Are you Ready for Earth Hour 2008?

We wrote earlier about Lights Out America. The movement to turn off all non-essential lights at 8 pm on March 29, has changed its name to Earth Hour, and is a very global event modeled on the successful Sydney event last year.

Spread the word today!

Trashblogging ... no litterally!

There's a lot of trash talk in the blogosphere, but I didn't realize until the other day that there's also a ton (literally too!) of literal trash blogging going on - blogs that are entirely devoted to the topic of trash! I first found out about this in a CNet News article on bloggers saving, weighing, and writing about their trash. It seemed pretty extreme - one guy saved all his trash for a year! And then blogged about it at Save Your Trash. And we were beginning to think we were a bit extreme... Then again, there's a long way from Wisconsin to California...

Then there's Beth over at Fake Plastic Fish, who goes to great length eliminating plastic trash - even recyclables - and then keeps whatever she does generate. She keeps a running tally of all plastic items she's discarded (868 items weighing 13.5lb since June 2007). She's very similar to EnviroWoman - a self declared WhackedOutEcoFreak who also keeps all plastic and loudly declares not to use any plastic (although it's hard).

The CNet piece also covers 'Compactors' who never buy anything new...

Well, we don't keep our trash in bins in the living room, but most of the advice contained in these blogs are relevant and sensible. For instance, Save Your Trash had a nice summary post with good advice on things we've blogged about as well: Use a reusable coffee mug and bring your own grocery bags. He also has good advice we haven't talked about here: Use a reusable plastic bottle and bring your own container to restaurants to bring home leftovers.

Even though some of those bloggers are a bit extreme, the point they're making is poignant: We produce an awful lot of trash in this country (and throwing it away, doesn't really make it 'go away' - it's just moved somewhere else). So anything we can do to reduce this problem should be well worth it.

Going Green - for the masses

We just discovered the National Geographic Green Guide - a magazine "Written for general consumers, not for enviromaniacs". In addition to the $15/4 issue magazine, they also have a great web site chock full of buying guides, articles, tips, tricks, even a half dozen blogs.

Haven't explored it entirely yet, but everything seems to be very accessible and down to earth. Heck, any web site that talks about brewing beer as an environmental solution, should be commended!

Status on Our Sustainable Efforts

Recently, someone at corporate at Kim's work questioned whether consumers would be willing to spend extra money on things they didn't perceive to have a direct health benefit (i.e. spending money on carbon credits to avoid something bad perhaps happening in a number of years. Here's Kim's response, which nicely sums up a lot of our efforts over the past couple of years (except for food, which of course is another major focus for us):

Thanks for bringing this to the attention of those in Dallas that people really are willing to pay more for items they believe to be sustainable. My family is currently working to increase our use of sustainable practices and decrease our carbon footprint.

With this in mind, over the last three years we have:

• Built a new house which was pre-built in a warehouse. By pre-building sections of the house in a warehouse less wood is consumed and wasted – everything can be pre-measured and the small sections of the 2x6s that are left over are used elsewhere in the construction. We paid a bit more for this, but felt that by doing so we reduced the impact on our forests. The house is two stories with a finished basement, and overall living space is 3500 square feet.
• All ceiling lighting (not floor lamps – yet!) utilizes CFLs.
• Outdoor security lighting is tied to a solar panel and timer to turn on and off throughout the year.
• About 6 months ago we started purchasing green energy form our local energy company. We purchase enough green energy to off-set all our electric needs.
• Since we are not yet ready to buy a hybrid car (which our next one will most certainly be), we are purchasing carbon credits to off-set the gas that we purchase for both vehicles each year.
• We have invested in prairie plants and built rain gardens in our yard to keep the run off form our roof on our property and out of the storm sewers. The upfront cost of a rain or prairie garden is a bit higher than for your traditional garden plants, but well worth the investment.

Future plans:

• We plan to add additional rain gardens as well as rain barrels to our city lot to decrease the amount of city water we need to pull from the lakes and water table.
• We are currently looking into solar energy panels and what it would cost to install them, as well as what our ROI would be.
• As an alternative to solar energy, we are looking into solar water heating as well. The up front costs are lower and the ROI is better, so this may be our entry point into the world of solar. Before we can install any solar, however, we need to get plans drawn up which need to go before a review committee for our neighborhood, and we need to get he covenants changed to allow solar panels. Neither of which will be easy, however we feel it will be well worth the battle.
• I recently found out about “paper plates” and “plastic-ware” that is biodegradable and (I believe) corn based. Instead of throwing it in the garbage after your July 4 picnic, you can just throw everything into the compost bin. We will definitely be using them the next time we plan a picnic gathering!

Lights Out America

I just came across a great initiative called Lights Out America. It's an attempt at organizing an hour of only essential lights being on in cities across the US, and for every household to install at least one Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb. The organization behind it just did something similar in October in San Francisco, after over 2 million Australians turned off the lights for Earth Hour in March.

The plan is to turn off all non-essential lights on Saturday, March 29, 2008 from 8:00-9:00pm, and for every household to install a CFL bulb.

Sounds like a good plan. Even if your city isn't signed up (so far only 11 large cities are listed), you can still participate as an individual.

Carbon Offsets

Today is Blog Action Day, so we write about the environment. Last year, we chose to sign up for the NatureWise Renewable Energy Program through our electric utility. This lets us buy 900 kWh of renewable electricity per month - close to our actual consumption. The program works by adding $1 per $100 kWh onto our monthly bill.

However, we still drive cars, and use natural gas, and have been wanting to offset those. We did some research, and found three organizations that offer carbon offsets: CoolDriver, TerraPass, and CarbonFund. Here's a mini review of each of these, and their web sites.

The offset market is really complex with lots of different non-profit and for-profit organizations involved, so it's important to do some research, and not buy offsets from the first company you come across on a Google search. So, what should you look for when buying CO2 offsets?

• How are the offsets made? Projects vary from buying wind power, to planting trees, to capturing methane from cows. Some people question the value of tree plantings to adequately offset CO2, as it takes a long time for the trees to mature, and when the tree dies, the cO2 goes back into the atmosphere.
  
• How much do you pay per ton of CO2 offset? Can vary widely - one article found a range of $4.30 to $12 per metric ton.
• Do you get a certificate? I'd like to get a physical certificate (maybe if we display a decal on our car, others around us will be inspired to offset their CO2 consumption as well).

Our Carbon Nation is a web site that provides profiles on 34 different offset providers. The profiles are only available as PDF files, so you can't compare the different providers directly.

I will compare the three web sites' in terms of offsetting our two cars ('98 Ford Escort (avg 25 mpg) and '00 Dodge Grand Caravan (avg 20 mpg)), which each drive 12,000 miles annually.

CoolDriver

CoolDriver is a partnership between Clean Air Cool Planet, based in Portsmouth, NH, and Native Energy.
The web site has a pleasing look with a picture of a cow with the odd speak bubble: "You don't have to stop driving to help stop global warming." It has a simple calculator where you input miles driven and mileage. They offset with wind energy projects and methane capture projects at dairy farms.
(all measures are in metric tons).

• Caravan: 5.3 tons/yr
• Escort: 4.3 tons/yr
• Total: 9.6 tons/yr
• Cost: $132/yr ($10.8/ton)
  
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Included in the price is also a bumper sticker and a mini certificate.

TerraPass

This is a for-profit company based in San Francisco that funds projects in wind energy, biomass, and industrial energy efficiency. The web site is pleasing, and has an advanced calculator where you pick your specific car, and it then tells you the carbon footprint of the car.

• Caravan: 4.6 tons/yr - $49.95 to offset 5.4 tons
• Escort: 3.2 tons/yr - $39.95 to offset 3.6 tons
• Total: $89.90 to offset 9 tons ($9.98/ton)

With purchase you get a bumper sticker and two different decals.

CarbonFund

This is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, which means that your off-sets are considered charitable contributions and may be tax-deductible (Nice twist to get the IRS to kick in towards offsetting your climate impact). CarbonFund supports projects in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and reforestation. The calculator is a bit more advanced than the other two sites, as it allows you to calculate for several cars at a time, and then offset the actual consumption.

• Caravan: 5.07 tons/yr - $27.88
• Escort: 3.33 tons/yr - $18.29
• Total: $46.17 to offset 8.39 tons ($5.50/ton)

The calculator is nice, but then when I click Offset Footprint Now, I don't get to offset these precise calculations, instead I can either just make a contribution of a certain amount, or choose to offset generic cars, bringing the cost up to $49.83 ($5.93/ton).

You can choose to only get electronic receipts or physically get a decal and certificate. When checking out, you get the option to support specific types of projects or the total basket of projects they have.

Conclusion

CarbonFund had the most advanced calculators and significantly lower prices. Despite the web site not always having a logical design, I was able to buy offsets for both of the cars we own!

Happy Blog Action Day!

Blog Action Day - October 15

October 15 has been designated as Blog Action Day, where many bloggers around the world will post on a single topic and/or donate one day's earnings to a charity. With our focus on sustainability and the environment, it seemed only natural to join this event. If you have suggestions for a specific topic, let us know by email or in the comments.