Have you ever wondered what your personal carbon foot print is, and how you might reduce, offset or neutralize it?
Let us share our story on this. Lucia lives in Edmonton and Catherine lives in Toronto. We have been friends since childhood, across the years and kilometres, and we are committed “friends for life,” all the more so as we share a passion and personal climate action plan now through “Friends4Trees4Life”. Most of the time we stay connected at a distance. Once in awhile it is a real treat to spend time together visiting and catching up in person. Recently, we wondered what our personal carbon footprint is whenever we do have a chance to travel to see each other. In our research for this blog, we found, and used, the free Carbon Calculator on Tree Canada’s website. It was instructive. To illustrate, a 3331 km round trip between Edmonton and Toronto for two people flying economy, generates 2.9tCO2 emissions, and would need 27 trees planted to offset the trip’s carbon footprint. Now that we know this information and have carbon offsets on our radars, we have included making tree donations to neutralize our carbon footprint due to air travel as a part of our personal climate action plans. (More on personal climate action plans soon.)
Readers may want to explore what their own carbon footprint is for the various activities they do by trying Tree Canada’s free Carbon Calculator at https://bit.ly/368bs3S.
More on Carbon Capture and Carbon Footprints
In Canada’s recent federal election, Climate Change became a priority issue, largely in response to public opinion showing that a majority of Canadians want politicians and governments to give greater priority to this urgent issue. A call for making climate change a higher priority is certainly something we support wholeheartedly, and, as individual citizens, we are trying harder to do our part through our personal climate action plan and by creating the Friends4Trees4Life blog as a resource for others.
We can’t contain our excitement nor say enough times that – helping to grow the tree canopy is something any citizen, organization, company and government can do right away, today. No need for new policy, new laws, or committees.
We’ve talked about Ethiopia, as an example of how one country is stepping up to plant 4 billion trees to help slow global warming and strengthen its biodiversity. We’ve profiled examples of environmental non-profits that are dedicated to tree-planting, reforestation and public education, at the local, national and international levels. We believe it will take the efforts of all of us working together–citizens, organizations, governments and companies—if we are to ensure that Planet Earth remains viable for future generations to come.
Here is a business example of what one company in the travel industry is doing about its carbon footprint. Travel expert, writer and business owner, Rick Steeve, is self-imposing a carbon tax on his organization, through a Climate Smart Commitment and $1 million Climate Smart Portfolio. The Climate Smart Portfolio offers grants and investments in a range of projects, including climate-smart agriculture and conservation, and advocacy to combat climate change. https://bit.ly/2BM0TW6.
Start to learn more about, and perhaps get inspired by, what other individuals, organizations, and businesses are doing about carbon offsets or innovations in order to reduce their carbon footprint. Please tell us what you find so we may learn too and share it with our Readers.
FRIENDS4TREES4LIFE 