4 ms·

What percentage of your carbon footprint do you reckon that your donation is offsetting?

toto444 4y ago
I don't really know and I've been wondering for a while. HN might be the best place to get an informed answer. Here is my reasoning. Say I give enough to plant 10 trees a month. In 10 years that's 1,200 trees. Let's say half of them die, we're left with 600. Assuming a tree absorb 1 ton of CO2 throughout its life, that 600 tons. I live in a place where CO2 emissions per capita are about 6 tons a year (check for yourself here and don't forget to compare with the US https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... ). According to this back of the enveloppe calculation after 10 years I would have planted enough trees to offset 100 years of carbon emissions.
- simongray 4y ago
  I just "bought" 21 trees as a gift to someone (to be planted in Denmark, not Iceland). This amount supposedly offsets what the average Danish person emits in a month according to the organisation I bought it from. Not sure where you're from, but the average American emits something like 2.5 times what the average Dane does, so that would work out to ~60 trees that need to planted monthly (if you're American). Obviously, your mileage may vary. In any case, it really puts into perspective how messed up our continued use of fossil fuels is.
  - yownie 4y ago
    Another interesting metric for you, the average Icelander wastes 8x the electricity an EU mainland counterpart does.
  - toto444 4y ago
    Thanks for the correction. Just found this estimate 'the average tree absorbs an average of 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds, of carbon dioxide per year for the first 20 years.' My quick calculation of 1 ton of CO2 being absorbed is off by a factor of five then (200kg over 20 years).
fsloth 4y ago
As a sidenote: "Carbon footprint" as a concept is mostly about industry gaslighting consumers. The original intent was to divert attention from industrial policy to consumer choice. Unfortunately the consumer has very little choice all in all as our economy runs on fossil fuels and individual choice matters very little [0]. "Carbon footprint" was originally invented by the public relations agency Ogilvy & Mather for BP as a concept to divert attention from industry to individuals. https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh... That's not to say that public pressure is not a good thing. It is. But the actual causal effect it has for a better future is in the form of creating political sentiment. Individual carbon economy is mostly about promoting a political sentiment via signaling. But generally it's a fools errand trying to scientifically balance your "carbon footprint" since this was not an engineering concept to start with. If it makes you feel good to plant trees do it! Trees are awesome. Buying less stuff you don't need is also always good I think. For example I use my cell phones until something irrevocably gives up and drive my current car as long as possible (generally making a new car is always more resource consuming than driving the current one I think). [0] For example Vaclaw Smil "How the world really works" discusses our fossil fuel based economy at length
- lucb1e 4y ago
  Ah yes, the obligatory "we don't have a responsibility, that's just a BP invention from the 90s". It's always the evil bigcorps, of course. I don't know whether BP falsified the evidence here, but everything kinda points towards that it really is the consumers that drive demand. > generally it's a fools errand trying to scientifically balance your "carbon footprint" How would you, then, unscientifically solve climate change if we aren't supposed to take individual action to bring our own footprint to net zero, encourage others to do the same, and bring about societal change using market pressure and all that? > If it makes you feel good to plant trees do it! Trees are awesome. But if the "you" in this sentence is being made to feel good for the wrong reasons, isn't that dishonest? Shouldn't we be looking at what is actually effective use of your money, and not let people fall for feel-good tree planting only for them to find out ten years down the line that their hard-earned money went into /dev/null and they should have done (and could have been told about) something like meat reduction or solar panels instead?

I don't really know and I've been wondering for a while. HN might be the best place to get an informed answer. Here is my reasoning. Say I give enough to plant 10 trees a month. In 10 years that's 1,200 trees. Let's say half of them die, we're left with 600. Assuming a tree absorb 1 ton of CO2 throughout its life, that 600 tons. I live in a place where CO2 emissions per capita are about 6 tons a year (check for yourself here and don't forget to compare with the US https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emis... ). According to this back of the enveloppe calculation after 10 years I would have planted enough trees to offset 100 years of carbon emissions.

simongray 4y ago
I just "bought" 21 trees as a gift to someone (to be planted in Denmark, not Iceland). This amount supposedly offsets what the average Danish person emits in a month according to the organisation I bought it from. Not sure where you're from, but the average American emits something like 2.5 times what the average Dane does, so that would work out to ~60 trees that need to planted monthly (if you're American). Obviously, your mileage may vary. In any case, it really puts into perspective how messed up our continued use of fossil fuels is.
- yownie 4y ago
  Another interesting metric for you, the average Icelander wastes 8x the electricity an EU mainland counterpart does.
- toto444 4y ago
  Thanks for the correction. Just found this estimate 'the average tree absorbs an average of 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds, of carbon dioxide per year for the first 20 years.' My quick calculation of 1 ton of CO2 being absorbed is off by a factor of five then (200kg over 20 years).

fsloth 4y ago

As a sidenote: "Carbon footprint" as a concept is mostly about industry gaslighting consumers. The original intent was to divert attention from industrial policy to consumer choice. Unfortunately the consumer has very little choice all in all as our economy runs on fossil fuels and individual choice matters very little [0]. "Carbon footprint" was originally invented by the public relations agency Ogilvy & Mather for BP as a concept to divert attention from industry to individuals. https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh... That's not to say that public pressure is not a good thing. It is. But the actual causal effect it has for a better future is in the form of creating political sentiment. Individual carbon economy is mostly about promoting a political sentiment via signaling. But generally it's a fools errand trying to scientifically balance your "carbon footprint" since this was not an engineering concept to start with. If it makes you feel good to plant trees do it! Trees are awesome. Buying less stuff you don't need is also always good I think. For example I use my cell phones until something irrevocably gives up and drive my current car as long as possible (generally making a new car is always more resource consuming than driving the current one I think). [0] For example Vaclaw Smil "How the world really works" discusses our fossil fuel based economy at length

lucb1e 4y ago
Ah yes, the obligatory "we don't have a responsibility, that's just a BP invention from the 90s". It's always the evil bigcorps, of course. I don't know whether BP falsified the evidence here, but everything kinda points towards that it really is the consumers that drive demand. > generally it's a fools errand trying to scientifically balance your "carbon footprint" How would you, then, unscientifically solve climate change if we aren't supposed to take individual action to bring our own footprint to net zero, encourage others to do the same, and bring about societal change using market pressure and all that? > If it makes you feel good to plant trees do it! Trees are awesome. But if the "you" in this sentence is being made to feel good for the wrong reasons, isn't that dishonest? Shouldn't we be looking at what is actually effective use of your money, and not let people fall for feel-good tree planting only for them to find out ten years down the line that their hard-earned money went into /dev/null and they should have done (and could have been told about) something like meat reduction or solar panels instead?