In addition to doing everything you can to reduce your carbon footprint and to get businesses and our government to reduce theirs, you can also offset the rest of your carbon usage by buying carbon offsets for the 20-30 metric tons of carbon you still generate. Fortunately, this is also easy and quick to do. For a few hundred dollars you can offset the carbon you still emit by supporting low carbon projects throughout the world that will benefit local people and reduce global emissions at the same time. 

I wanted to offset the travel my family did to all get together for the holidays. It took me 20 minutes to research projects that made sense to me and then I gave the offsets to each member of my family as a gift and to introduce them to this concept. They got it. They had not done it before but I bet they will in the future.

There are only 4 steps between you and carbon neutrality. This does not mean you stop trying to reduce your own emissions – that is still key – especially for Americans who use the most energy per capita on the planet. Here is all you have to do:

1. Go to https://www.goldstandard.org/take-action/offset-your-emissions  – they help ensure your investment is going to vetted organizations. This is important.
2. Scroll down to a project(s) you like.  If you don’t want to have to sort thru 20+ possible choices, here are 2 to consider:  

• • Climate+ Portfolio of Projects  for $11/Metric tonne
  • Solar Cooking for Refugee Families for $15/Metric tonne

3. Select the number of tons you want to offset.  Click “Add to cart”.  
4. Go to cart, check out, and pay.

Try it. There are many projects overseas that deserve your support and we cannot do it all here. We need to create a global behavior shift, not just a local one. (Thanks to K. Crandell)