myclimate

As a few of you probably already know, I am using a car to go to work from my home in Zurich to Baden. This for a main reason, it’s faster than using the train. By public transportation, the trip lasts 1 hour door to door, one way, while using the car it lasts just 30 minutes. At the end of the day, literally, I am gaining 1 hour. But of course, by car I am less environmental friendly than using public transportation, which I am aware of.

Browsing the net, I stumbled upon the website of a Switzerland-based company, myclimate.org, active in the domain of climate protection and CO2 compensations. The idea is quite interesting and simple: try to get environmental friendly by avoiding carbon emissions, while buying carbon credits for the emissions that cannot, for some reason, be avoided. The collected money is then invested in projects around the world, which aim at reducing the carbon emissions, e.g. the construction of a wind park in Egypt, which will avoid using a coal plant for producing electricity.

So here we go. I calculated the CO2 emission caused by my car use for going to work, which corresponds to about 11'000 Km a year with a car consuming 7 l/100 Km. This gives 2.35 tons of CO2 a year. Not kidding! Although there is just 25 Km between my home and work place, it gets to 2.35 tons! The majority of CO2 weight comes form the oxygen atoms, which come from the air. That’s the reason why 770 l of fuel produces 2.35 tons of CO2. At the end, I bought the carbon credits, which is a good thing, I think, but should not restrain from living, or trying to live, more climate neutral.