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The original, pre-edit by Waylon Lewis of elephantjournal.com:

GreenWorld Launches ShopGreen™ Carbon Offsets Web Application: alternatives to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption

Natural happenings around the world altering the environment in ways that challenge human species survival have called our attention to what we identify as climate change.
In 2009, based on scientific study results, it is believed that climate change is mainly caused by carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels such as gas, coal and oil.

Carbon dioxide is also identified as a greenhouse gas causing global warming.

Global warming represents an increase in the temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans as we know it since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation. Through methodic analysis and the reasoning of our present understanding of the natural behavior of Earth and the Universe it belongs to, our generation scholars have declared that increasing global temperature will cause sea levels to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitations, most likely including expansion of subtropical deserts. The continuing retreat of glacier and sea ice is expected. Other likely effects include shrinkage of the forests and increases in the intensity of extreme weather events that unavoidably remind us of past species extinctions and changes in agricultural landscape.

That does not sound too good for us, does it?

A global effort  to take responsibility for the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that we generate every time we use electricity from coal-powered generators or every time we drive our cars, is been experienced in different levels of expression and creative action towards manifesting a Carbon Neutral generation.

In simple words, the energy that we use should not add to or release any carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, or if we must release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere we should take out the same amount of carbon dioxide elsewhere so our net carbon dioxide equivalent emission is zero.

One way to accomplish this is using energies which do not result in any release of any carbon dioxide into the atmosphere like electricity generated from sources such as solar cells, hydroelectric turbines, wind turbines or nuclear power. Another way to do it is to subtract the amount of polluting greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere by purchasing credits in a scheme known as carbon offsets.

WHAT IS CARBON OFFSET?

A carbon offset is a financial instrument designed to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Greenhouse emissions mean emissions of gases, mainly water vapor, that are essential to helping determine the temperature of the Earth. The planet’s average temperature should be considerably lower without greenhouse gases.

Human activities have an impact upon the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The  most recent report observed that “changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and aerosols, land cover and solar radiation alter the energy balance of the climate system”, and concluded that “increases in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations is very likely to have caused most of the increases in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century.”

Carbon offsets are measured in metric tons of carbon dioxide – equivalent (CO2e) and may represent six primary categories of greenhouse gases. One carbon offset represents the reduction of one metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases.

Market, individuals, companies, or governments purchase carbon offsets to mitigate their own greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, electricity use, and other sources. For example, an individual might purchase carbon offsets to compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions caused by personal air travel.

Basically, offsets may be cheaper or more convenient alternatives to reducing one’s own fossil-fuel consumption.

THE FACTS

A carbon footprint is defined as: The total amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly and indirectly support human activities, usually expressed in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).

In other words: When you drive a car, the engine burns fuel which creates a certain amount of CO2, depending on its fuel consumption and the driving distance. (CO2 is the chemical symbol for carbon dioxide). When you heat your house with oil, gas or coal, then you also generate CO2. Even if you heat your house with electricity, the generation of the electrical power may also have emitted a certain amount of CO2. When you buy food and goods, the production of the food and goods also emitted some quantities of CO2.

Your carbon footprint is the sum of all emissions of CO2 (carbon dioxide), which were induced by your activities in a given time frame.

AN ALTERNATIVE

GreenWorld, a start-up dedicated to providing the best carbon offset applications on the web, today announced the launch of ShopGreen™. This free web application enables US-based online retailers to allowshoppers to add an investment equal to one percent of their order in carbon offsets, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of each purchase.

Available at http://greenworldapps.com, the patent-pending, free ShopGreen™ web application is a powerful carbon offset program that seamlessly integrates with an online retailer’s e-commerce store. ShopGreen™ makes it very easy for companies and customers to fund specific carbon offset projects; provides real time tracking, and – with very low transaction fees – channels nearly all of the buyer’s investment directly to carbon offset projects.

“ShopGreen™ removes the cost and complexity of creating and managing a carbon offset program for US-based online retailers,” said Jason Sperling, Managing Director at GreenWorld. “Additionally, the program’s transparency and automation increase the relevancy, participation, and cost-effectiveness of the program.”

ShopGreen™ allows online retailers to:

• Customize the carbon offset projects offered to customers by selecting from a diverse domestic and international portfolio;
• Integrate the ShopGreen™ module seamlessly within any shopping cart, making customers immediately aware that ‘going green’ can be easy and inexpensive;
• Provide customers with tracking ID numbers that can be used to view records of their carbon offset investments at any time;
• Access relatable statistics that show the cumulative ShopGreen™ impact and increase the likelihood of future transactions at the online retailer’s website;
• Keep customers on their e-commerce website for the entire transaction, and receive payments as part of the total order so only one payment is required by the customer;
• Automatically display customized program information tailored to the merchant’s settings – with one click;
• Add a margin to the carbon offsets price to recoup administrative costs;
• View and download real time transaction data, allowing instant, easy tracking and reporting.

GreenWorld is working exclusively with EcoSecurities, a leading company in the business of sourcing, developing and trading carbon offsets from greenhouse gas emission reduction projects throughout the world, to offer both Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) and Verified Emission Reductions (VERs) from a range of domestic and international projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including renewable energy, energy efficiency, forestry and methane capture.

Bruce Usher, CEO, EcoSecurities stated “It is great to be partnering with such a forward thinking and innovative organization as GreenWorld. Developments such as ShopGreen are fundamentally important in helping companies, both within the US and internationally, benefit from scalable solutions which help to reduce and neutralize carbon intensive elements of an organization’s distribution chain.”

14 online retailers have joined the ShopGreen™ limited beta since March 2009, including ElementalThreads.com, AestheticsBodyMod.com, BudgetPilot.com, JHElectronics.com, and EclecticaClothing.com. “It’s a perfect fit for our brand, giving more green options to our customers to help the environment,” says Lisa Hawkins, founder of MyPumpkinDoodle.com, another online retailer that has added the ShopGreen™ web application.

GreenWorld is currently in partnership discussions with online retailers in a variety of sectors, including home furnishings, food and beverage, natural living and big-box stores.

With growing competition among businesses to show tangible results for their conservation efforts, a free service like ShopGreen™ appeals to companies who want to improve their environmental profile and enhance sales revenues. GreenWorld’s simple yet powerful business model positions the company to become the leader in green e-commerce solutions.

People are people

As it always happens when achieving some kind of balance is the goal, some critics object to carbon offsets, and question the benefits of certain types of offsets.

Those who pay any attention to history (his story) or those who follow the wisdom of old civilizations who, through out time, have faced natural disasters, have a more peaceful reaction to the human reality of impermanence. There are those who ignore the clear signs of this era, and there are those who chose to take responsibility on a daily basis through aware action and conscious observation of their acts and their impact on the environment that we all share. It is always our choice.

LOVE

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