Carbon Neutral Indiana by Sydney Johnson
C
arbon Neutral Indiana (CNI) is a non-profit organization that helps households, businesses, and academic institutions in Indiana to measure, offset, and reduce their carbon footprint. CNI was established in April 2020, and has already helped over 30 households and three businesses become certified carbon neutral. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the largest assembly of scientists in human history. They declared that in order to prevent temperatures from rising above 2ÂşC, the world must become carbon neutral by 2050. But what does carbon neutral mean? Why is it important? And how can I help?
What Does Carbon Neutral Mean? Much of what we do adds carbon to our atmosphere. This includes shipping our food, fueling our vehicles, heating and cooling our homes, and even creating the goods and services we purchase. Carbon neutrality means that individuals, businesses, and institutions are taking responsibility for their carbon footprints. They invest in projects, like
planting forests, that remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they put into it. For example, an individual can start driving an electric car to eliminate their transportation emissions, but they may still have to rely on fossil fuels for their electricity. Therefore, they also fund projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere by purchasing carbon offsets.
Why Is Carbon Neutrality Important?
Scientists agree our carbon emitting activities are causing the climate crisis. The climate crisis doesn’t just damage our environment, but it damages us as well. As the Earth gets hotter, more people will experience heat-related and cardiovascular illnesses, the amount of climate refugees will increase, the military will suffer, health care costs will increase, crop yields will decrease, and on and on. National and state governments are not doing enough to prevent this catastrophe. Individuals must lead the way. When an individual, business, or institution becomes carbon neutral, they are going above and beyond to take both
personal responsibility for their carbon emissions and social responsibility for protecting the health of both the planet and other people.
How Can I Be Carbon Neutral?
There are three simple steps to becoming carbon neutral: measure, offset, reduce. Carbon Neutral Indiana helps you do just that! We help individuals achieve carbon neutrality for their home, business, or institution by scheduling a meeting where they answer some specific questions that are used to measure how much carbon they emit into the atmosphere. We use the University of California, Berkeley’s CoolClimate calculator, which calculates the carbon emissions from transportation, energy, food, goods and services purchased by households and businesses. The initial carbon emissions measurement is free, and afterwards we offer the home, business, or institution owner the option to pay a monthly fee ($15 per carbon ton emitted) to offset their emissions. The funds received from the monthly payments go towards purchasAugust 2020
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