Unbeknownst to me, I’ve been driving the best “regular” car for the environment. According to Grist’s Umbra, used Civics are the way to go if you can’t afford a hybrid yet: “They’re small, they’re cheap, they come in nice colors, and they last forever.”
To the left is my two-door 1995 Honda Civic EX, Mut, complete with green bumper stickers that cover up, incompletely, the scars of a hit-and-run rear ender’s work. On the upside, I never lose Mut in The Grove’s parking lot.
Looks aside, Mut’s super reliable — with emissions so low that I qualify for the cheapest member levels at both TerraPass and Drive Neutral. These companies aren’t exactly household names yet, but they should be. With both California-based programs, you basically pay to clean up some of the excess CO2 in the world, thus offsetting your car pollution.
If you buy a TerraPass, you’ll fund green energy projects to offset your car pollution. The money from green car owners get pooled, then invested into projects that combat CO2.
Drive Neutral’s a lil different. It’s part of the Chicago Climate Exchange, a group of US companies that made a pact to lower CO2 emissions. If any of those companies don’t meet their CO2 reduction goals, they have to buy “credits” from other companies that exceeded their goals. What DN does is collect car owners’ money to buy some of those credits, letting us feel better about ourselves while driving up the price for these “credits” — which’ll hopefully make companies work harder to lower emissions.
TP says I emit 4,813 lbs of CO2 per year; DN says it’s 5,917 lbs. I was gonna go with TP just cuz the lower number’s more flattering for Mut, but their $29.95 Hybrid pass is way pricier than DN’s tier one certification at just $17.50.
Why the differences? Dunno. Which does more good? Dunno. I think at this point, one just has to choose what green they’re most into — directly investing into green energy via TP, or indirectly investing but potentially getting more companies involved via DN.
Of course, for a poor grad student, the $17.50 price tag looked really attractive. Kinda cool that that’s all it takes to offset Mut’s emmissions for a whole year! DN’s also run by grad students at Presidio School of Management which clinched the deal. Plus, Mut isn’t a hybrid, even if it qualifies for the TP Hybrid pass — I don’t wanna create an identity crisis.
Either way you go, you’ll get stickers or decals for your bumper so you can proudly proclaim to all tailgaters that your car’s not part of the global warming problem.
Also, the stickers can cover up scratches and stuff.
Thanks to Karin of Peace, Love, and Coffee for the heads-up on TerraPass :)
Update, 10/15/05: You can offset the CO2 from your flights too!
Update, 1/02/06: I’m thinking of getting rid of my car entirely…
