Offset Your Carbon Footprint Here

Click here to offset your Convention emissions with Native Energy and personally do your part in helping to reduce your carbon footprint of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.  We have selected a special DNCC offset portfolio of domestic renewable energy and methane capture projects.

What’s your carbon footprint? Click here to use the Live Earth carbon calculator to find out what impact your lifestyle choices have and how you can reduce your carbon footprint today.

What are Carbon Offsets?

A carbon offset is a carbon emission reduction that helps decrease the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that otherwise would be in our atmosphere.  Most of our energy comes from burning fossil fuels, which also generate CO2 emissions when we use energy. To help solve the global climate crisis, you should first reduce your energy use whenever and wherever possible, utilize renewable energy sources and be as efficient as possible with the energy you have to use.

But once you’ve done that, you still have a carbon footprint – the CO2 pollution associated with your energy use.  You can neutralize or “offset” the global warming carbon emissions associated with energy you have to use to run your business and live your life by helping to reduce the same amount of carbon elsewhere – for example, helping to build a new renewable energy project that will displace energy that would otherwise come from burning fossil fuels.

Your energy use causes a certain amount of emissions in one place (your car, a plane trip, hot water in your home) – but you can reduce the same amount of emissions in another place. Your net impact on global warming is thus neutral.  For example, flying coast to coast round-trip, your portion of the plane’s CO2 emissions is about two tons.  You can support a new renewable energy project that will keep two tons of CO2 pollution from our atmosphere on your behalf for less than $25.  Your trip is now carbon neutral.

While national standards are being developed, there are resources available to help you understand the issues and make the greening decisions that are right for you.  Two leading independent studies – Clean Air-Cool Planet’s Consumers’ Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers and the Tufts Climate Initiative’s Voluntary Offsets For Air-Travel Carbon Emissions – provide questions you should ask to help fully vet a variety of offset providers and the quality and value of offsets they are marketing as well as the types of emissions reduction projects and clients with which they work.

Carbon Calculator

Thanks to our friends at Live Earth, you can calculate your own carbon footprint from your home, energy use, commute, travel, work and lifestyle. Click here and in under 3 minutes, you can find out what your Earth Conservation Plan (ECP) score is, how you rate with other people in North America and learn how to make simple changes in your lifestyle to lower your carbon footprint.

Click here to launch the Live Earth Carbon Calculator in a new window.