On February 11, 2008, carbon economist Johannes Ebeling and scientist Maï Yasué published a landmark study entitled Generating carbon finance through avoided deforestation and its potential to create climatic, conservation and human development benefits. The title is long but the Journals of the Royal Society in the United Kingdom saw fit not only to assist these great minds in publishing their work but in aiding its promotion as well.

I bring it to your attention because this magnificent work combines the economic and environmental consequences not just of deforestation but reforestation and then adds yet another layer, the somewhat newer concept of avoided deforestation in the valuation of carbon credits.

Whew! I know. I am delving much deeper into economics and hard science than I usually do. Hang with me, dear reader. One of the very first topics I covered when this blog went live was my carbon credit definition, a vital concept which relates to how we reverse global warming without shuttering the world’s economy. In the succeeding months, I covered reforestation extensively. I only have touched on rational carbon management, though, and now is the time to report on all of it.

Let’s face it. Reducing your carbon footprint, buying recycled products, riding the bus to work and all the other ways to fight global warming can be a pain. The good news is that just about every method available of doing your part to fight global warming has an ancillary benefit, usually humanitarian. You enjoy helping your neighbor, RIGHT?

Well, allow me to guide you. Here are 7 categories which can help you live greener and help humanity at the same time. In subsequent posts, I will give you an appropriate remedy which fits your selfish lifestyle.

1) Get a cause

2) Get a clue

I often am asked about the fastest and easiest steps which people can take to reduce their carbon footprint and help reverse global warming. Among my favorite responses is to drive more sensibly. In fact, I harp on the subject, perhaps because I commuted by bus for nearly a decade from my home in Orlando.

What I didn’t realize until recently, though, was that everything I advocate about driving was part of a smart driving movement, known as hypermiling. It turns out that people from coast to coast and around the world are so distressed by retail fuel prices (and rightly so) that they have taken to adopting new behavior. You can read what to do at a handy website

http://www.HyperMiling.com

I am so impressed with the movement that I call for all drivers to display a hypermiling bumper sticker on their car. If we all drive smarter, we can reduce fuel prices, we can reduce our addiction to fossil fuels and we can reduce our contribution to global warming.

You may ask, though: what does this have to do with getting down? Good question! The simple answer is that being a global warming loser at its core means that you live wastefully. While it is good to park your car and travel by pedal power or shoe leather as often as you can, I don’t expect you to stop driving altogether. However, I do expect you to do more with less, especially less pollution.

Prior to the industrial revolution, most people lived with a relatively benign carbon footprint. Slowly, over the span of more than a century, we in the western world have participated in a fundamental change, one in which the consumption of natural resources is a secondary or tertiary consideration at best against happiness and personal wealth.

That has to change!

The term carbon-neutral has become something of a buzz word. Through a combination of conservation efforts and offsets, my wife Catrin and I have lived carbon-neutral since the year 2004. Carbon-neutral simply means to live as if there were no industrialization, producing only as much pollution as is necessary for a basic existence.

Sadly, if the entire world became carbon-neutral overnight, if we parked every car, decommissioned every fossil-fueled power plant and extinguished every forest fire, we could not save the Greenland ice shelf from melting into the North Atlantic.

Put another way, if we want to save ourselves from the ravages of global warming and reverse the crisis, we must become carbon-negative. We must return our planet’s atmosphere to its cleaner, earlier state while expanding the global economy at the same time.

It’s a tall order but it can be done. Fiji Artesian Water claims to be a carbon-negative company. I have reviewed the assertions of its FijiGreen.com website. There is much to admire about what Fiji Artesian Water is doing to expand its business, protect biodiversity in Fiji and reverse global warming. However, despite its commendable alliance with Conservation International and other environmental organizations, Fiji Artesian Water sends a bad environmental message because it encourages people to drink water from the other side of the world.

Stepping Lightly

Back in December, I told you about the splendid online video, The Story of Stuff. It explains in brilliant terms the reality of pollution created in order to provide the amenities of modern life, including air pollution and the waste stream (especially landfills and electronic waste (ewaste)).

The main message of The Story of Stuff is to consume less. Naturally, I am in full agreement. It is a lifestyle I have adopted. However, since I wrote about the aforementioned exemplary video, the green revolution has made several key strides in the consumer marketplace. We have Clorox selling a line of green cleaners. We have Delta Air Lines embracing a green operating model in a very public way. So, with all this positivity occurring, how can you hop on the bandwagon and not just consume less but take the next step and become as green as possible?

Knowing, monitoring and reducing your carbon footprint are the key steps. So, how does that differ from consuming less? The two points most definitely are interrelated. However, leveraging the knowledge of your carbon footprint helps you achieve another vital aspect, insulating yourself from green washing.

A quick definition: Green washing is the willful process through marketing and/or propaganda of defining a practice, product or service as being sensitive to the environment or greener than that of a competitor when the opposite is true.

While measuring the carbon footprint of a practice, product or service is not the only way of determining the precise hue of its green credentials, it is the most meaningful and effective way of assessing its role in combating or exacerbating global warming.

The good folks at the Earth Day Network have created a brand new online calculator of everyone’s carbon (or eco) footprint. Arguably the most wonderful aspect of this nifty tool is the fact that it includes nationality in the calculation. I exhort you to surf over to www.earthday.net/ecofootprint today and assess yourself. If everyone did likewise, we’d be a whole lot wiser about where we stand on an individual and collective mark and have a serviceable grasp on the length of the journey which lies before us as we fight global warming and reduce atmospheric carbon footprint by 2% per year.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Carbon Credit Definitions Must Be Comprehensive

So, what is your ecofootprint? In my September 10 post I gave you the means to determine your carbon (eco) footprint with your nationality taken into consideration. So, once you know your footprint, what should you do?

The simple answer is that you should reduce it but, naturally, there’s more to the matter than a simple exhortation. Besides, by reading this thread, we know that you utilize a computer which is connected to the Internet and consumes electricity. In other words, you do not live the simple life of 200 years ago. You have embraced the modern, industrialized world. Hence, unless you are ready to embrace an agrarian existence, you need a way of reducing your carbon footprint to the same level as if you lived on a farm and grew your own food.

That’s where the carbon credit definition comes into play. Last summer, I explained how carbon credits work for purposes of consumers. I went on to list my favorite carbon credit companies and the reasons for my favoritism. I stand by those reasons every bit as much today as back then. However, the Environmental Defense Fund, a charity which all of my readers know that I adore, has created its own list at CarbonOffsetList.org

This wonderful section of the website of the Environmental Defense Fund does a fabulous job of explaining the charity’s carbon credit definition. As you will find from reading the list at CarbonOffsetList.org the Environmental Defense Fund focuses in like a laser on methane capture. There is no denying that capturing methane is a vital priority in the quest to stop global warming. I will offer no criticism of such an approach. However, I will add one point.

Global warming by definition affects the whole planet. There are billions of other inhabitants besides people. We rely on those inhabitants for the functioning of our biosphere. In other words, those inhabitants help pollinate crops and prevent rainfall from eroding our topsoil. Ergo, truly comprehensive solutions to such challenges as methane capture must protect habitat for wildlife in order to fit my short list of preferred options.

This is why I have become enamored with CarbonFund.org Its projects include methane capture and reforestation as priorities. After reducing pollution at the source, these two steps are the most important. No wonder that the Environmental Defense Fund has added it to CarbonOffsetList.org

CarbonFund.org belongs on everyone’s list and if you do not currently purchase carbon credits, the best time to begin is right now.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

A Picture Could Be Worth A Thousand Tons Of Carbon

Here at Keyboard Culture, I utilize repetition sparingly and only for dramatic effect. Indeed, I almost never exceed 3 parts in a series or posts on a particular topic. The greatest exception was my Global Warming Loser series back in May. During the second half of this year, though, I have engaged in an accidental series on environmental contests, as in who can write the most clever poem or story about the environment.

This was never planned but I am deeply gratified to leverage the broad readership of this blog to disseminate vital information. The Environmental Defense Fund already has been featured here for another contest and the deadline for that one has not yet past You can read more here but this latest offering from Environmental Defense has the potential to change another whole demographic group and I just had to share the details with you.

First a quick explanation of the topic...

In previous threads, I have told you about carbon credits. In essence, they allow us to pay money to use clean practices elsewhere as a replacement for the carbon which we produce through daily living. They are not the cure for the disease which is global warming. However, much like fighting malaria, they are an important tool in bringing down the suffering until we don’t need medicine anymore.

Carbon caps are the next logical step. They are a self-imposed limit on carbon emissions which can be utilized by companies, government bodies, entire industries or people. Whereas carbon credits merely place us on the path to recovery, carbon caps are the cure. Both approaches cause us to be aware of our carbon emissions but carbon caps limit our production of carbon, a key difference.

Well, carbon particles in the air are invisible except in the smoggiest cities. They are, to most people, an abstraction. So, how do we communicate such an ethereal concept to people in a persuasive manner which compels them to care about their carbon emissions and take steps to reduce them permanently? That’s where the Environmental Defense Fund enters the picture once again!

A leader among environmental non-profit organizations the world over, the Environmental Defense Fund is running yet another contest, this time for video or graphic submissions which convey a simple point about a solution to the greatest cause of global warming, the use of petroleum products for energy. Way to go, EDF!

The content does not have to be produced in a fancy software environment like Illustrator or shot on a professional soundstage in order to be considered a valid entry. The message is the key so if you have a creative bent, enter today. The URL with all of the details is

http://edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=27811

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

In a few weeks, I will venture to the frozen north of my home state, Maine, to attend my sister’s wedding. It is sure to be a joyous time for all. jetBlue will be my airline of choice because of its competitive fares, extended legroom coach seats and non-stop service between Orlando and the largest city in Maine, Portland.

In preparing for the flight, I examined my options for a carbon credit so that the net contribution to global warming of flying more than 1,000 miles each way will be a net zero. Since jetBlue has partnered with CarbonFund.org, I knew that I would like what I saw when I visited the special page on CarbonFund.org to offset my trip. I was very pleasantly surprised and that’s no easy feat for someone who has lived carbon-neutral since 2005.

If you have read my blog for any time, you know that I just love CarbonFund.org. This very fine organization achieves much. In fact, one of its claims to fame is that it now offsets more carbon than some nations produce each year. Good for them! However, even though superb offerings from TerraPass.com and others in the transportation sector make it easy for travelers to offset their driving and flying, a key aspect of such products was missing until now, radiative forcing.

“Radiative what?” you may ask. The concept is quite simple, even if we seldom ponder it. Aircraft spend the bulk of their time aloft at cruising altitude, roughly 7 miles above the surface. Up there, the effect of carbon emissions is more pronounced because the carbon particles have less chance to dissipate before floating to the top of the atmosphere. Worse still, because one product of the combustion of jet fuel is water, clouds are formed artificially, clouds laced with carbon particles and greenhouse gases, a noxious brew.

The ultimate result is that their contribution to global warming is roughly double that of driving even when comparing carbon emissions pound for pound because the dumping occurs so close to the sensitive layers of the atmosphere which are damaged by the carbon. Hence, those of us who travel by air need to break ourselves of a habit. When we purchase carbon credits, we must use a website which gives us the option of factoring in radiative forcing. CarbonFund.org does.

Worried that it’s too complicated versus using a convenient service such as TerraPass.com? It’s not. You merely need to adjust for the fact that you can purchase credits which include the extra damage of radiative forcing through the jetBlue offset page of CarbonFund.org irrespective of the airline you fly. Just check the box labeled radiative forcing and you’re all set.

And the cost? If I had used TerraPass.com for my trip to Maine, I would have paid roughly $10 to offset the roundtrip flight. By including radiative forcing, the price more than doubled but I will sleep easy on the flight knowing that both the carbon and its altitude have been offset.

To learn more and to employ an accurate offset of your next flight, visit

carbonfund.org/jetblue

I promise you’ll be glad you did.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Since the very beginning of this blog in the summer of 2007, I have warned about rising temperatures. Given that my corner of this blog community is labeled Keyboard Culture Global Warming, this should come as little surprise. At the risk of tooting my own horn, it likewise should come as little surprise that my prognostications and warnings continue to point to a steady flow of bad news.

A few weeks ago, we received the latest round. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, has determined that surface temperatures over land during the month of October were the second-warmest ever. Yes, this is more bad news.

It begs two questions:

1) What are the short-term ramifications?

and

2) What can this alarming statistic teach us about the planet’s reaction to our continued and accelerating emission of greenhouse gases?

I’ll answer in reverse order.

The atmosphere of the Earth is self-regulating. If it weren’t, the constant assault of solar radiation and assorted other galactic pollutants would cook us. The planetary regulatory mechanism relies on various components, including the ozone layer, the oxygen-producing qualities of the oceans, the oxygen-producing qualities of forests and prairies and the carbon-sequestering qualities of plants.

Human behavior since the Industrial Revolution has thrown a monkey wrench into that mechanism. Now, we have stripped the gears and the only way of repairing the damage is to rebuild the machine. Until we do, the atmosphere will behave as if it has several screws loose and stripped gears.

As for the short-term ramifications, the effect of atmospheric stripped gears will be further volatility in the weather. The most obvious manifestations will be sudden, unseasonable storms, bringing flooding, hail, hurricanes and other such phenomena.

How should you respond? Well, I keep pounding on the theme of buying carbon offsets. In my next post, I will begin a series on various offerings to help you purchase carbon offsets from CarbonFund.org and protect areas which are vital to the self-regulating mechanism of our atmosphere with the Wild Places program from the Sierra Club.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Reduce What You Can, Offset What You Can’t

Since the United States is a world leader per capita in greenhouse gas emissions which cause global warming, the statistic of 24 tons of carbon generated per year per capita is a powerful one. Now, I get just as jolly during the holiday season as anyone but with the news about global warming worsening month by month, I would be negligent if I didn’t encourage all of my readers to embrace carbon offsets once the buzz of Christmas and New Year’s has passed.

So, have you taken the time to calculate how much carbon you generated in 2008? If not, there’s a set of handy carbon calculators which I highly recommend at CarbonFund.org

Once you have calculated the number, there’s another key point to ponder. Unless, like me, you lived carbon-neutral during 2008, you must offset your carbon emissions. If you have followed my work here for some time, then you know that I endorse and use several services to purchase my carbon credits. Lately, I have covered CarbonFund.org with growing intensity because of the impressive manner in which the company innovates. The subject of today’s post merely is the latest.

The hustle and bustle of the holiday shopping season makes it easy to forget the volume of pollution involved. In a previous post, I mentioned The Story Of Stuff, a wonderful online movie which I give my highest recommendation. The most important theme of that landmark creation is that the true environmental expenses of modern life are hidden in the industrialized world.

When we factor in the enormous pressures toward materialism which come with the holiday shopping season, we strip away decades of natural resources from the planet in the course of just a few weeks’ time. As if that weren’t bad enough, we leave a trail of waste which winds up in such places as dumps and landfills as well as smog in our skies and hundreds of tons of carbon in the upper atmosphere.

What can you do? Offset the damage.

Even if your gifts all have been opened, you can purchase Holiday ClimateTags from CarbonFund.org These nifty virtual gifts make it possible for you to offset some or all of the carbon emissions caused by your celebration of the holidays and the entry price point is quite low, just $10 for an entire ton.

Visit CarbonFund.org today and purchase one or more Holiday ClimateTags. You’ll feel jolly when you’re done.

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

OK, so I repeat the message of carbon credits and carbon offsets regularly but let’s be candid. How practical is it for people to live carbon-neutral as I do? Well, I maintain that it’s quite easy but will admit that the task can be daunting at first. After all, it’s nigh on impossible to live in the industrialized world and not produce an excess of carbon versus a bucolic existence.

Might it be helpful to reduce the chore of determining one’s carbon output to something more manageable, at least at first? Yes, indeed, it would. So, today, I’d like to tell you about a wonderful new website from a wind power firm, WattzOn.com

While it is vital that we understand that most all of our choices, from the types of food we buy to the number of hours we spend in front of the television to how fast we drive our cars, affect our carbon footprint. However, in general terms, the easiest way for most of us to begin to grasp how to reduce it and still live a meaningful, comfortable existence lies in our energy footprint.

That’s why WattzOn.com is such a wonderful website and why it won Business Week Magazine’s best idea of 2008. That’s a very significant achievement and I add my applause to this important accolade.

The website is very easy to use and I encourage you to do so immediately. I will leave you with the telling quote from the WattzOn.com homepage.

“Climate change is a global problem but it’s individuals who will create the solution. WattzOn gives you tools to track your energy consumption, compare it to others’ and understand its consequences in order to discover how to reduce your role in climate change.”

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

Electronic waste is a blight on the reputation of humanity and a stain on the great progress of industrialization. Since I advocate the carbon-neutral lifestyle, it may seem a contradiction for this author to extol industrialization. Certainly, it must be embraced with caution and the blind optimism that we can invent our way out of every problem is dangerous. Furthermore, when industrialization is allowed to expand unchecked, environmental devastation often is the result.

Nevertheless, our ability to achieve great things often has its base in technological innovation, such as this high-traffic blog. In this case, the environmental devastation to which I refer includes electronic waste, the haphazard and indiscriminate dumping of electronic devices which no longer function or have been discarded.

It must stop and doing so will require a full-on effort, at the individual, local, regional, national, international, continental and global level. One way in which manufacturing can help is to use fewer dangerous components in the creation of the devices we use. Of course, the fight against global warming must be included, too. For this reason, I am delighted to tell you about the W233 Renew mobile phone from Motorola, known as the Eco-Moto. The W233 Renew is the world’s first mobile phone made using plastics comprised of recycled water bottles.

The commendable attributes of the Eco-Moto continue, too. Motorola has partnered with CarbonFund.org through its Certified carbonfree program. Yes, by purchasing carbon credits, Motorola truly can claim that the Eco-Moto is the world’s first carbon-free mobile phone, a tremendous milestone both from the environmental and social perspective.

Of course, no matter what model mobile phone you may use, there’s a good chance that you can make use of the wonderful software from CarbonDiem.com to be aware of just how much carbon is involved in your daily existence.

In the end, then, even though we have a very long way to go before we turn the tide in our fight against global warming, leaders in the business community have begun to take notice of the need for urgent change and, in some cases, take appropriately decisive action.

I love to tout the power of carbon offsets. In fact, at this time last year, I asked if you knew what your carbon footprint for 2008 was. Now, I repeat the question but for 2009. Whether you do or don’t know, the simple truth is that you should offset your carbon footprint and CarbonFund.org has many options for doing so.

Now, they’ve partnered with the Responsible Purchasing Network to create the responsible purchasing guide for carbon offsets. Why is this important? Well, the prestigious client list which both CarbonFund.org and the Responsible Purchasing Network boast is a clear indicator that they operate with the highest ethical standards. However, carbon offsets can be something of a black box, accepting money in one end but yielding only intangible results.

The responsible purchasing guide for carbon offsets from the Responsible Purchasing Network solves this dilemma by offering third-party standards, third-party verification, and third-party auditing. In other words, all of the subjectivity on the part of the verification firm is eliminated because the guide provides you with impartial instructions so that you can draw your own conclusions as to which carbon offset products and providers are right for you.

I highly recommend that you visit

responsiblepurchasing.org

today to examine their many informative guides free of charge, especially the responsible purchasing guide for carbon offsets.

Disclosure of consideration: The opinions expressed in this blog post are my own. They were not influenced by any outside party. Moreover, I have no financial interest in CarbonFund.org or ResponsiblePurchasing.org

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler

If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, you know that I advocate low-carbon living as a key solution to the climate crisis. My position is more relevant than it was when I launched my blog in June of 2007. However, even as political leaders on several continents struggle with achieving low-carbon initiatives through legislation and treaty, humanity's abuse of fossil fuels and other environmental tragedies only worsen.

A key component in solving the larger problem, then, of reversing the trend toward lowered generation of carbon emissions to eventual carbon neutrality for everyone, is for businesses large and small to do their part. After all, it is commercial enterprises which drive much of our culture, both in the West and, increasingly, the East. However, it is a common failing among business owners and leaders to resist change if there is the slightest perceived risk of a loss of profit or an increase in expenses.

Until now, it has been difficult to argue with proprietors and boards of directors about the need to lower their carbon footprint because environmental advocates have lacked compelling data with which to make a cogent argument. The innovators at ClimateEarth.com have changed all of that.

Self-proclaimed experts in enterprise and supply chain carbon accounting, the good people at ClimateEarth.com have created tools which have solved a very large problem for the environmental community. Through these tools, we quite literally can account for the role of carbon in every aspect of an enterprise. I was overjoyed when I learned about the impressive accomplishments of ClimateEarth.com thus far and I am confident that they merely have begun.

The early successes of ClimateEarth.com in accounting for carbon in enterprise and supply chain activities have received many well deserved accolades and coverage by business news media. You can review an ample supply of relevant material on the company website. I exhort you to do so immediately.

ClimateEarth.com

Fomenting the Triple Bottom Line

Corbett Kroehler