Are you guilty of writing off your travel guilt by purchasing carbon offsets—without changing your travel habits in the least? One of the first travel companies to offer travelers the option to purchase carbon offsets along with their tickets thinks the move might not be so responsible after all. Responsible Travel is siding with the doubters, canceling its offset program and claiming that not only do offsets not impact global emissions levels but that by promoting a false sense of virtuosity, they may actually encourage additional air travel. “The carbon offset has become this magic pill, a kind of get-out-of-jail-free card,” Responsible Travel's Justin Francis told The New York Times. "It's seductive to the consumer who says, ‘It’s $4 and I’m carbon-neutral, so I can fly all I want.’ ”

Responsible Travel ends its seven-year relationship with offsets as other companies are still climbing on board. United Airlines became the latest American airline to add an offset program this summer. Other organizations, from Yahoo to the United States House of Representatives, recently ditched carbon offset trials, saying the money was better spent improving their energy efficiency in other ways.

Now wait just a minute—what are you supposed to do about that holiday trip you have planned? Go ahead and buy a carbon offset. It'll ease your conscience, and every little bit helps, after all. That's not a bad thing. But Responsible Travel has a point: if offsets are actually encouraging frequent flyers to fly even more frequently (because, well, why not?), then the net result is not very eco-friendly at all. All semblance of personal responsibility and personal carbon budgets gets thrown out the window. And that's where Responsible Travel and responsible travelers alike think it's time to clip the wings of offset programs.

(Photo credit:jimmyharris, flickr)

Google carbon cycle map

"How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else." Buckminster Fuller

"Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience, it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason." Leonardo DaVinci

The importance of maps in our lives is without question. Mapping our world increases our global understanding and can help us find our way to a greener future. This the focus of Google Maps new Carbon Cycle imaging map, by mapping the carbon currents, the places where our carbon emissions collect and disseminate from, we can contextualize our carbon impact upon the planet.

Maps help us find our way when we are lost and this map, his new tool in the architecture of information, is no different, it is likely to help us to frame ourselves into the complete ecological picture and enable us to access and choose a sensible, sustainable way forward.

We agree with Treehugger, that Google Earth's new Carbon Cycle Imaging Map and Great Green Google Earth Layers can be powerful teaching and motivational tools for a greener future.

(Photo credit:woodleywonderworks on flickr)

If you spend a lot of time online (hullo, we see you tapping away back there behind that screen!), ways to do it more sustainably are undoubtedly high on your list of priorities. Yesterday, we looked at greener printing and web hosting; today, let's cover green search engines.

As a writer who runs handsful of internet searches not every day but every working hour, I was completely disheartened to discover that a single Google search (whether it's research for a work project or the latest movie schedule for this evening) throws the equivalent of 7 grams of carbon into the atmosphere. Ouch. Many green search sites claim to trim energy use and emissions by displaying their search engines on a black background, which supposedly takes less energy to display. Google itself has let the wind out of that particular sail, however, explaining, "We applaud the spirit of the idea, but our own analysis as well as that of others shows that making the Google homepage black will not reduce energy consumption. To the contrary, on flat-panel monitors (already estimated to be 75% of the market), displaying black may actually increase energy usage. Detailed results from a new study confirm this."

That leaves us with search engines that either rely on carbon offsets or focus on sustainable web sites.

• Ecocho, based off Yahoo search, offers carbon offsets by pledging to grow two trees for every 1,000 searches.
• Green Maven specializes in searching for information on green and sustainable sites.
• EcoSeek focuses its searches not on information and news but rather on green products, manufacturers and retailers.
• ClimateGift allows you to choose a green organization to receive money from your ad clicks.

Read more about greener web searches (no need to Google!):

• Offset your web surfing emissions
• Newspapers vs. internet: Which is the greener choice?

(Photo credit:striatic, flickr)

Foodie fandom is all the rage—what? you're not watching Top Chef Season 6 in Vegas?!?—but if you're not a follower, take it from us: "Naked Chef" Jamie Oliver isn't merely another pretty face. The UK chef and media sensation is becoming well known 'round the world not only for his food-focused TV shows but also his green initiatives. Yup, we're smitten. Here's why:

1. Oliver supports healthier school lunches for kids. His efforts to bring radical change to the school meals system threw down the gauntlet to challenge junk food culture and show schools they could serve healthy, cost-efficient meals that kids would actually eat. Starting this fall, Oliver will work with local officials to bring healthy food to America’s fattest city: Huntington, W. Va.
2. In July, the Jamie Oliver Ministry of Food announced it would set up a program in Bradford, England, to help people learn to cook with seasonal and local produce.
3. Now, the Naked Chef is reducing his carbon footprint through CO2 offsets. To offset the CO2 emissions of his busy international lifestyle, Oliver is working with ClimateCare to donate to projects including solar power installations in India, wind power projects in China and providing energy-efficient stoves in Cambodia.  “My company is serious about helping to prevent the dangers of climate change and we recognize that, with everything we do, but especially with TV programs like this one, we create a carbon footprint,” he confessed.

The Naked Chef's work is clearly not a case of naked ambition. Oliver has made it clear that he values teaching real people, creating real recipes, implementing real programs (and not merely talking about the ideas on camera). He's the real thing: see more at JamieOliver.com.

(Photo credit:Jamie Oliver)

"For three million years we were hunter-gatherers, and it was through the evolutionary pressures of that way of life that a brain so adaptable and so creative eventually emerged. Today we stand with the brains of hunter-gatherers in our heads, looking out on a modern world made comfortable for some by the fruits of human inventiveness, and made miserable for others by the scandal of deprivation in the midst of plenty." Richard E Leakey

"Don't blow it, good planets are hard to find." Time Magazine

It can be real challenge to green our shiny thing loving, impulse buying, inner hunter-gatherer. Here are some basic tips that can help us be lean and green in our consumption:

1. Make lists of our consumer driven needs and desires, check them twice or three times before venturing out to shop. Personally it helps me--especially when food shopping--to check my cabinets thoroughly to make sure that I really need something before I buy it. The backs of cupboards and the drawers in my fridge often yield, upon close inspection, items that I think I need more of.
2. Delay gratification long enough on larger items to find the best price as locally as possible. This supports our local economy. The lack of local Mom and Pop stores for appliances and larger ticket items may make a trip to a nearby chain store inevitable. I usually decry the big-box shopping experience but at the very least a purchase from the greenest big-box store that you can find, supports someones livelihood. Because these establishments employ many of our neighbors and friends, buying locally--even from a larger store--may make more sense carbon footprint wise, than resorting to mail order. Always look for the Energy Star label when purchasing new appliances.
3. Buying used items or swapping goods and services whenever possible is a marvelous way to green your consumption. Vintage items and shabby-chic sensibilities are not going out of style any time soon.
4. Support local farmers, restaurants, craftsmen and women and service providers whenever humanly possible.
5. Buying fair trade, organic goods whenever possible supports eco-friendly land and workforce practices and humane cruelty free animal treatment.
6. Reducing and simplifying our needs, reusing what we already possess and recycling what we cannot upcycle or gift.
7. Walk, bike or use public transport whenever possible to shop.
8. Plan your shopping trips in the car as efficiently as possible, combining tasks and fun makes total sense for the green at heart. Asking a friend along for the ride or carpooling to the store or events is an energy efficient way to offset your carbon footprint.
9. When gift giving, we should always avoid willly nilly impulse buying. Thoughtful gift giving takes more effort but pays off with buckets and buckets of good green karma!

Happy green gathering!

(Photo credit:dno1967 on flickr)

On the roof it's peaceful as can be
And there the world below can't bother me
by Gerry Goffin and Carole King

“Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.”
George Carlin

Just in case George Carlin is right and our souls are destined for the roof, we might as well make them as beautiful and eco-friendly as possible.

Roofs are experiencing a renaissance: green roofing, cool roofing, solar roofing, oh my! Toto we're not in Kansas anymore!

In the battle for the environment, to help mitigate the effects of global warming and heat island effect in cities; to generate solar power and to help with water management, people are now looking to their roofs.

Here are just a few of the wonderful innovations that are currently available:

1. Cool Roofs: Cool roofs are light in color and reflect heat and sunlight back into space. In this way they help to reduce Gobal warming. Installing Cool roof technology reduces household cooling costs in summer and is a marvelous one time Carbon offset. According to the EPA and Department of Energy, based on 2006 data from more than 150 ENERGY STAR partners, cool roof installations are on the rise. Some southern US states--Georgia and Florida--which experience sweltering summers, provide incentives to households and businesses for installing cool white roofs. California has enacted statewide mandates requiring cool roof mitigation.
2. Solar roofs: Solar roofing is becoming more beautiful, innovative and efficient. Solar energy is a tried and true way to cut down on production of greenhouse gasses. Building integrated photovoltaics (BVIP) components are revolutionizing the Solar roofing industry and replacing the need for bulky rooftop solar panels.
3. Green Roofs: Green roofs are a wonderful way to slow the effects of Climate change. They provide insulation to help cut down on heating and cooling costs and they have the added benefit of helping to control storm water runoff, crucial in urban areas. Green roof technology can be a sleek, beautiful and productive way to green any building.

Greening your roof may be one of the most important home renovations that you can effect to help save the planet, so plan it well!

(Photo credit:greenforall.org on flickr)

The bus stops here and your car doesn't like it.

Why? Because record numbers of people with places to go and people to see, like you and me, are ditching their wheels and getting the heck out of Dodge by train, bus or carpool. Fueled by pocket change and Google Transit, public transit riders are saving their sanity and gas money, and at least some of our air quality by simply taking their hands off the wheel.

What about you? Still too cool to ride the bus? There's always your two feet, and how about that rusty hitchhiking thumb?

I can't force you to ride the city bus, but maybe this rundown (guilt-trip) on the carbon footprint slashing bennies of riding public transit--plus my own shameful commuter confession--will drive you closer to blowing up your Hummer once and for all:

• Spare change=big impact. Buying a transit pass, public bus transfer or train ticket might not seem like giant green steps, but, they really are. Research suggests that, when compared to other lifestyle choices that reduce carbon dioxide emissions, riding public transit packs a 10 times stronger greenhouse gas-cutting punch.
• C'mon. Everybody's doing it. Don't you wanna' be cool, clean and car-free? Forget what those after-school specials preached about the ills of peer pressure. In this case, it's okay to cave in and sell out. If just one aspiring greenie in your household (starting with, hmm, let's see, YOU!) switched from the daily drive to a public ride, he or she (again, that would be YOU!) would slash your household's total carbon tire print by 10 percent. When a brave second car driver in your abode follows suit by climbing aboard the green train, your household will further shrink its CO2 output by 30 percent. So, yes, you should jump off that bridge just because your friends did. Follower!

Still not down with sharing a budget-friendly, carbon-crushing ride? Fine. You can dust off your trusty 10-speed or hail a biodiesel taxi or EcoLimo instead. Alternative fuel taxis and limos are cropping up in cities and suburbs all across our car-addicted land. Can't find either? Rent an EV hybrid or a Bio-Beetle, if you must. We forgive you.

In the interest of full disclosure (self-deprecation), I confess that I don't regularly ride the bus or the train. Make that pretty much--how do I say this?--NEVER. Truth be told, I log about 25 to 40 smoggy, stop-and-go city miles per day, seven days a week, noxiously chugging through the daily Bermuda Triangle. That's what I call my triangular, two-school drop-off and pick-up route. A long, lame commute is what I get for being so picky about my kids' education. My port city, home to possibly “THE worst air quality in the country,” and certainly thousands of asthmatic kids (including two of mine), gets to eat my minivan exhaust. Guilty as charged.

That's okay. My progeny have my back. My 8-year-old son and 5-year-old son are already pros at riding public transit. They catch the metro light rail or (huge hybrid!) city buses to field trips up to twice a month. I should tear a page out of their little green book and do the same. My 4-year-old daughter is in on the conspiracy, too. She practically begs me to take her for a bus ride downtown. Does Long Beach's ocean wave-bobbing Aquabus count? We're not too scarred from our last Aqua-nightmare, when the bloated boat-bus blew an engine at sea.

There's hope for me yet. I'm using Google Transit to map my upcoming mama-daughter public transit adventure. You can too. What are you waiting for?

*Bonus tidbit for making it to the bottom of this post: While digging up public transit trends, I stumbled across this oddball photo title, “Sex is better within a quarter-mile of public transit.” Oh, really? How's that for a bennie? Rides (riding?) with benefits. Here's said pic (care of Payton Chung and the folks at flickr).

(Photo credit:terren in Virginia, flickr)

Out of work? Who isn't? Not green-collar workers. No, they're highly-job satisfied, highly-paid and even score bonuses. Bonuses! Anyone remember those? It's true. Green jobs are some of most pink slip-proof jobs out there, according to the world's first ever green jobs survey.

However, this rare ray of job market sunshine is dimmed by one big, shady fact: men in the (male-dominated) green sector earn 18 percent (!) more money than women. Cut it out. I thought today's tree hugger was above the old gender inequity. Oh, now I get it. The study subjects were cubicle-squatting corporate greenies. Cor-por-ate.

Girls, where's Crunchy Granola Barbie when we need her? (Her organic hemp hair is so silky, but it smells kinda' funny when I blow dry it.)

Where in the world are the new breed of green-collar workers? In the exploding clean energy, clean-tech, climate change, LEED certification, renewable energy, and solar and wind power sectors. What?! Green media hype doesn't boast its own category yet? I feel so left out. Really, I do.

Which county is home to the most green industry? The United Kingdom is, with a 28 percent stake in the burgeoning global green economy. The U.S. ranked second, with a none-too-shabby 26 percent share, and the remainder of Europe accounted for 24 percent. Africa placed last, claiming a dismal one percent. Predictable all around.

Some feel-good nuggets from the Carbon Salary Survey (worth mentioning to anyone choosing his or her undergrad major):

• The average salary in the booming climate sector was $76,000. Not bad for mid-level personnel in an industry still in its infancy. 
• The big green guns, upper-level managers, etc., earn six figures easy … and a free lifetime supply of carbon credits to offset their private jets? (Eco writers and green PR flacks make the least cash, bottoming out around $58,000 annually. Sniff, sniff. No surprise there.) 
• Some 68 percent of green workers feel just as lay-off proof as they did last year, if not more secure. More?! Apparently they're on a news blackout, too.
• Half of the survey respondents reported scoring a yearly bonus to the tune of $11,000. The other half reported air. Clean air? At least it's tax free ... for now.
• 96 percent of green collar workers polled were cool and stayed in school, like mama said. If one measly university degree is all it takes, sign me up!
• Green qualifications had little to do with how much green employees were paid for their work. Phew. I might be able to salvage my journalism degree after all.

Well it's about time! The future of global business is looking more green collar than white. Monster.com is out. Greenjobsearch.org is in. Flower power out, wind power in. You get the picture.

Ps. Green-cruiters, you know where to find me.

(Photo credit:Graham Girard, GreenForAll.org, Flickr)

You know what cap and trade is, right? Something to do with ... carbon markets? Or carbon offset? Global warming?

Okay, I've narrowed it down to carbon-something. Trading emissions? Huh? How is that possible?

I'm not in the minority here: 76% of us haven't a clue what "cap and trade" is. if you're one, you're not alone. The good news is that in 4 minutes you'll know all about it. Watch the video.

(Photo credit:pfala, flickr)

What's a "good enough" life for you? Is it good enough that we slow down carbon emissions (or must we stop global warming cold)? Is it good enough that we eat whole foods and organic foods when it's convenient (or should we expect manufacturers to stop producing so much toxic junk in the first place)? Is it good enough that we ceaselessly chauffeur the kids from one extracurricular activity to the next, as long as Dad takes the train (or must we stop excusing our gas-guzzling indulgences as "all for the sake of our children")?

It's time to set some firm limits when it comes to our personal and collective well-being. Let's call a trade-off a trade-off and stop pretending that we're somehow balancing a moral balance sheet when we make unhealthy choices.

Case in point: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is trying to pawn off mercury-laden seafood as an acceptable choice because the Omega-3s found in fish are good for you. Yes, Omega-3 fats and other nutrients in fish appear to offset some of the adverse impacts of mercury in pregnant women and their unborn babies, and they reduce the risks for people with heart disease. But hello—what about the known risks of mercury? Let's call a spade a spade. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can cause loss of physical coordination, speech difficulties, hearing impairment, blindness and death.

Put mercury's toxic effects up against the benefits of Omega-3s (which you can get from non-toxic varieties of fish as well as other food sources), and you'll find eating mercury-poisoned fish stops looking like a very attractive proposition. In fact, several international studies clearly show that mercury toxicity overwhelms the benefits of Omega-3s in fish. So why is the FDA positioning eating mercury in order to get some Omega-3s as a savvy choice? Even the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calls the research behind the FDA's analysis "scientifically flawed." What gives?

Continue reading Living an environmentally responsible life: it's time to get serious ›

(Photo credit:bigevil600, stock.xchng)