Carbon Offset

Carbon Offset Pilot Program

Introduction

The Oceanic Society has initiated a voluntary carbon dioxide offset program which addresses the environmental impact associated with air travel. The Oceanic Society's carbon offset program is focused on red meat consumption, as the greenhouse gases associated with livestock production make up 18% of total carbon dioxide emissions, and because diet is an often overlooked means to changing one's personal carbon footprint. Through this program, the Oceanic Society has partnered with student groups around the country, and these student groups will pledge to end their consumption of red meat for a given amount of time. The number of students involved and the length of their pledge varies depending on the expedition group size and the distance of air travel involved. A carbon offset program of this kind will not only offset the greenhouse gas emissions of our trip participants, but will also raise awareness about how one's daily choices impact the environment. Through participatory action students will also be empowered to make changes in habits that could have a lifetime of benefit to the environment.

In Progress

In 2009, naturalist Wayne Sentman initiated a pilot program with a Boston Public school of 50 5th grade science and 30 7th grade social studies students who voluntarily pledged to not eat red meat over two weeks to help offset the carbon footprint of a selected Oceanic Society expedition. A blog will be set up for the kids and the instructors to share the experience and the lessons learned in conjunction with a group of Harvard Extension School graduate students and their environmental non-profit Quen.ch At the conclusion of the 2 week experiment Raw foods expert Jenna Norwood visited the students congratulating them on their efforts and reinforcing the benefits of linking food choices to personal health and the stewardship of the environment.

Background Information

In exploring various CO2 offset programs Oceanic Society wanted to develop a program that was both effective and participatory. Our premise is that the rise in human population numbers and the ways in which industrial communities expand have been responsible for a dramatic and rapid increase in global atmospheric CO2 levels.

In talking with many ecotourists over the years Oceanic Society has heard firsthand the frustration travelers have in making the right decision. Many ecotourists have indicated that they do not offset their travel related carbon footprint, due largely to the fact that they cannot be sure money they spend on these programs is effectively utilized. This perspective has challenged the Society to seek novel solutions in offsetting their travelers carbon footprints.

Rather than support a one time event, this program will not only offset air travel's associated CO2 footprint, but will foster an awareness of how personal choices as a community are connected to the ecology of our planet. By partnering with classrooms around the country and through our initiation of this voluntary carbon offset program, focused on dietary meat reduction, we believe that students will take a more personal interest in ecology and begin to understand their connection to the role communities and their personal choices play in global climate change, empowering them to make choices that connect them to the environment.

Why Target Beef Consumption?

Researchers at the University of Chicago compared the global warming impact of red meat eaters with that of non-red meat eaters, finding that the average American diet - including all food processing steps - results in the annual production of an extra 1.5 tons of CO2 equivalent (in the form of all greenhouse gases) compared to a no-red meat diet, concluding that dietary changes could make a greater difference than trading in a standard sedan for a more efficient hybrid car, which reduces annual CO2 emissions by roughly one ton a year (Knickerbocker, 2007). Additional studies have also shown that food production, as a function of our dietary choices, represents a significant and growing energy user (Eshel & Martin, 2006) with red meat (production costs) around 150% more greenhouse gas (GHG) intensive than chicken or fish (Weber & Matthews, 2008). With the associated CO2 production costs often not properly accounted for (Matthews et al., 2008).

Oceanic Society could help raise awareness of the many sizable environmental impacts related to the production of livestock with this novel approach to carbon offsetting. Thus in addition to providing their program participants with a way to travel more environmentally responsibly, Oceanic would also be focusing awareness on an often overlooked way to personally reduce ones CO2 footprint. Since many of the carbon costs of red meat are related to somewhat "invisible" (to the public) things, deforestation for pasture and feed, fertilizers used for feed and pastures, and on farm fossil fuel use, all totaled the livestock sector is responsible for 18 percent of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions (FAO, 2006).

Proportion of greenhouse-gas emissions from different parts of livestock production. Adapted from FAO.

Update as of 10 December 2009 -

The 80 students participating in the initial Oceanic CO2 offset project were able to influence an additional 120 community members to participate in the pilot project with them. All told 200 persons (and one family cat) gave up eating red meat for 2 weeks. The total CO2 offset from this effort was nearly 4 tons of CO2.

Oceanic will expand this program to offset the CO2 costs of air travel to Belize for an upcoming coral reef ecology trip with Sylvia Earle in early 2010. Oceanic is currently in talks with two schools, one in South Carolina and another in Hawaii where it is expected that over 1000 students will be participating in the project. While they are participating the students will have the chance to learn about the coral reef research being conducted in Belize by Oceanic via real time web discussions and hosted blogging.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and joint winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, presents the case that eating less meat can help us fight climate change in an efficient way.

Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars? According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), on a global scale the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent - 18 percent - than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth's increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs.

Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all terrestrial animal biomass. Livestock's presence in vast tracts of land and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss; 15 out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline, with livestock identified as a culprit.

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel Prize 1921

For more information:

http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_bittman_on_what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat.html.

Info taken from :

http://news.mongabay.com/bioenergy/2008/09/un-climate-chief-less-meat-less-heat.html