My carbon offset piggybank: Thoughts on sustainability and professional conference-going (Part 2)
11 November 2013 – Cathy Stanton
The US leads the world in carbon emissions since the age of steam. Photo credit: Carbon Visuals.
Continued from Part 1.
Purchasing carbon offsets, as most people probably know by now, involves giving a company an amount based on the carbon generated by your own activities. The company then invests the money in projects—building renewable energy projects, reforestation, energy efficiency measures, etc.—that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There are lots of good questions that we can and should raise about this. How accurate are the calculations that offsets are based on? Which companies are the most effective and reliable? And perhaps most important, isn’t this just a way to carry on as usual while feeling as though we’re doing something to save the environment?
Here are my own answers to these questions.
- It seems to me that when it comes to making changes in our energy habits, we often hold the (admittedly not perfect) solutions to a much higher standard than we apply to our existing habits. Yes, there’s something problematic about continuing to choose airline travel even though I know how energy-intensive it is. But isn’t it better to do something, even something flawed, than to know about it and do nothing? (I was happy to find that ecological visionary David Suzuki sees offsets in exactly this way. Here’s the Suzuki Foundation’s own guide to offset programs.)
A 2008 exhibit at San Diego’s Birch Aquarium showed CO2 levels in the atmosphere over time. Photo credit: David Ciani.
- The information is out there for me to check the credentials and reliability of the figures I’m being presented with, if I wish. (For example, the CarbonCatalog site has international listings of carbon offset companies and projects.) As with so many other things about changing my patterns of energy use, it’s a question of how much time and mental energy I choose to devote to delving deeper. The offset company I use, NativeEnergy, tells me that my 5,400-mile round trip from Boston to Monterey will generate about 3 metric tons of carbon dioxide, which they’ll charge me $42 to offset. I’ve always just trusted NativeEnergy’s figures because the company was recommended by a source I also trust and because I don’t have the time or desire to become an expert on this myself (although I did check up on their calculation methods while I was writing this blog post and found that they use one of a standard set of Greenhouse Gas Protocol calculation tools developed to measure and quantify emissions and solutions). As with the many choices that go into trying to make a conference greener, I’m balancing ethical, financial, and logistical concerns in my personal decisions. If I decide not to invest the time in investigating further, that just reminds me of the complexities of really confronting the realities of our energy use and the compromises we continually have to make between our desire for change and the demands of keeping our everyday lives going. There’s no pure stance on any of this, but I figure if I can just keep moving toward greater awareness, it’s better than hiding and hoping it will all just go away.
So here’s my challenge, which I hope people will take up in the comments section below:
- How many of my fellow NCPH-conference-goers will at least find out how much greenhouse gas their trips to Monterey will generate and how much it would cost to offset those trips? (Most offset companies have calculators for this; here’s one from Carbonfund.)
Now that I know what that figure is for my trip, I’ve made myself a little piggybank (actually an envelope taped on the wall next to my desk) in which I plan to put $10 a month between now and next March. I hope others may do something similar and that more people will join in the ongoing conversation here in the blog and at the conference itself.
~ Cathy Stanton is Digital Media Editor for the National Council on Public History.
Love this idea. I must confess that I’ve already been planning for my carbon offset as part of the way Arizona State University (where I’m newly employed) is confronting global climate change and sustainability. See, for example the Carbon Zero program (http://carbonzero.asu.edu). Every time I travel for business, I’m queried about how I will contribute to the Carbon Zero program, and give a number of options about how to move the University toward its goals of being Carbon neutral (at a relatively distant future point.) Coupled with the use of solar and renewables on campus, I’ve been impressed and compelled to join this culture. I’m hopeful that NCPH and other conference organizations will do there part, but also that we can become advocates for sustainable public history at our home institutions, perhaps encouraging our employers to take a positive stance on this issue as well.
Reading this post I had a guilty look on my face when I got to the part about holding solutions to a higher standard of purity than the problems. I know I’ve done that. And, to be honest, I hadn’t thought about carbon offsets for conference travel until this post. One thing I’ll say for myself is that these days I commute primarily by either mass transportation or bike, so my car is more often than not parked at the curb rather than sucking up the earth’s resources, which makes me feel a bit better about the flying I do. Perhaps a more global view of all of our energy consumption is appropriate here, so we can see how something like a 5,000+ mile trip fits in to the bigger picture of our energy consumption.
A good point, Mary! That’s one of the things that make this so complicated to think through – there are just so many variables and things to factor into the equation. And I guess if we stay focused on the larger goal of decreasing our fossil fuel use in general, it’s easier not to obsess about the specific mix. (Of course, there’s also the question about the limits of what individual changes can accomplish, which gets to Mark’s point about changing institutional and corporate behaviors, not to mention the big policy issues!)
Cathy–I am also one of those people who had not thought of the carbon offset idea on an individual basis. It would be interesting to run a day in the life or a week or even figure out a year in my life to see where I am in terms of carbon usage. But, would that generate more than a “Boy! That’s a lot!” ??? And, then, how do I set my priorities on climate change/environmentalism versus another big issue (for me), which is income inequality? Straddle both? Focus on one? Turn three times, click my heels, and hope? I think for me, ultimately, the small steps will keep me sane and committed. So, carbon offsets may work for me, with other actions, along a continuum.
Yes – better to be taking those small steps rather than being paralyzed by the big dilemmas!
Like Mary, I do a lot of bike commuting and often think that the choice of leaving the car at home is my small contribution to solving the climate crisis. In response to Cathy’s challenge, however, I did some math and came to a discouraging conclusion. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration burning one gallon of gasoline produces about 20 pounds of CO2. Roughly 100 gallons of gasoline equals one ton of CO2, which is about how much my flight from NY to California would release into the atmosphere (according to Carbonfund.org). This means that it would take me about 900 days of commuting on my bike to offset that one roundtrip flight. Granted, I only travel 3 miles roundtrip to work, so others who bike longer distances might be able to do it in say 700 days. (Feel free to check my math–I won’t be offended!)
Yeah, that’s the thing about fossil fuels. They’re incredibly energy-dense – far more than we realize when we’re just sitting there letting a vehicle waft us from one place to another! Glad you did this math, Will. It’s depressing but useful to know.
So, according to the Carbon Fund site, my 5400 mile round trip flight would cost me $10.04 for a carbon offset. Yes, I am totally going to pay that. It is so odd to me that when I read this thread ( like Mary with a guilty face,) I assumed my offset would be around $100……so it is both kind of scary and very exciting to realize that collectively we can do something to address how our habits and behaviors impact global climate change. Exciting because, well, obviously. Scary, because, now I can stop making excuses! Thanks for the post, Cathy. Got us all thinking! Margo Shea
Now I have another dilemma – clearly the carbon offset company I use is more expensive (which is probably like the small-scale local-food producer being more expensive – Carbonfund is a bigger outfit, so their prices are lower). So having announced that I’m going to go with my usual company, I’m presented with a lower-cost choice! Thanks, Margo. 😉
Oh not! Not the Walmartification of carbon offsets!
Like Will and Mary, I had always thought that my minuscule commute (and I have started to be better about biking) was enough to offset my occasional flights (I don’t fly much and prefer the train whenever I can). But Will’s stats are an eye opener and make carbon offsets sound more useful in the overall energy diet. Does anyone know if there is a way to compare other kinds of energy use with transportation use, like food choices? It must get complicated quick, but I do think we must strive to keep the focus on holistic energy consumption rather than a single factor–even though it will always be imperfect.
Briann, do you know about the CarbonDiet? It’s been evolving over time – a few years ago people seemed to be using it as a kind of workshoppy/consciousness-raising tool, but now that seems to be changing and it’s becoming more of just an app for measuring individual energy uses, along the lines of what you’re talking about.
This post is really empowering. It’s not so much that I hold the solutions to a higher level of purity, but rather that I find the problem so overwhelming, that I can’t imagine that a small step will matter. That’s an embarrassing thing to admit in public, but it’s true –particularly because I have a long commute and I commute by car (a hybrid, but a car nonetheless). Reading your post, I started to re-imagine myself as contributing to a solution as part of a community, and that feels much more legitimate. For my part, I can say that a virtual conference would not be even a distant second to the experience of a “real” conference, so I will gladly offset the cost for my participation.
I think most people go through an overwhelmed/depressed/denial stage and (if they stick with it) ultimately come out thinking that if we’re going to do anything about this at all, we have to do it together. Here’s one of my favorite pieces of writing about this – “The Waking-Up Syndrome” by Sarah Anne Edwards and Linda Buzzell.
I’ll admit that I’ve often thought of the fact that I mostly work from home as a significant point in my favor, and I’ve already been daunted by the cost of the flight on its own. However, after going to CarbonFund and calculating the cost of my offset, even with “radiative forcing,” I can afford the additional $20 carbon offsetting will cost me. 🙂 As long as I am able to go at all, I’m happy to offset.