I was reading the San Jose Mercury News the other day and came across this article regarding businesses that are helping alleviate gas emissions and people's guilt around those emissions. The intro to the article is:
Jason Buberel was racked with guilt that his car spews carbon dioxide and, he believes, furthers global warming.
So Buberel pays $50 a year to TerraPass, a Menlo Park start-up that promises to use the money to fund projects that reduce carbon emissions and otherwise offset the carbon emissions of Buberel's car.
"I do believe that humans are contributing to global warming,'' said Buberel, 35, who lives in Sunnyvale. " But I'm not so concerned about it that I would radically change my lifestyle to be carbon emissions free.
"This was an easy way.''
My immediate reaction to this was the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages and Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation it helped fuel. But once I got past this introduction, I was genuinely intrigued with what these two start-up companies TerraPass and Drive Neutral, are doing. TerraPass aggregates payments from individuals and funds clean energy projects that reduce industrial carbon dioxide emissions. Drive Neutral takes a more market-driven approach in which aggregate payments from indivudals to purchase emission credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and then retire them. By purchasing these credits, it reduces the supply available to industry, helps increase their price on the exchange, and stimulates the market in pollution reduction. This latter approach is particularly clever in my opinion.
I went ahead and bought a TerraPass this morning in addition to a credit on Drive Neutral. I've always been concerned with the environment but I've gotten especially concerned about it since my kids were born. I wonder what condition the world will be in 20 years from now when JD and AJ are beginning their careers and getting ready to have families of their own. I've been struggling with what I can do to help reverse the troubling trends around global warming, oil dependence, etc. I haven't come up with any breakthroughs. I guess it's one of those "think globally, act locally" type of things (see these tips), but I would like to make a bigger impact in this area than I am today. With everything else I have going on in my life right now, I suppose I need to pick my battles. At least for today, perhaps my money can do some good even if I don't have the time to personally focus on this.
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Reversing those troubling trends that we see occurring in our world...hmmmm. There are definitely some choices that have a big impact - like not buying a Hummer, not living in a 6000 sq. ft. home, etc. However, I've come to believe it is the small, everyday decisions that really make the big difference. Biking or walking somewhere rather than driving, buying in bulk and reusing containers, using rags instead of paper towels, wearing something two (or five or seven...) times before washing it. I am trying to add little things to my list every year - I have a long way to go.
You know I love *Your Money or Your Life*. The thought from that book that stays with me more than any other is this: "...everything we eat, wear, live in and are comes out of the earth..." It seems like this should be common sense to me, but, when I read it, it really struck me. Every single thing I consume from a sock to an apple to an aspirin to a telephone comes from the earth. I think about that a lot, especially in regards to our children and future generations. I'm glad that you are thinking about it because I know that you are good at solving complex problems - and I think maintaining (and improving?) our earth's vitality is a really complex problem. Love you. AG
This post from the TerraBlog is interesting. It's entitled "How to turn 6 pounds of gas into 20 pounds of carbon dioxide". I had forgotten most of this stuff from high-school chemistry. Scary - both how much I've forgotten from high school and also how easy it is for us to destroy our environment.
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