Renewing my TerraPass

I'm renewing my TerraPass. If you don't have one, think about getting one. It's really a bourgeoisie way to alleviate driving-induced guilt! Here's what my renewal notice said:

Dear Jill,

Just one week until your TerraPass membership anniversary. By taking just a few minutes today you can help to fund clean energy and carbon reduction projects for another full year: renew your membership today.

In just four years, the TerraPass membership has grown to over 150,000 people like yourself. Together you've supported over 1 billion pounds of carbon reductions across the United States. It's the equivalent of:

• Avoiding 1 billion miles of driving
• Replacing about 10 million regular light bulbs with compact fluorescents
• Installing 4 million low-flow showerheads

Together we are making a real difference. Individual reductions really do add up to something meaningful. Please don't let your membership lapse.

and

A LOT TO BE PROUD OF:
Your purchase of a TerraPass reduced 11,000lbs of carbon.

Every TerraPass is verified by an independent, third-party auditor, so you can be confident that buying a TerraPass is an effective step in the fight against global warming.

Yay me! It's so easy: go to the site, figure out how much Co2 your car emits, then purchase a pass. Simple, (relatively) cheap, and a really good thing.

Low Carbon

From TerraPass:

The Forum for the Future is asking you to vote for the top low-carbon innovation. The winner will receive $75,000 to help bring their product to market. Choose from among five contenders:

Kyoto Box – a $7, solar-powered cardboard stove for use in rural Africa. It can halve firewood use and reduce exposure to dangerous air pollutants. (Kyoto Energy Ltd, Kenya)
Carbonscape – a giant industrial microwave which ‘fixes’ the carbon sucked out of the atmosphere by trees by turning wood into charcoal, which can be buried, used as fertilizer or as a highly-efficient fuel. (Carbonscape, New Zealand/UK)
Deflecktor – an inexpensive, lightweight aerodynamic cover for truck wheels that reduces drag. It can cut fuel consumption by 2%. (ADEF Ltd, USA)
Mootral – a feed additive derived from garlic that cuts the methane produced by cows, sheep and other ruminants by at least 5%, and up to 25% with optimum dosage. (Neem Biotech, UK)
Evaporating Tiles – an indoor cooling system that uses exhaust air to evaporate water within hollow tiles built into a false ceiling. It halves the energy use of air-conditioning systems. (Loughborough University, UK)
You can vote here.

Also, don't forget Earth Hour next Saturday, March 28th: Unplug, lights out, go dark for one hour at 8:30pm local time. This is a global effort that started in Sydney but has spread around the world.

Again, from TerraPass:

So this Earth Hour, turn off the lights and enjoy the companionship of a billion people around the world who, by participating in this simple gesture, are saying, with you, “Hey, I care about this too.” After all, it’s only by getting the great mass of humanity on board that we’re going to dock the climate change ship safely.

Green Valentine's Day Guide

From TerraPass: don't give cut flowers unless they are from your own garden and/or you find locally grown flowers...which means, sorry, no roses. Why, you ask?

The United States imports between 60 and 80 percent of its cut flowers, and most of them come from greenhouses in Latin America, or even as far away as Africa or Europe. Up to 90 percent of the roses sold for Valentine's Day are from Colombia and Ecuador; in 2006, the wholesale value of imported roses was over $300 million.

The additional air freight for bringing these flowers in is certainly not insignificant. If your order (plus packaging) weighs two pounds, you are contributing more than six pounds of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. In addition, growers of flowers do not have to adhere to the food safety standards that produce suppliers do, and so flowers may be doused in chemicals to ward off pests to maintain their unblemished appearance.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service checks for pests and invasive weeds on around 500 million plants (live and cut) each year, but they do not test for biocide residue. Even though you hopefully won't be eating your bouquet, the mere thought of skin contact or inhalation of chemicals may leave you in a less-than-romantic mood. This is also bad news for the people that pick the flowers and for the creeks that receive the runoff. In Colombia, flower-plantation workers are exposed to 127 types of pesticides, the Sierra Club tells us, and flower farms have polluted and depleted Bogota's streams and groundwater. (source)

What to do? Only buy flowers from Veriflora-certified florists such as Organic Bouquet or read this article to learn about the top green flower choices. You can also click here for treehugger's green gift guide.

Footprints and trees

Carbonify offers a carbon dioxide emissions calculator to help you figure out your annual carbon output. Not only does it tell you how much Co2 you're putting out into the world, but how many trees you must then offset per month or year to balance your footprint. Very cool. You can purchase tree offsets from Carbonify here or from Erase Carbon Footprint.com here.

Or, learn which trees offset best and plant you own. Or, for the truly lazy, you can just read a book or two.

Carbonify also provides an offset directory to help you buy green tags so as to assuage your guilt - and all for as little as $2.95! I have a TerraPass myself.

h/t my cyber friend Hilary