Ratings

The Environment

The Greening of Greening

Depending on who you talk to, it seems Im either a wretched wastrel polluter on par with some smoke spewing Linfen factory, or Im a Rainbow Warrior mincing around in hemp sandals looking for a tree to embrace. Im speaking of my carbon footprint naturally: the rough calculation of how my lifestyle impacts the Earth. With our planets health constantly in debate these days—is the atmosphere really warming, and if so is that actually bad, and if so is it our fault, and if so can we do anything about it?—I was curious to see how I chalked up and consulted several of the various calculators found online. Putting in the numbers, the completely contradictory estimates nicely reflect the murkiness of the debate were currently in. It also calls into question the budding market for carbon offsets—the process of hedging your environmental impact by putting money into environmentally sound resources.