This year we have again used TerraPass to purchase carbon offsets for our home, cars and air travel. While this isn’t my idea of an ideal solution, or even a solution at all really, it is at least a step in the right direction.

TerraPass calculates our carbon output based on the kind of cars we drive (a Miata and a Prius), the mileage for each (which in our case is less than 15,000 miles for both cars combined), and the cost of our energy bills coupled with the location of our home. If we have flown or are planning any plane travel, we can also calculate the carbon offset required for it.

Mind you, this only gets us to being carbon neutral - we’re still contributing to the green house gas problems and climate change. This yearly exercise of taxing ourselves for our carbon footprint is also a means to do a little reality check, too. Are we indeed walking the walk and doing the least amount of harm to the environment as we can? I think we’re heading in the right direction at least.

TerraPass is a well thought out enterprise. The website’s interface is easy to use, has plenty of high quality educational pieces to it and the store has some interesting product collections, too. The store appears to be running on Miva Merchant and is well put together. I’ve found the emailed newsletter to be worthwhile and well written. TerraPass is using the Internet’s resources well.