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OFFSET YOUR CARBON EMISSIONS WITH NATIONAL PARK RANGERS
A carbon offset credit is a service that tries đồ sộ reduce the net carbon emissions of people or organizations by compensating their carbon emissions with measures for absorbing greenhouse* gases. A wide variety of offset actions are available; forest planting is the most common. Also popular are credits from renewable energy and energy conservation, as well as greenhouse emissions trading.
The intended goal of carbon offset credits is đồ sộ combat global warming. The appeal of becoming "carbon neutral" has contributed đồ sộ the growth of voluntary offsets, which often are more cost-effective alternatives đồ sộ reducing one's own fossil-fuel consumption.
We were planning đồ sộ make a carbon-offset calculator that would allow you đồ sộ calculate different components of your ecological footprint so sánh that it would calculate with how many "ranger days" you can offset your carbon dioxide footprint by preventing forests from going up in flames. Those are nice mạng internet toys, but unfortunately, the real world does not quite work as simple as that. Let's take a look, and decide then what you should tự.
The costs of Carbon Offset from Carbon emission avoidance through forest protection
Assume a tropical forest has about 175 metric tons of Carbon in its trees. The carbon is fixed in the tree trunks, leaves and roots. Did you realize that actually lots of carbon is underground in the roots? So, if a hectare of forest gets deforested, the wood may first be used đồ sộ build houses, furniture or produce paper, but eventually, it will either rot away or be burned. The branches and leaves will often be burned or left in the field đồ sộ rot away. The roots in the ground will decay by fungi and bacteria, and eventually all the carbon of that forest will be converted into CO2. The mass of CO2 is more than vãn 3 times more than vãn that of Carbon, so sánh the 175 tons of carbon will produce more that 500 tons of CO2.
We are often asked how much it costs đồ sộ protect a hectare of natural forest. The answer is: that depends on the size and the location. It costs many times more per ha đồ sộ protect a few hundreds of ha of natural forest, than vãn đồ sộ protect a million of ha. The difference may be as much as more than 100,000 more expensive per ha for an area less than vãn 2 ha as for an area larger that 1,000,000. So it is impossible đồ sộ give a general answer. So, lets assume that we work with an area of 10,000 ha. We lượt thích đồ sộ use the size of an area of 10,000 ha, because it is the same kind of size of many new forest plantations planted for carbon fixation (or sequestration).
In Brazil, the estimated costs of protecting a 10,000 ha natural forests are about $185,000 per year, including staffing, and all operational costs, such as fuel for vehicles, write of of buildings and equipment, etc. $185,000 would thus avoid the emission of 500,000 tons of CO2 into the air.
So, protecting a hectare of natural forest would be about $18.5 per ha per year. $18.5 dollars per year would prevent 175 metric tons of Carbon become 500 tons of CO2. That is less than vãn $0.04 per metric ton of carbon. You read it well: it takes less than vãn 4 dollar cents per year to avoid 1 ton of CO2 đồ sộ be released into the air as greenhouse gas.
As a comparison, the Carbon fixation through a variety of mechanisms, such as planting new forests, is sold from $4,00 - $25 per ton of CO2. But those calculations are made for planting and maintaining a new plantation for the duration of 1 forest cycle about trăng tròn - 30 years. They don't take into tài khoản what happens afterward, so they don't phối up an endowment fund đồ sộ keep the area under forest cover forever.
Now, we only believe in durable avoidance of the emission of CO2, if the emission avoidance of carbon dioxide is really permanent. So in our opinion, you can only permanently avoid the emission of CO2 into the air, if you phối up an endowment fund that would generate the capital interest from which management costs can be financed permanently. Assuming a 7% return from the endowment fund, it would take about $2,700,000 đồ sộ prevent 500,000 tons of CO2 đồ sộ be released into the air, which is about $5 per ton. That is about as much as for the short-term fixation of Carbon through forest plantations, whereas Carbon dioxide emission avoidance through and Adopt-A-Ranger-Endowment fund would be permanent!
An average American household releases about 15 tons of CO2 into the air. So đồ sộ compensate that release forever, it would cost a household about $75 per year đồ sộ permanently offset its carbon dioxide emission in a natural forest.
Assuming that you would participate in an endowment fund that pays for ALL the costs of an area with natural forests, so that it will be protected forever! But what is even more important, your carbon offset would help the survival of literally thousands of species of plants and animals.
Heaving read all this, tự you still want đồ sộ invest your greenhouse gas emission compensation in the plantation of monocultures? Or would you prefer đồ sộ participate in a Carbon Dioxide emission avoidance programme? Invest it with us, and we will invest your money in an endowment fund that pays for the EFFECTIVE protection of thousands of hectares of natural forests!
Now, we have used some very coarse data. There are great variations in the amounts of Carbon per ha. Some natural forests have more, others have less. In reality, most areas that we will be working with, are far bigger than 10,000 ha and therefore the protection costs per ha are much lower. So in reality your carbon emission avoidance contribution will be many times more beneficial than a carbon offset through the planting of a new forest.