大象传媒

You may, of course, feel that you've already paid your electricity or fuel bills, but many environmental activists say we should be taking greater responsibility.

WLT project at Danjugan, Philippines

The Halesworth-based World Land Trust's primary aim is to buy land in underdeveloped countries, plant trees and restore or protect the biodiversity of animals and plants.听 To this end they've established another way of generating funds on their website by creating a sort of carbon bank where we work out how much carbon we're responsible for producing and then make a financial donation.

It's now generally accepted that the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is rising although there are scientists who claim it's not necessarily all being produced by humans.听 Either way, the World Land Trust says we still need to plant trees and restore habitats so that the CO2 is reabsorbed.

www.carbonbalanced.org

Anyone can log on to the WLT website and visit their Carbon Balanced section.听 We simply work out how much energy we use in our daily lives.听 Power stations generate carbon as part of the process - coal-fired electricity generators being one of the worst offenders.听 The cost equates to around 拢9.76 for every tonne of CO2 we use.听

Carbon balancing online

For me this means electricity use in my home, car use and other major outlays such as plane flights for holidays.听 For the past 12 months I've flown from Gatwick to Chantilly, France for a skiing holiday and from Luton to Barcelona for a music festival.听 This amounts to 拢7.32.听 On most days (rain pending!) I cycle from my home in Ipswich to work at the 大象传媒 on St Matthews Street.听 Coupled with leisure use I did around 8,000 miles in my Peugeot 405 car which costs me around 拢15 using the carbon balanced calculator.听

The average person's household power use creates less than a tonne of carbon which gives me a carbon balance grand total of 拢38.01, which I coughed up.听 I've received a certificate and the money will be used to support the WLT's land projects rather than buying any more land.

UK and World carbon figures

The WLT says the average carbon use by a person in the UK is 7 tonnes a year - which means a yearly carbon balance donation of 拢65.听

The WLT had a revenue of 拢1m for 2006, so there's still a major shortfall according to various statistics.听 The British government figures for 2005 show the UK used around 556 million tonnes of CO2 - which would need a carbon offset of 拢5,426,526,560,000.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency's figures for 2003 estimate that World carbon emissions (energy-related only) were 24,983 millon tonnes, so clearly the WLT's efforts are only a small step.

Close the stable door first

However, rather than carbon-balancing merely being a means to assuage any individual guilt, the WLT say it's far better to cut down on carbon use in the first place by doing all the things we're supposed to do:

• home insulation
• painting your house/dwelling in darker colours
• solar heating
• low-flow shower heads
• energy-saving lightbulbs
• hang washing out to dry rather than using appliances
• use public transport
• recycle and reuse things such as plastic bags or printer cartridges
• encourage your workplace to go green
• switch off computers and lights at work when you leave

A word of warning however - the average cost of carbon offsetting using the WLT site is 拢65 which is the equivalent of using 7 tonnes of carbon.听 So, my cycling to work seems to be saving me a lot of cash!

I must say I feel a lot better for balancing my carbon use.听 Now, I've got to really bite the bullet and try and not get on a plane next year and start cycling to Ipswich Sports Club, even when I've got a large bag to carry!

For full details and a chance to work out your own carbon balance visit the World Land Trust and Carbon Balanced websites using the links on the right of this page.