TerraPass has been in the news recently because of a deal called Greener Miles they worked out with Ford. Basically Ford is helping to promote the use of carbon offsetting through TerraPass. It sounds very interesting and although Ford said that it is not planning to run any broad-based advertising on the subject, it is something I will definitely be keeping an eye on.

The best web page I have found on this topic so far, however, is the Eco Business Links Environmental Directory. What I like most about this site is that it lists many companies that offer the offset service as well as list their price to offset each metric ton of carbon dioxide. The reason this is so important is because almost every company out there charges a different price to offset your carbons. Yes, that’s right. Not every company charges you the same amount nor do they invest the money the same way.

ClimateCare.org for example, a big offsetter in Europe charges over $13 for the same thing that Native Energy charges $12 for. They also admit that only 90% of the funds go to renewable energy, the rest is administrative costs. I admire them for giving up this information and hope that the other companies will do the same. Obviously, there are bound to be administrative costs associated with doing this, so it would be nice to know how they are spending our money and how much of it is actually going to what we want it to go to. I would hate to see this idea destroyed because of some administrative problems.

Anyway, now that I have explained a little about the companies involved, let’s get back to me. Being the penny pincher that I am, I decided to go with the company that seemed to give me the biggest bang for my buck. I used the Eco Business Links Environmental Directory to find CarbonFund.org, which has a nifty carbon calculator on their web site and charges only $5.50 per metric ton of CO2! WOW. That’s less than half of what I was ready to pay before writing this entry! Thanks ECO Business Links!

With my energy bills in hand and the miles I drove and flew in 2005 ready, I decided that I was ready to offset all my carbon dioxide emissions for 2005. I was actually very curious to see how I fared amongst the average person so I started with Native Energy’s site because they compare you to the average using a neat flash animation. After inputting all my numbers except for my airline flights, I was told from their web site that I am an “angel.” Ah, how sweet. I felt so good inside. And this was for 2005, before I decided to give up my car!

Now that I was feeling really good about myself, I decided to calculate my airline flight emissions. Uh-oh. This was bad. My picture turned from angel to nuclear fall-out guy. Umf. I didn’t like that. Apparently, although I am a saint while on the ground, I am really messing things up once I get in the air. So what was my total damage? On the ground, I am told that I emitted four tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2005 due to my car and home energy use and 20 tons due to my air travel. So, in total, I need to offset 24 tons of carbon dioxide in order to become carbon neutral.

So, now that I knew what I had to offset, I decided to head back to CarbonFund.org to do so the most inexpensive way. However, I noticed that when using their calculator my numbers were a bit different. According to them, I emitted about 30 tons of carbon dioxide last year. Why are the numbers different? Well, the answer provided by most of these web sites is that these numbers are not exact and are just approximations based on federal emissions standards. There is really no exact way of knowing, so for now, we just need to make some guess.

I decided that I was going to bite the bullet and go ahead and offset for the full 30 tons just to be on the safe side. It’s tax-deductible anyways so why not, right? So, let’s see, 30 tons times $5.50 per ton comes out to $165.00. That’s not so bad. I can handle that. Now comes the hard part though, deciding which way to offset my carbons. CarbonFund.org offers three ways to do so, through investing in renewable energies, in energy efficiency, or in reforestation. I bet that those of you that know me know which of these I am going to choose. The decision actually wasn’t as hard as I thought. For those of you just dying to know what I chose, I chose Reforestation. I love them trees.