Did you know that the average American emits 136 pounds of carbon dioxide each day? 36 pounds of that is through driving, flying, and other forms of travel. Pile on another 22 pounds for heating, cooling, and powering your home. The remaining 78 pounds is stacked up from what we buy (producing, transporting, and disposing) and shared services (such as schools and street lights) that we, as a community, use.
That doesn’t sound like much for one person until you multiply the poundage by 300 million people. Ouch.
I was therefore pleased to learn about Brighter Planet, a Vermont-based company committed to building a clean-energy future by educating people on how to reduce and manage their dependence on environmentally harmful CO2-emitting activities. Believing that small, day-to-day actions can make a huge difference for the environment, Brighter Planet has set up One Day, a viral online campaign which allows people to give the gift of carbon neutrality for one day.
Curious to see how the viral campaign works, I signed on as a participant (guess I “caught” on). It was as easy as providing my name and email address. Almost as soon as I clicked the send button, I received a reply email and three days later, I received a second email saying “Congrats, you’re now carbon neutral for a day! Thanks for your patience. 136 pounds of carbon offsets have been donated in your name by Brighter Planet.”
I was then given a chance to pay the gift forward by making friends and family also carbon neutral for a day. Or I could pay it forward in cyberspace by letting the first five EcoSalon readers who click on this link claim a gift of being carbon neutral for one day.
Happy Holidays!
Main Image: The Green Party