How much carbon were you responsible for producing last year? It might surprise you to learn that the average adult is responsible for 5-10 tons of carbon in a single year, based on lifestyle choices like home energy use, car travel, air travel, and diet (which comprises a surprisingly high percentage of the total, even for vegans). You can calculate your average yearly carbon use with this handy carbon calculator from Conservation International (CI). Once you’ve calculated your carbon use in both tons and dollars, you have an opportunity to make yourself carbon neutral by contributing directly to CI, or someplace like Carbon Fund, or Trees for the Future.
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Tree planting as a whole is not the best carbon offset project. To get the full benefit of tree planting as an offset project the tree has to live 99 years. It is almost imposible to make that kind of promise. Forest fires, disease, farming, drought, etc all keep trees from living that long. When tree planting is done in other countries often people are removed from their illegal farms to plant trees. These people just move, cut down other trees and plant farms. The Lawrence Livermore Labs did some climate projections and showed that trees planted basically above Florida, may cause global warming by killing normal vegitation. Planting in highly urbanized areas is the only exception to this policy. Offsetting is great, especially after you reduce, just be careful about picking the project.