Carbon Offsetting My California Trip
By Corey • January 18, 2008 • 4 commentsFor the birds I saw in Meadows Park in Temecula, California, to count for my Anti-Global Warming Big Year I need to offset the carbon dioxide emitted by my traveling there. Fortunately, there exists on the web a wide array of carbon calculators to figure out exactly how much carbon was produced getting me to and from California. I used the one at Carbon Footprint but I’m sure others work in pretty much the same way.
For the flight from New York to San Diego with a stop in Chicago and my return flight from Ontario, California to New York the total amount of carbon emitted was .903 tons! Well, actually, Ontario wasn’t listed as an option in the calculator so I used San Diego as the departure city for the return trip figuring it was further anyway. Then, the distance driven to and from the airports I wildly overestimated at 200 miles and also wildly underestimated the mileage at 15 miles per gallon and came up with another .117 tons of carbon to offset. That’s a total of 1.02 tons of carbon!
At this point I started to get nervous as I figured offsetting over a ton of carbon was going to be very expensive and I’m not exactly rich. But Carbon Footprint said it would only cost me £ 7.65 to offset my just-over-a-tonne of carbon. Apparently, Carbon Footprint is a British website. In American dollars, offsetting my just-over-a-ton of carbon would cost me a cool $15.08 (or $.37 for each of the 41 bird species I saw in my walking expeditions). That seems altogether too cheap but who am I to complain?
The options offered to cover my carbon emissions included a straight cash donation which I assume would be used for one of a variety of ways to reduce carbon, or to pay somewhat greater amounts for the planting of two trees in Kenya or England, which would actually offset 1.46 tons.
I like the idea of planting trees, especially trees that will more than make up for my travel to and from California, but if I’m paying to plant trees I want them to be planted closer to (my) home so I might be able to occasionally visit them. So my plan is now to plant a couple of trees somewhere local, I just haven’t figured out exactly where yet. Once I do, however, you can be sure I will blog about it!
Plant two trees so I can count Bushtit? You bet!
Tags: Anti-Global Warming Big Year, carbon offsetting, Conservation
• Have you seen the cool 10,000 Birds t-shirts? Get yours today! •
Hey I have a big backyard that needs trees because my
beautiful hemlocks are in their final years. Plus you can
cover my birthday and father’s day while balancing the carbon.
Do Asian Pear trees count, or some flowering crabapples.
Dad
Hmmm…dad, your backyard does sound like a good idea. But only native trees, so crabapples make the cut but not the pears. You just want to see Pine Grosbeaks in your yard the next time they irrupt, don’t you?
Why is that bushtit all blue?
I think I was wearing blue that day and the bird is backlit a bit so maybe the light was reflecting off me onto it, enough to turn it from gray to blueish-gray? The parts where the sun is hitting it directly look the proper color…
Weird though.