The average daily commute to work is 53 miles round-trip. At that rate, I would produce over 9,391 lbs of CO2 a year! That’s well over 2 times the weight of the car itself… in light fluffy gas, not solid material! Or in volume, that’s about 627,000 gallons. That’s a lot of milk jugs.
The reason I bring this up is because a California company named TerraPass is trying to do somehting to help the everyday commuter offset their car’s dirty work. You can go to their site, calculate a good estimate of how much CO2 your car produces, and buy a “pass” which guarantees the reduction of CO2 somewhere else in the world.
The idea of understanding and somehow offsetting the true cost of driving has always fascinated me, and this seems like an affordable way to move toward that. This also reminds me of tradable emissions permits, a program that the United States and other countries use, but TerraPass points out that it is not exactly the same. Think of it more as a way to take responsibility for your actions.
