Ideal Bite

What's the easiest way to pull your CO2 weight?

09.21.2007

Submitted by tmeronek on Fri, 09/21/2007 - 1:01am.

The Bite:

Join the green-tag team. When you buy green tags (aka carbon offsets), you neutralize the pollution that your home, car, and travel create. So team up on your carbon-heavy habits, and start offsetting.

The Benefits:

Mitigating pollution. CO2 offsets fund projects that have a positive eco-effect, thereby nullifying the negative effect of the pollution you create.
Peace of mind. You don't actually get anything tangible (except for maybe a bumper sticker), but you sleep easier knowing your addiction to flying to exotic places can be carbon neutral.
Investing in your fave causes. Different programs benefit different projects, so you can choose to fund anything from solar panels in African villages to sequestering the methane from cow farts.

Personally Speaking:

While the Biter team offsets a lot of the C02 we create, we got a kick out of this British spoof about offsetting cheating.

Wanna Try:

TerraPass - supports wind and biomass projects (turning methane from cows and landfills into energy).
Carbonfund - non-profit offsetter that supports solar and wind farms, promotes cleaner industry, and plants trees around the world.
Native Energy - supports Native American alternative-energy projects.
Consumers' Guide to Retail Carbon Offsets - not all offsets are created equal. This report rates your provider options (PDF).
Climate Counts - compare the carbon-cutting commitments of several major corporations.

Cocktail Fact

In some countries, tag players pretend that getting tagged carries some form of contagion, such as the plague (Italy), leprosy (Madagascar), and fleas (Spain).