WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE CARBON-NEUTRAL?

Throughout our participation in a semester-long Earth and Environmental Systems Field Program in Hawai’i, our goal was to live "carbon-neutral," meaning to balance the carbon dioxide emitted through a heavily fuel-dependent lifestyle with actions that would remove CO2 from the atmosphere, thus minimizing our contribution towards global warming. To achieve carbon neutrality, we determined the carbon emissions resulting from our total air travel, automobile travel, home energy use, food consumption, and waste. We calculated our exact emissions resulting from our car miles and propane use, but utilized carbon calculators to determine emissions associated with flying, waste, and food. Our total carbon footprint for 25 students and professors was 70 metric tons of CO2, with the largest contributor (60% of the total carbon budget) being round-trip transportation to the Hawaiian Islands. Lifestyle choices were made in order to reduce our on-site carbon emissions, while we outplanted native trees to offset our carbon footprint.

Use of solar panels to heat the water in our kitchen and bathrooms reduced our propane use by nearly half, while recycling and composting reduced waste emissions by approximately 50%. We ate local foods - especially important in Hawaii - as most of the food is shipped from the mainland which results in a high CO2 footprint. Eating primarily organic foods that do not rely on energy-intensive chemical inputs, as in conventional agriculture, also reduced our CO2 production. By planting native trees, we offset our greenhouse gas emissions while helping restore many endangered indigenous and endemic species. Restoring native forests also promotes the health of surrounding soil, air, and water. We determined the sequestion capacity of trees by using allometric equations that incorporate tree density, diameter at breast height, and height at maturity. Our calculations show that the ~300 trees planted will sequester ca. 300 tons of CO2 over their life span. Our restoration project sequestered more carbon than we produced over the course of four months, thus we succeeded in not only living carbon neutral, but living "carbon positive." Our project and its results can serve as an illustrative small-scale model for other initiatives, whether large or small, to be carbon-neutral and environmentally responsible.