Why Not Carbon Negative?

Most of the discussion today on reducing your carbon foot print focuses on trying to live a carbon neutral lifestyle.  I have recently read a little book about John Wesley, who developed a philosophy for his life based on three simple rules: do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God.  I thought about how this applies to reducing my carbon footprint and I decided that maybe stopping at carbon neutral is not good enough.  I certainly agree that living carbon neutral would fit with the "do no harm" rule, but does it go far enough to "do good"?  Maybe we need to strive for carbon negative to "do good" and impact the world in a positive way with our own carbon footprint.  Either way, here are some products and ideas that are carbon negative.

Guyot Designs has two different products that they sell with enough carbon offsets to create a carbon negative product.  You can visit their site here.  The two featured products are a stainless steel reusable water bottle and a set of lightweight camping utensils.  A resusable water bottle is great in so many ways.  If you aren't happy with the quality of tap water in your area, find a good filter.

A UK based suit maker has a new line that comes with enough offsets to cover the manufactering and life of the suit three times.  So, with this product you get enough offsets to offsets two other people's suits as well as your own.  You can visit their site here.  Who said fashion can't be green?

Fiji Water is now promoting a new concept where they are pledging to reduce their carbon footprint by 25% immediately, use 50% renewable energy by 2010, and offset 120% of the remainder of their carbon footprint starting in 2008.  This does two things, it incentivizes the company to make further reductions in their carbon emmissions, which will decrease the expense they incur purchasing offsets, and it gets their customers involved in reducing CO2 emissions when they purchase the products.  You can visit their site here.

Think about your approach to reducing your carbon footprint.  Try to approach it in a way that is both long term and incentivizes you to make further reductions.  Those of us that are concerned can only make an impact on the lives of others by doing more than our fair share.

Replanting the Trees

In an effort to 'offset' my Christmas tree, I did a little research on the sites that were available to do that. I don't have a place to plant it myself, so someone's got to be out there doing it, right? So here is the summary of my reserach:

• At www.plantatreeusa.com, the basic tree package is $54, which entitles you to one tree, a webpage with a picture of your tree and the name of a loved one, plus an organic certificate.


• For only $15, the Arbon Day Foundation (www.arbonday.org) will send you 10 trees that are 6"-12" tall and a membership card. And unlike me, they know what kind of trees grow near your home. Or they'll send them to someone with a greener thumb that you.


• For the savers, spend $1 at www.plantabillion.org/ and you will have funded at tree in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. They're at 1.8 million already

There are lots more options, these are just representative samples of what's out there. Where you plant the tree doesn't matter too much with regard to the carbon emissions and global warming, but you might enjoy it more if it's closer to home. I think we'll join the Arbon Day Foundation and send our trees to someone who can love them better than we can...

The Christmas Tree Debate

My girlfriend and I trimmed our first tree last weekend- yet before making our purchase, we wondered whether buying a real tree or a fake tree was better for our environment, and which carbon footprint was smaller. Granted, not putting up a tree at all would have been the most carbon neutral effort, yet I already grumble about the madness of the holidays, so I had to temper my grench-ness on this one.
An argument can be made for fake trees, because they are re-used annually and thus don’t pile up as waste every New Year's Eve. But when they do end up in the landfill, they will be there for hundreds of years, leaking polyvinyl chloride (PVC), one of the most environmentally offensive forms of non-renewable, petroleum-derived plastic, into the earth. And, they're not nearly as fun as a real tree. But that real tree was growing a few days ago, breathing in Carbon Dioxide and breathing out oxygen. But maybe it wouldn't have been there if it's dad knew I wouldn't be buying it...
San Francisco has a cool program- you buy a potted tree, have it delivered to your house, decorate it, sing carols to it, and after Christmas the city will pick it up and plant it. What a green way to celebrate Christmas! Click link for article:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/15/MNGADG8GN81.DTL

Well, we bought a 6' douglas fir, because the little guy looked cold outside and we thought it needed a good home to live out its final days. We'll drink some egg nog by it, and then make sure it rests peacefully as mulch in someone's garden. And we're committed to planting a tree to take it's place- more on that next time.