Gore movie inspires "carbon offset" sales

Karen Cochran was staggered to learn last summer how much pollution one building - the one she owns that houses Franklin, Tennessee's downtown Starbucks - can cause.

About 387 tons a year of carbon dioxide, according to an analysis she had done on the 12,000-square-foot structure.

"I had no idea what it meant to just be doing business in this building," she said.

Cochran was inspired to get the pollution audit by An Inconvenient Truth, the Al Gore movie that just won an Oscar. An auditor measured what the movie calls a "carbon footprint," a gauge of energy use from air conditioning to employee commutes.

In turn, she tried to become more energy efficient - and she is buying "carbon offsets." These are investments in green energy to make up for unavoidable energy use.

Offsets aren't a new idea, but they've become more popular since release of the film. While green-conscious consumers insist every little bit helps, doubters accuse them of falling prey to scientifically unsound hype.

Cochran buys offsets through Green Mountain Energy Co., one of several in a growing industry that has received a boost from the Gore movie.

Cochran paid the Austin-based company about $1,800 for 16 months of the offsets, with the money largely going to a wind energy project in the Midwest, she said.

She opted to pay for offsets to cover the building's utility use, which is about 47% of the carbon footprint. The rest is due to tenants and their staff's commuting or business air travel.

"It's got to start with one person," Cochran said.

Concept has evolved

Offsets have been around awhile.

"We invented 'carbon offsets,' " said a half-kidding Gregg Marland, a scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in East Tennessee.

He is with the lab's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, which collects worldwide data on emissions.

Marland worked with Freeman Dyson, a scientist on sabbatical from Princeton University, in the late 1970s on a paper determining that if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere "got out of hand, we could pull it back down again by planting enough trees," Marland said.

Trees absorb carbon, but the catch was that an area the size of Australia would have to be covered with fast-growing trees.

Since then, the concept has evolved, Marland said. One method is for people to pay carbon offsets that are invested in things such as solar projects.

It's a gimmick, critics say

Some people reject the idea that humankind is causing global warming and that offsets are worthwhile.

"If you buy into global warming, then you are subscribing to a lot of hype and hysteria," Kris DeKock of Hendersonville said by e-mail.

"It's all about obtaining money: taxation, government research dollars and the selling of carbon offsets. Bunk!"

Kevin Smith, with Carbon Trade Watch in London, has another criticism.

"Carbon offsets are the modern-day indulgences, sold to an increasingly carbon-conscious public to absolve their climate sins," he said.

The offsets are marketing gimmicks at a time when "collective political action" is needed to tackle climate change, he said.

He won't get an argument from Cochran on the latter part of the statement.

Figuring out one's carbon footprint is an eye-opening step to take, she said, and reducing energy use is the first step. Buying offsets is the next best move toward helping.

"You're encouraging the green energy market," she said. "You're investing in it."

But, she said, the city of Franklin and other governments, which are major energy users, need to step up and change their ways, improving mass transit, putting efficient lighting in buildings and generally cutting energy use.

Gore company involved

The Academy Awards this year purchased carbon credits to offset the impact of the show, announcing it while Gore was onstage.

An Inconvenient Truth, which received an Oscar, was itself "carbon neutral," its makers say, with offsets bought through a company called NativeEnergy.

An investment company called Generation Investment Management, which Gore co-founded, also is involved in offsets, but it doesn't sell them.

Gore's company pays a private, outside company, CarbonNeutral, to offset the carbon that results from its business and staff activities, including commuting and air travel.

CarbonNeutral has no connection to Gore or the asset management company, said Richard Campbell, a Generation Investment official.

He would not disclose how much in offsets the private company has purchased but said the purchases follow a "very rigorous assessment of the emissions of the business and all of its employees, including Mr. Gore."

Industry lacks standards

Several companies sell the offsets today in the fledgling industry, though there's no overall standardization of how it's done or overseen.

A group of companies has also sprung up to act as third-party watchdogs to "certify" that offsets sold are legitimate.

What's tricky is determining one's carbon emissions be cause many are secondhand, Marland said.

A person might drive little and not use much heating or cooling, but will buy shirts, shoes and other goods from a carbon dioxide-releasing factory here or abroad, he said.

"If there was an easy answer, we would do it," Marland said. "First you have to understand the complexity."