(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)Check this link for information on how much emissions you are personally responsible for. The average figure for Americans is 7.5 tons every year. Now if you want to offset this by some carbon absorbing activity, pretty much the only thing you can do is to plant more trees. Unfortunately, the average tree can absorb only one ton of emissions in its lifetime (and that lifetime is usually very long, which means the offset is not done in the present time but in the future).
This leaves really leaves us in a corner as far as turning carbon neutral goes, leave alone the dreams of carbon negative. One has to plant something like 10 trees every year one is alive to offset our present modern lifestyle! This is too much to ask for, considering the fact that most people don’t have enough land to plant that many trees for even couple of years. Besides, ensuring that those trees grow correctly for the next 5-10 years is probably too paintstaking a task.
The other option is to drastically reduce our travels & power consumption patterns. However, even if we were to do that I doubt whether the 7.5 ton figure will more than halve, which leaves us with the same problem.
So the only way out appears to be in the use of clean energy like from wind turbines (nuclear as well?) and in the development of vehicles with hybrid fuels or biofuel. Indian market is not yet giving people these options, unlike in US where both these options are already being marketed. Let’s hope we catch up soon.Â
[…] was not a long while back that I said in a post here that we Indians are not getting enough options to get into a carbon neutral lifestyle in India […]
Trees are the worst offset project. What happens when there is a forrest fire, your tree releases carbon into the atmosphere. To get the 1 ton number your tree has to live 99 years, when you offset you have to make sure the organization garantees the tree for that long. When tree planting is done in other countries sometimes farmers are removed from the land before trees are planted. The farmers will just cut other trees down and plant their crops there. Carbon offsets are great, please rethink tree planting
I would like to differ here. Forest fires are caused in areas where the trees are dense or there are many trees. In short in forests. Planting of trees near residential areas or in over populated cities, metros hardly qualifies as forest!! And hence I don’t see the possiblility of a forest fire. Planting trees in ones neighbourhood can only be beneficial. But a better alternative would be to avoid cutting down what little trees are left near residential areas.
[…] Going carbon negative […]
Hi Mathew
Thanks for your comments. Don’t think I am attached to trees as carbon offsets in any way. In fact, the article was saying that it might actually be a bad idea even without considering forest fires etc.
However I still don’t know what we can use instead of trees as carbon offsets. Is there an alternative… Would love to write about it if there is one.. Any clues anyone…
Crops - that farmers dig back in or burn without oxygen (activated carbon)