Holiday Cheer Loads 1,100 lbs of CO2 per American!

Watching your calories this holiday season?  It turns out there's another carb it's easy to go overboard on, and I don't mean the kind that's in those mashed potatoes.  According to Alyssa Giacobbe, writing for AOL's "The Sphere," America adds nearly 1,100 pounds of CO2 per person every Christmas season.  For example, lighting displays alone increase our energy output by 27 percent between Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

And about those trees:  85 percent of all trees are fake, constructed in China and transported overseas for sale.  The total CO2 cost:  137 lbs CO2 per person, and that includes people like me - the Jewish girl - without a tree.  If you calculate out all those who don't do the tree thing, the per tree owner average is even higher!

Gift wrap, cards and shopping bags lead to 4 million tons of paper waste, according to Giacobbe, and don't forget that turkey dinner and trimmings, entertainment, travel and even - get this - weight gain.  Every pound you put on adds to the travel talley, because it takes more CO2 to move your fatter behind across the country to see Aunt Betty!

For the entire article, read here:  http://www.sphere.com/nation/article/calculating-your-christmas-carbon-footprint/19289192.

And when you're done, please don't forget http://www.carbonfund.org/ this year.  While you should still be minimizing your CO2 expenditures by choosing low-carb, low-trash gifts and wrap options (get tips here: http://ecocuriosity.blogspot.com/2009/12/less-is-more-in-gifting.html), you can mitigate the remaining damage for relatively little money by purchasing carbon offset credits from CarbonFund.org. 

And while you're at it, why not consider a CarbonFund offset credit gift certificate for the heavy carbaholics on your gift list.  You can find these here:  http://tiny.cc/CarbFundGifts.


By the way, you'll find a permanent link to the CarbonFund along the right-hand margin of this blog.  Consider using it every time you travel, make a major purchase, etc.

For more resources and information, the gift wrap photo is from a HippyShopper blog article about how to make your own eco-friendly wrapping paper, http://www.hippyshopper.com/2007/12/make_your_own_e.html, and the ornament is from CarbonFund's website.  See some mega-carbon lighting displays ranging from the magnificent to the truly gaudy at the webecoist blog, http://webecoist.com/2009/11/26/hoiliday-hack-marvelous-massive-megawatt-displays/.