G. Love recycles 450,000 alumnium cans

[elephantus]

G. Love and Special Sauce understands that there is an emissions footprint associated with our tours, including our tour bus and air travel and the electricity used to power our concerts. That is why we have joined the ‘Eco-Tunes’ and have offset the emissions produced during our winter 2007 tour. Through a partnership with Sustainable Waves and Green Mountain Energy Company, we are offsetting 100% of the carbon dioxide emissions created during our 2007 winter tour. Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas (GHG), is one of the primary contributors to global warming.

Through a provision of Renewable Energy Credits from Green Mountain Energy Company, G. Love and Special Sauce will offset about 185,000 pounds of CO2 while touring this winter. To put this in perspective, that is equivalent to not driving your car over 205,000 miles or recycling over 450,000 aluminum cans. It would take over 11,000 trees more than a year to sequester that much carbon dioxide and has the same environmental impact of taking about 16 cars off the road for one year.

Sustainable Waves:
http://www.sustainablewaves.com/

Green Mountain Energy Company
http://www.greenmountain.com/

[sway2sway]

:D that's great

[tinkerlion]

:D that's great
:cool:

[sway2sway]

I was checking into the links provided above, to try and understand a little more about carbon offsetting, fancy name for wha?, and I'll be damned, I actually have a hot off the press G Love article to share. This one actually explains a lot more than going to the links above, I think. I still don't fully understand 'offset" though.

http://www.glidemagazine.com/index.php?task=Articles&id=51897&section=96&issue=1

I think this is a really super initiative, on more than just the physical environmental level, it also enables others to learn and feel they are making a difference, potentially just by going to a concert, trickle down baby.

I wonder how much a solar powered stage would cost.
I dream of one day getting off the grid... but I won't need a stage

[sway2sway]

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/carbon_offset.html

[Miss Shark]

I'm glad that I am not the only one that found it a might bit confusing....

[mello]

This should help. http://www.sustainablewaves.com/option,com_content/view,article/id,28/Itemid,4/

[sway2sway]

that did help.
I'm not the best looker arounder.
thank you.

[Miss Shark]

I guess I was looking for more specifics as to what companies are benefiting from the purchase of these offset certificates.

[Miss Shark]

Neat stuff for sure!!!

I just don't think it should be so hard to figure out where the money goes if I pay ten pounds for an offset certificate...not sure how I even wound up at this site, but I think some of it goes here:

http://www.carbontrust.co.uk/default.ct

I understand that this is not a charitable orginazation, or non-profit that is required to give you a break down, I'm just trying to get a handle on what it's all about.

Still neutral on the offset credits, but who's not for solar power.

[tinkerlion]

this made it clearer for me.

Because nuclear and fossil fuel power are subsidized and their full costs are not built into the price charged, they are cheaper than most renewable sources. The wholesale price for electricity is determined by non-renewable sources and is often less than the cost of producing it through cleaner renewable methods. This is due partially to government subsidies for the nonrenewable energy industry, and partially to a market structure that does not fully capture all social and environmental costs associated with conventional electricity generation (like air pollution, costs to maintain the military in oil-rich parts of the world, disposal costs for nuclear waste, health impacts of dirty generation, etc.) A green tag or REC represents an additional payment for producing power from renewable resources, allowing the producer to create and sell electricity at the local market price and thus enabling more clean renewable energy to be made.

ok, so it's to make alternative energies more cost effective, therefore more appealing.

While the value of green tags fluctuates, most sellers of green tags are legally obligated to "deliver" green tags to their customers within a few months of their generation date. Other organizations(such as Native Energy) will sell as many green tags as possible and then use the funds generated to guarantee a specific fixed price to a future wind farm, for example, making the building of the wind farm a financially viable prospect. The income provided by green tags, and a long-term stabilized market for tags can generate the additional incentive needed to build renewable energy plants. (See What are TRC's?) There is only one non-profit US organization that sells RECs, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, who was instrumental in starting the market for RECs with their Green Tag product. They use the profits from Green Tags to build community solar and wind projects and to fund watershed restoration.

A popular incentive for buying green tags is to make the claim that your energy use is "carbon neutral" and hence does not contribute to global warming. Looking at the situation from a macroscopic level, buying green tags finances the increased costs of green energy producers, to make them just as financially viable a source of energy as polluting energy always was. However, it could be argued that the green energy production facilities which are already built today might still continue functioning and producing energy at the same rate even if no one were to buy another green tag. On a microscopic level, buying a few green tags has very little direct effect on the amount of CO2 produced at this very moment. As larger and larger numbers of green tags come into demand, however, renewable energy will become more and more cost effective per kWh in comparison to nonrenewable energy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_tags

it does seem a little strange that it's hard to find companies tha are recieving support from the green tags. one would think it's something they should be proud of.

[gumbolimbo]

Hmmm..interesting.. I registered and set up a Be Green acocunt and determined my carbon footprint. It is amazing to see how much Co2 we all produce....I am still a bit confused as to how these REC's work...So do I understand this right? By purchasing REC's the money is re-invested into solar power, hydo electric power and planting trees in Malaysia and other areas to offset the carbon thus making the purchaser carbon nuetral?????

[tinkerlion]

that's what i determined.

[mello]

Been doing some more research. It looks like Green Mountain directly gets their green power from facilities they built themselves so they are definitely making a difference.

http://greenmountain.com/about/facilities/index.jsp

[Miss Shark]

Thanks mello...here's the most comprehensive page I found explaining where the money goes...I skipped a step with the Climate Trust link I posted earlier. If you check out the previous link(carbontrust.co.uk) they do list some recipeints of grants they have given out to companies researching 'green things'...I leave the explanation at that seeing as how it's St Patrick's Day. My favorite 'other offset' is the mind over matter one...I wonder how much is allotted for that one...

I think, call me crazy, we are all on board with 'cleaner' energy, just questioning the REC's.

http://www.begreennow.com/pages/wheremoney

[sway2sway]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070315/ts_csm/chydro

[mello]

have you guys seen this? Quote from G

http://www.kyndmusic.com/2007/03/07/musicians-and-concert-goers-across-the-us-can-now-green-up-their-concert-experience/

[angischy]

have you guys seen this? Quote from G

http://www.kyndmusic.com/2007/03/07/musicians-and-concert-goers-across-the-us-can-now-green-up-their-concert-experience/

Nice word choice on his part. lol :rolleyes:

"I’m down with the ‘green’ for sure.�

[Miss Shark]

Hey sway I like the way you wiggle (:

[angischy]

Hey guys, I don't really want to sound like an asshole skeptic, but what is your real opinion about these carbon offsetting programs?
I mean, hooray for conservation and saving the environment, and I totally applaud anyone who is doing positive things like this...

On the other hand, I think the real solution is "do no harm" in the first place. Easy to say, hard to do.

I think the whole thing is a great idea, but I just really don't trust the idea that money is going to supposedly help buy back or lessen the damage to the environment.
And who's the one in charge of the checks & balances on this to tell us if it's working or not? Who's monitoring these trees in Malaysia or wherever?
It's not like the Earth goes for a yearly physical and the doc says "So Earth, I see you've gained alot of weight this year. You know, if you lost 20 pounds, quit smoking, and didn't pollute your ocean with all that sewage, you'd live 3.7 years longer
I mean, the Earth would have the same excuses as the rest of us
"Yeah, I know, but I just can't seem to make time for it, plus I've got these neighbors that are really putting alot of stress on me lately."

I also think there may be a tendency on the corporations and others who invest in these sorts of programs to try to justify the "bad" things they do on a daily basis by saying "Hey, we offset our damage..."

I mean, I kind of just don't believe it. I haven't done alot of research on this, and my aim isn't to debunk, but to more fully understand and gain some trust in this sort of thing.
And not just hop on the bandwagon because it sounds like something good to do (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi3erdgVVTw).

I think it's kind of like recycling...great cuz it's not in a landfill, but in the long term, it's such an involved process, resources are wasted through the very act. Which brings me to the question: Is it worth it?
Remember glass returnable soda pop bottles (in the 80's)? I wonder if it'd be better to go back to that than keep using plastics like we do these days.

I should probably have started out my post with this paragraph...
I certainly am not an environmental expert, but I would like to gain more knowledge about this, and continue the discussion on the forum, since most everyone here is educated, well-read, or at least well-intentioned, if not all of the above.

Have you discovered anything that snoops into the backstory of how these programs started to see if the overall consensus is Scam, all the way or genius idea (Wow, why didn't someone think of this 10 years ago!...on both parts) .


A quick googling found this article in the Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2007/03/a_tale_of_two_markets.cfm)

and...this (http://lordcrimson.wordpress.com/2007/03/02/please-dont-tax-my-footprint/)

Talk amongst yourselves, I'll give you a topic...
Environmentalism and avoiding potential scams that prey on our good intentions...
Discuss!

[Miss Shark]

It's seems too easy to be true, for me personally. Pay us so much money, and you are absolved....

I maybe(okay I am) a bit of a skeptic. My mothers second husband has been taken by more than one 'invest in us and save the world' companies. So, I do my best to try and follow the money...not an easy task, I've found, and I wind up with even more questions. I did find this site, and I must say, wasn't too shocked by the list of companies that are member.

http://www.chicagoclimatex.com/about/members.html

It seems that a lot of offset providers are linked to CCX:

http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/carbon_offset_wind_credits_carbon_reduction.htm

blah, blah, blah.
Angi I think you've got it right, at least for me, try to 'do no harm' in the first place.

Oh heck, does that relate to the afore mentioned topic of discussion?

[Miss Shark]

more blah blah blah

http://risingtide.org.uk/resources/factsheets/carbontrading

http://www.citizen.org/documents/senatetaxbill.pdf

Thanks angi, by the by, for the band wagon link...snicker snicker