February 2, 2009
· Filed under Uncategorized
You’ve already done flowers, and chocolate is so cliché. Expensive jewelry doesn’t fit into your budget right now, but you can still give something that will last a lifetime. Give the Valentine’s Gift of Green from BeGreenNow.com to plant 3 trees in the name of your sweetheart, and make your day together carbon neutral!
By purchasing BeGreen’s Valentine’s Gift of Green, lovers can offset one metric ton of carbon emissions by planting three trees. The Valentine’s Gift of Green helps the planet by offsetting the:
- Emissions created by driving to your favorite romantic spot,
- Electricity emissions used to power your evening; and
- Shipping of your chocolates and flowers around the planet.
The three trees will be planted in the Mendocino National Forest near San Francisco. This reforestation project is a partnership between BeGreen and American Forests to plant the seeds that will help reduce carbon in the air and keep this habitat thriving for species like the Northern Spotted Owl. Your purchase adds to over 125,000 trees planted by Green Mountain Energy, the parent company of BeGreen.
The Valentine’s Gift of Green can be purchased online now at www.BeGreenNow.com/valentines for only $9.95 per gift and includes a certificate that acknowledges the purchase of the carbon offsets that can be printed and presented to that special someone.
October 15, 2008
· Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged biodiversity, carbon offsets, offsets
The concept of offsetting environmentally damaging practices, like emitting carbon dioxide, has met with mixed reviews. But the success of the voluntary offset market in the United States, coupled with the strong compliance market overseas, demonstrates that many believe in the positive effects of carbon offsets. Fueled by offset dollars, projects that reduce or avoid CO2 emissions have been popping up steadily.
However, an even more controversial form of offsetting has emerged: biodiversity offsets. Companies like Shell and Rio Tinto, a large mining company, often harm wildlife habitats in the course of their projects. Once attempts to restore the project site to its former natural state have been exhausted, they have experimented in funding other wildlife conservation projects elsewhere. In the same sense as offsetting CO2 emissions, these projects offset residual damage to one area by conserving another.
Proponents of the setup assert that conservation projects can often be implemented more cost-effectively elsewhere, and would increase the overall focus on biodiversity from the private sector. Opponents point out that wildlife conservation is an intensely local process, with no two habitats exactly alike. This makes it extremely difficult to quantify the environmental benefit of biodiversity offset projects, and calls into question an offsetting scheme designed for undifferentiable emissions of CO2. See Forest Trends’ Biodiversity Offsets Diagram for a visual representation of the process
For any offset scheme to work, it needs to have many participants. If biodiversity offsets are ever to make real improvements in wildlife conservation, they must gain traction within the larger environmental community, not to mention among the worst offenders in the private sector. Like other market-based environmental efforts, supply and demand from these groups will ultimately dictate the impact of biodiversity offsets.
