon offset providers often provide a "carbon calculator" for individuals to estimate the carbon dioxide emissions arising from their consumption of electricity, petrol, air travel, etc. - a sort of Ecological Footprint for global warming.

Although reforestation sequesters (or stores) carbon until the forest reaches carbon neutrality at full maturity, some controversy surrounds carbon-offset tree-planting projects, due to uncertainty about the science and accounting of sequestration. Other community groups -- many from developing countries -- actively seek tree-planting materials and technical assistance. Then they voluntarily plant the trees to restore the productivity of their lands. In Australia, tree planting schemes as these claim to also reduce other environmental problems such as soil salinity and erosion.

Topical Links

WWF’s Description and practical example of Carbon offsetting

Carbon Credit Price survey.

How to go Carbon Neutral.

First brand in Australia to ensure all its cars are climate neutral.

Before deciding on a company to purchase carbon offsets from. Do your research. Make sure they are accredited and legitimate.

WhatCanOnePersonDo.com Recommended Carbon Offsetting Schemes

Climate Friendly
www.climatefriendly.com
Climate Friendly is proudly endorsed by WWF-Australia. Projects are independently verified using the highest international standards, including the Kyoto-compliant Gold Standard.

Some reasons we chose Climate Friendly:

• The City of Sydney has taken a big step forward in neutralising their emissions. 30% of their fleet are now subscribed to the Climate Friendly program. We neutralise the fleets emissions by funding wind farms and other Climate Friendly projects.

• WWF-Australia supports climate friendly initiatives

"WWF-Australia welcomes climate friendly and their important and effective new way for companies and individuals to reduce their carbon footprint.

In particular, WWF-Australia supports the way climate friendly enables people to neutralise emissions through clean energy and energy efficiency, which address the root cause of climate change and help Australians make the switch to a clean energy future.”

Greg Bourne

Chief Executive Officer

WWF-Australia
www.wwf.org.au

Greenfleet
www.greenfleet.com.au
Greenfleet is a not for profit organization which provides a simple way to reduce a vehicle’s impact the environment. For a fee, Greenfleet plant native trees to create a forest, which as it grows, will absorb the greenhouse gases a car produces.

According to Greenfleet, their approach not only absorbs a car's greenhouse emissions, but tackles salinity, improves water quality and provides essential habitat for native Australian species.

The approximate cost of a carbon neutral scheme averages out to about 75 cents a week to offset an average car for a year. or approximately $4/week will offset a household of 4 people, 2 cars, and an international flight once a year.

Definition: The ecological footprint of an individual, a city, a country, or humanity is a measure of how much productive land and water they require to produce all the resources they consume and to absorb all the waste they generate, using prevailing technology.

Today, humanity's Ecological Footprint is over 23% larger than what the planet can regenerate. In other words, it now takes more than one year and two months for the Earth to regenerate what we use in a single year. We maintain this overshoot by liquidating the planet's ecological resources.

Following are a few websites that help you to calculate your ecological footprint.

My Footprint

This Ecological Footprint Quiz estimates how much productive land and water you need to support what you use and what you discard. After answering 15 easy questions you'll be able to compare your Ecological Footprint to what other people use and to what is available on this planet

Australian Eco-footprint calculator

The Victorian Government's Eco-footprint calculator is simple and relevant to Australia (although Adelaide is missing from the seven possible capital cities).

Eco-footprint shows us how everyday activities contribute to environmental impact. By understanding what goes into calculating your Eco-footprint one is able to better comprehend the problem and efforts can be focused towards the greatest environmental gain.

Ideally, if people could achieve a footprint of then we could live happily on planet earth without destroying its natural resources.

Have a look at 10 Things Everyone Should Do for ways to reduce your Eco-footprint.

ENERGY STAR is an international standard for energy efficient electronic equipment. It was created by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 and has now been adopted by several countries around the world, including Australia.

How does it work? ENERGY STAR reduces the amount of energy consumed by a product by either automatically switching it into a 'sleep' mode when it's not being used and/or reducing the amount power used when in 'standby' mode.

A feedlot or feed yard is a type of concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) (also known as "factory farming") which is used for fattening livestock, notably beef cattle, prior to slaughter. They may contain thousands of animals in an array of pens.

Most conventional meats are resource intensive, but feedlot beef is particularly wasteful. Producing 1 Kg of feedlot beef,on average, requires 4.8Kgs of grain and over 19800 liters of water. It also results in the erosion of over 2 kgs of topsoil. To give you a better idea of the scale of these figures, lets look at the facts of American meat production.

Livestock currently consume 70 percent of America's grain production! Their grazing accounts for 800 million acres (40 percent) of U.S. land, and 18 percent of all water consumption is devoted to producing feed for livestock.

Put simply, 'Food Miles' is a measure of how far food travels - from paddock to plate - and is an indication of how environmentally-friendly it is. Food freight - especially by air and road - consumes fuel and energy, and releases greenhouse pollution, affecting the global climate.

Generally speaking, the lower the food miles the better choice the product is for the environment.

I cant find any research into the 'food miles' associated with products on sale in Australia, and measuring the full impacts of food can be a complex task. However, overseas studies reveal some sobering facts about the hidden environmental costs of imported food.

• The energy consumed in food freight often outweighs the nutritional energy in the food itself. For instance, it takes around 1,000 kilojoules of energy to ship 170kJ worth of strawberries from Chile to the United States.

• A recent German study found that a 240ml cup of yoghurt in a supermarket shelf in Berlin entails over 9,000km of transportation. (Germans eat 3 billion cups a year.)

• In the United States, the food for a typical meal has travelled nearly 2,100km, but if that meal contains off-season fruits or vegetables the total distance is many times higher.

• Even imported organic food can have a tremendous impact. A single Briton's shopping basket of 26 imported organic products could have travelled 241,000km and released as much CO2 into the atmosphere as an average four bedroom household does through cooking meals over eight months.

References:

Clay, J. 2004. World Agriculture and the Environment, Island Press, Washington DC.
Jones, A. 2001. Eating Oil: Food Supply in a Changing Climate. A Sustain/Elm Farm Research Centre Report, United Kingdom.

The lesson to take away from this is to eat locally grown foods and eat seasonal foods. For example, don’t buy cherries in Australia in winter that are shipped from the US. Wait until summer and eat the locally grown fruit.

Also, eating organically grown product from the other side of the world is MUCH worse for than environment than eating traditionally grown local produce.

Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons, primarily coal, fuel oil or natural gas, formed from the remains of dead plants and animals. In common dialogue, the term fossil fuel also includes hydrocarbon-containing natural resources that are not derived from animal or plant sources. These are sometimes known instead as mineral fuels.

Fossil fuel is a general term for buried combustible geologic deposits of organic materials, formed from decayed plants and animals that have been converted to crude oil, coal, natural gas, or heavy oils by exposure to heat and pressure in the earth's crust over hundreds of millions of years.

The burning of fossil fuels releases carbon and greenhouse gasses and contributes to Climate Change.

Global warming is the gradual increase in global average surface temperatures caused by the emission of gases that trap the sun's heat in the Earth's atmosphere. Gases that contribute to global warming include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and halocarbons (the replacements for CFCs). Global warming has occurred in the distant past as the result of natural influences, but the term is most often used to refer to the warming predicted to occur as a result of increased emissions of greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide is currently the most prevalent man made greenhouse gas and is primarily caused by the use of fossil fuels for energy.

The term climate change is now more commonly used instead of global warming but is basically referring to the same effect. It is, in fact, a more accurate term as effects of increased global average surface temperatures is predicted to have much more complicated effects than the whole world warming a constant few degrees. In some areas the changes will be more dramatic. Take for example the following article taken from the NASA Science web site:

"Global warming could plunge North America and Western Europe into a deep freeze, possibly within only a few decades.

That's the paradoxical scenario gaining credibility among many climate scientists. The thawing of sea ice covering the Arctic could disturb or even halt large currents in the Atlantic Ocean. Without the vast heat that these ocean currents deliver--comparable to the power generation of a million nuclear power plants--Europe's average temperature would likely drop 5 to 10°C (9 to 18°F), and parts of eastern North America would be chilled somewhat less. Such a dip in temperature would be similar to global average temperatures toward the end of the last ice age roughly 20,000 years ago."

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/05mar_arctic.htm

A point to consider is that there was only a global average 5 degrees difference between now and the last ice age. This highlights effects climate change has on the planet as a whole. The earth is the warmest it has been in the past 10,000 years (Environmental Science & Technology) and predictions are that it will be getting warmer.

In 2001 the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that by 2100 global average surface temperatures would increase 2.5 to 10.4 °F (1.4 to 5.8 °C), depending on a range of scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions. Many scientists predict that such an increase would cause polar ice caps and mountain glaciers to melt rapidly, significantly raising the levels of coastal waters, and would produce new patterns and extremes of drought and rainfall, seriously disrupting food production in certain regions. Other scientists maintain that such predictions are overstated.

The vast majority of scientists agree that we are affecting the earth’s climate. It is now coming to a point where those who disagree are in the fringes of science and are often discredited by affiliations with large industry. Predicting the resulting effects of climate change, is where the remaining conflict lies. This is due mainly to the extreme complexity of the issue and is often used as an excuse for inaction towards a remedy.

Attempts to rectify or limit climate change are further hindered by conflicting national economic agendas and disputes between developed and developing nations over the cost and consequences of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

Green Energy or Green Power is a term describing what is thought to be environmentally friendly sources of power and energy. Typically, this refers to renewable and non-polluting energy sources.

Green energy includes natural energetic processes which can be harnessed with little pollution. Anaerobic digestion, geothermal power, wind power, small-scale hydropower, solar power, biomass power, tidal power and wave power fall under such a category. Some versions may also include power derived from the incineration of waste.

More controversial is nuclear energy's claim to be green. It is possibly sustainable, arguably renewable and produces virtually no atmospheric pollution during the energy production stage. However nuclear waste is a pollutant, as well as the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases generated by the large amount of energy required by transport, mining and pre- and post-production. Hence, nuclear power is rarely included in official green energy schemes.

Currently the majority of electricity is generated by coal-fired power stations. Every unit of saved electricity means less coal is burned and less fossil carbon released into the atmosphere. But no matter how efficient consumers become, most of our electricity still comes from burning coal.
By choosing an accredited Green Power product, your energy supplier agrees that the equivalent amount of energy you nominate is produced from renewable sources, such as Hydro, Solar, Wind, Biomass waste, thus avoiding the use of coal-derived power.

Links:

In Australia, the organization Green Power is a nationally accreditation program that sets stringent environmental and reporting standards for renewable energy products offered by electricity suppliers to households and businesses across Australia.

Their website helps you to choose the best green power solution for you www.greenpower.gov.au

What is a Land Trust? Land Trusts are local, regional, or statewide nonprofit conservation organizations directly involved in helping protect natural, scenic, recreational, agricultural, historic, or cultural property. Land trusts work to preserve open land that is important to the communities and regions where they operate. Land trusts respond rapidly to conservation needs and operate in cities, rural, and suburban areas.

How a Land Trust Works:

Land trusts:

• Purchase land

• Acquire land through donations

• Secure conservation easements on land and monitor the terms of these easements

• Work in partnership with private and governmental conservation agencies

Land trusts vary greatly in size. Over half are completely volunteer, others have only a director or one or more part-time staff members, a few have a large staff, prominent board of directors and a large membership. Annual budgets range from under $10,000 to over $1 million. 32% operate with budgets of $100,000 or more.

84% of all land trusts accept land donations. 75% accept conservation easements. In both instances donors can receive significant tax benefits based on the value of the donated land or easement.

63% of land trusts buy land for conservation. 70% of the funds for purchases come from contributions from members and individual donors in the community. Other finds come from government agencies, foundations, and corporations. Land trusts also borrow money from banks, foundations, and individuals to buy land. Loans are repaid either through fund raising, sales to conservation buyers or, in the case of advance acquisitions for local, state or federal onservation agencies, when public funds are available and the property is repurchased by the government.

Although independent, land trusts frequently work with each other, with national conservation organizations, and with government agencies on important projects.

Links: Australian conservation options for your land

Energy is often wasted even in times when the appliances are not in use. The most prominent example is standby power, which consumes valuable energy. Standby power, dubbed as "Power Vampire," is much greater than it seems. The TV, VCR, audio, DVD player, set-too box, microwave oven, mobile phone battery charger, etc is more often just plugged in even when they are not in use, thus resulting in waste of energy.

Even though home electronics aren't typically the biggest electricity users in a house, vampire power can cost a typical household up to 11% of your electric bill. Estimates of the cost to consumers and businesses for all the electricity lost to vampire power in the US range from $1 billion to $3.5 billion annually. That’s works out to 26 power plants in the US alone just to power these energy vampires. In Australia we are looking at over $500 million in wasted energy or 5million tones of CO2.

The table below details the wasted electricity associated with electronics of standard design as compared to units that qualify for the government's EnergyStar efficiency rating.

Type of equipment	Amount of vampire power wasted
Cordless phone	66%
Televisions	25%
VCRs	30%
DVD players	Up to 75%
Home audio equipment	Up to 90%

Data from EnergyStar.gov

Transformer-type power supplies (those little plack boxes most commonly ised to charge your mobile phone) consume between 2 and 10 watts of electricity even when the appliance is not in use.

Solution: Turn off any appliances or chargers at the wall that you aren’t using. Things like video recorders may need to stay on to keep the clock settings, but TV’s and sound systems can be turned off at the wall. Turn your computer off when not in use. In some cased a computer in Standby mode can still draw as much as 3-4 incandescent light bulbs.

Renewable energy sources, or RES, are those energy sources which are not destroyed when their energy is harnessed. Renewable energy sources are distinct from fossil fuels, which must be consumed to release energy. Human use of renewable energy requires technologies that harness natural phenomena, such as sunlight, wind, waves, water flow, biological processes such as anaerobic digestion, biological hydrogen production and geothermal heat.