How is it that we have come to live a lifestyle that destroys nature? Sure, God said man could subdue the earth, but He never said we could change it. And our carbon gas hyper-induced lifestyle has indeed been implicated by almost all scientists as responsible for the changing climate, warmer temperatures, melting ice caps and rising sea levels. Given that we live in a world of unintended consequences, you don’t have to be paranoid to imagine a dire future. It is dire because it is man-created and we are far from perfect. What has taken billions of years to evolved, we have tinkered with and upset it in only a hundred years.

Our lifestyle is heavily dependent on fossil fuel combusting engines for transporting goods and people around the world and to work. Combustion engines power our energy plants for electricity and produce the goods we consume; while a global network of corporations and media outfits egg us on to live longer, look younger, and consume even more. The carbon and other heat trapping gases (called greenhouse gases (GHG)) accumulate in the atmosphere and prevent the sun’s heat from bouncing back to outer space. The trapped solar heat makes temperature rise. Rising temperatures in turn have a dramatic impact on rainfall patterns, storm intensity, wind direction and occurence as well as, of course, average temperatures. All these in turn affect nature and food chains in unpredictable ways— from the oceans to the mountains.

For those with a conscience, carbon credits are the way to go. The average Filipino generates less than 3 tons of carbon per year from their transport, housing, cooking and general living needs. But a middle class urban Filipino probably comes close to adding 8 tons a year due to a lifestyle that mirrors their western counterparts. Because of the Kyoto Protocol, signatory countries have established a mechanism of creating carbon credits that allow over-polluters to compensate by acquiring carbon credits. One carbon credit is equivalent to 1 ton of carbon offset.

For us individuals, what can we do to offset? Well, first try not to create carbon gases from your lifestyle by being aware of things that you do that emit carbon dioxide: riding solo in a car for unnecessary trips, needless consumption of imported items, consuming food produced in far-away places, building houses made of cement instead of wood and other natural materials, conserving electricity and water, etc. Beyond what you cannot save, your other option is do things that will remove the carbon dioxide you generated from the atmosphere such as in planting native tree species and making sure it survive to maturity. One native tree in its lifetime can remove 5 tons of carbon. If you expect to live until say 80 years and you generate say 5 tons per year of your life, you should be responsible for planting and maintaining about 100 native hardwood trees.

That number of native trees would be quite difficult to plant and maintain. This difficulty has created a “market” for carbon credits. Carbon credits are generated by projects that either replace fossil fuel use with renewable energy or where carbon gases are removed such as in tree planting. In the “market” someone else does the carbon saving or sequestering and these savings and sequestrations are bundled in units of 1 ton, a certificate is issued and this certificate is what is traded in the market.

Proponents of carbon credit projects here and abroad can sell the credit for a price ranging from US$20-24 per ton depending on the quality of the process used for project development, execution, and monitoring. The better the quality, the better the price.

Haribon promotes the rainforestation of 1,000,000 hectares of native trees, which is about 1 billion trees to replace what has been extracted in the past centuries and maintain a healthy ecological balance that is so needed with climate change realities. If undertaken, the project will certainly play a part in the healing of our Mother Earth.

Carbon, Lifestyle and Credits

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