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Its OK to have a carbon footprint if you pay enough. You do this by buying carbon offsets. These are used by politicians, environmentalists, movie stars, athletes, and others to claim the impact of their high-consumption lifestyles on the environment can be canceled out by paying someone else to invest in carbon-reducing initiatives, reports Lorrie Goldstein.
Many famous people who are for sustainability and against global warming live in many very big houses, drive many very big cars, and fly in private jets. If you travel frequently by air, even on commercial flights, you cant escape having a huge carbon footprint. Yet many of the most vocal advocates of cutting emissionspoliticians, entertainers, environmentalists, journalists, scientistsare continually jetting off to campaign events and conferences and workshops. Are they going to change the way they operate? If not, how are they going to persuade anyone else to cut back emissions, asks John Tierney.
The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was carbon neutral, despite all the folks flying to attend, because in large part, people donated money to third world countries to plant trees or build hydroelectric dams for electricity.
The Live Earth concerts held in 2007 created a huge carbon footprint on the globe in the name of climate preservation; an estimated 7,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This does not include the private jets of all the celebrities who attended or the thousands of people who drove their cars to each concert. An official volume, The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook, presents 77 essential skills for stopping climate change. Here are some guidelines from the book:
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- Carbon Offset Credits the New Investment Commodity
- Pakistan: CDA planning to launch Carbon Credit Project
- NCAR study: Growing Third World blocks emissions goals