(what follows is an email I just sent to my tenants. In theory I should send this every year; in practice I forget to email most years, but at least I typically remember to buy the offsets.)<\/p>\n
Hello!<\/p>\n
This is an annual reminder: a small portion of the rents you pay go to making your home energy consumption carbon-neutral. In a less self-destructive world, these extra costs would be handled automatically by utility companies and\/or governments, but in the meantime I declare them to be mandatory for us.<\/p>\n
Our natural gas use (which is not extravagant for the number of people, but still considerable on account of Winter) is offset via donations to miscellaneous tree-planting and methane-capture projects; that ends up costing around $1.90 per person per month.<\/p>\n
Most of our electricity is generated via windfarm, which is already close to carbon-neutral. Fossil fuel prices shift around a lot compared with the (relatively stable) cost of wind power — coal and natural gas are cheap this year, so wind has been costing around 6% more than the standard fossil-fuel-heavy option. That adds up to another couple of dollars per month per person.<\/p>\n
For those of you who drive cars, eat cows, have separate utility meters, etc, I encourage you to offset your own energy use as well. For fossil-fuel offsets, this is a good place to start: http:\/\/www.carbonfund.org\/projects. To purchase windpower you just need to make a single call to your local electric company.<\/p>\n
For me, at least, it’s well worth the price to feel slightly less guilty when there are food riots, major cities destroyed by floods, etc.<\/p>\n
-A<\/p>\n
(what follows is an email I just sent to my tenants. In theory I should send this every year; in practice I forget to email most years, but at least I typically remember to buy the offsets.) Hello! This is … Continue reading ![\"Carbonfundorg_Certificate\"](\"https:\/\/bogott.net\/unspecified\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Carbonfundorg_Certificate.png\")
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