Angry in the Great White North

Let's start with some basic numbers.

Total distance across Canada: 6000 km or 3700 miles
Mileage for a tour bus: 10 miles per gallon (expected for a well-tuned and modern vehicle)
CO₂ Content of Diesel: 2.8 kg per gallon (EPA)

So the tour ought to consume 370 gallons of diesel, resulting in 1036 kg of CO₂ emissions, or about a metric ton.

Sounds like a lot, right? That's a lot of CO₂ to account for in order to be "carbon neutral".

The Tufts Climate Initiative explains the next step:

Many companies nowadays offer individuals a way to conveniently buy carbon offsets on-line. These companies then use the funds to invest in projects that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, for example by building windmills, installing solar water heaters, or retrofitting buildings with more efficient lighting.

You can expect to pay $5 - $ 20 per ton of CO2 offset, depending on the company you choose. But price should not be the only factor that influences your choice of company.

A metric ton and a short ton are almost the same, so we can say that this tour is going to have to cough up about $5 to cover the cost of the emissions, or $20 if they go for the premium plan.

Even if we double the distance (obviously the Suzuki tour bus is not driving in a straight line from Halifax to Vancouver) we still only get about $40 to pay off the pollution.

Even if we quadruple to emissions to account for the non-bus related emissions for using electricity and eating in restaurants and just plain breathing, we haven't even cracked $200.

You're not going to get too far building a windmill with a lousy $200.

I must have done something very wrong here. According to this calculation, it could be just as easy as reaching into the change jar for David Suzuki and company to call themselves carbon neutral. And the effort to do so amounts to squat.

These are not the numbers the Suzuki people are claiming:

The foundation estimates the bus alone might produce about 20 tonnes of CO2. It is paying up to $35 per tonne to offset these emissions.

Obviously my figures have been in US dollars. The price of C$35 per tonne is about right for the gold-plated premium offset plan. But their estimate for CO₂ emissions seems very high. Like 20 times too high. To create 20 tonnes of CO₂ emissions, or 20,000 kg, you would have to burn up 7,000 gallons of diesel fuel. At 10 miles per gallon, you would have to drive 70,000 miles to burn that much diesel. Canada is only 3,700 miles from end to end. The tour is only going to run 28 days. That's a lot of detours to rack up that sort of mileage in that amount of time.

Maybe the key to saving the planet from global warming is to invest in a good map.

Or maybe Suzuki and his friends inflated the estimate because a modern fuel-efficient bus engine undermines all the urgency, as well as the media impact, of being "carbon neutral".

But according to my numbers, I ought to be able to plop down my fifty bucks and be allowed to buy my gas-guzzling CO₂-belching Hummer to drive back and forth to the grocery store for the next 5 years, and Suzuki and his friends can just shut the hell up.

Addendum #1: You have no doubt noticed that the quote has the Suzuki people talking about what the bus might produce in emissions and the maximum they might have to pay to offset them. The fact is that the bus will produce far less CO₂ and that you can purchase offsets at a much lower cost.

Addendum #2: One more thought occurs to me. This is a perfect metaphor for the environmental debate. Two people look at the same situation. The skeptic, me, churns the numbers, in the open and transparently, and come up with an answer that suggests that human impact on the environment is negligible. David Suzuki looks at the same situation and pronounces an impact over two orders magnitude greater than I did. And David Suzuki will spread his message of alarm to tens of thousands with his appearances, and many, many more via the media. I might reach two thousand readers on a good day, six thousand on a great day.