Two hundred and thirty-one years ago today, some guys with a lot of guts got serious about this America thing. Happy 4th of July.

It’s over now, but my fencing class at UW with Jason Norris was awesome. You can register for the next fencing class here if you live in the area.

This is me on the left:

I came in 2nd in our 12-person tournament, but only because the first guy who beat me (in my 2nd bout) had to leave early, so I got a bye for one round. The photo is actually of the bout I lost, but it was a great bout, so I have no regrets.

Fencing rules. At least Europe has one cool martial art.

You asked, Luke and Daniel. Pictures after the break, since some people don’t like to see stuff like that before (or after) breakfast.
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I am starting yet another new blog at GrammarPolice.org, and I’m looking for ideas.

What bugs you about the way people use the English language? Chime in here.

If you are an aspiring English enforcement officer, let me know and I can give you posting privileges (which may lead to money in the future if the site takes off).

As I’ve mentioned before, I am starting a blog network, and I’d like to launch a large number of new blogs over the next few months.

I would like to have several blogs focusing on current TV shows, including American Idol, which starts up again in January.

If you are interested in blogging about a TV show, check out WebbleYou.net for the particulars. It pays (70% of ad revenue generated by the site), and there are no out-of-pocket expenses to you, and you can cross-post (that is, you can post the same thing to your WebbleYou Blog Network blog and to your personal blog, so your existing blog doesn’t suffer from your participation with the WebbleYou Blog Network).

Today is a snow day in Seattle, meaning that there is no school, so Amy and I get to stay home. There’s almost no snow on the roads in our neighborhood, but we apparently live in a relatively warm part of town.

More blogging soon. If you want to see what snow in Seattle looks like, check out some Flickr pics taken by people who live in snowier neighborhoods (fancy search link via Metroblogging).

I’ve been thinking about blogging. I think. Somtimes I get a really good idea and I say to myself, “Self, you should blog about that. Hasn’t it been about 13 years since you’ve blogged on RC? Justin’s going to start recruiting for your replacement if you don’t shape up. Oh wait…” So I sit down at my shiny Powerbook with my great idea firmly implanted in my head and the following transpires:

Alrighty, loggin’ in. Doo dee doo. Username… Password… Login button. Go Firefox go! Okay, admin page… Write Post. Cool. Title…… title title title. Hmm. Oh. Huh. Title. This is what the good idea is about. Right, my good idea. My good idea was about… shoot. Let’s try again. My goooooood ideaaaaaa was about……. Lost it. Again. *sigh* I’m going to bed.

So today I’ve decided to bust my cycle. I don’t have anything remotely interesting, educational, or even mildly entertaining to write about but I’m writing anyway! I figure that if I bust my cycle of not blogging then, when I get another good idea, I might actually be able to write about instead of just going to sleep.

Busting your cycle is awesome. Ze would be proud.

If you read all of this, I’m sorry. I’ll refund your money.

I love newspapers with Times in their name. Today the Seattle Times published Warren Cornwall’s story about carbon offsets, which included an interview with and photograph of me.

During lunch today, an 89-year-old man called me to chat and tell me he thought I had wasted my money. He had looked me up in the phone book, and he offered to send me some materials on (or rather, denying) global warming, so I gave him my PO box number. The price of fame :).

Here’s the picture (there’s a two-frame slideshow on the Times site) and the article. (Warren and Erika, let me know if having the article here is a problem).

Photo © Erika Schultz, Seattle Times

For sale: CO2 by the ton

By Warren Cornwall
Seattle Times staff reporter

How about a few tons of carbon dioxide in your stocking this Christmas?

It’s just what some environmentally conscious people might be dreaming of: a gift certificate for 10 tons of carbon-based gas and the promise that someone else won’t puff the globe-warming stuff into the atmosphere.

They’re called “carbon offsets,” based on the idea that individual consumers can make up for the amount of greenhouse gas they produce in everyday life by paying someone else to cut back. And they might be the next big thing in eco-friendly marketing, especially with concern about climate change going mainstream. Seattle mortgage brokers and real-estate agents are promoting “carbon neutral” home loans, promising to buy enough offsets to cover a year’s worth of emissions from the house. Bellevue online travel site Expedia is selling airline tickets that come with the offsets. Even local rocker Dave Matthews is promising to make up for whatever greenhouse gases his band’s traveling show creates.

Then there’s the Christmas carbon gift certificate sold by NetGreen, a Seattle company.

Offsets are billed as a way for average people to do their part by opening their wallets and investing in an important world issue.

But increasingly there are worries of gimmicks tainting what has become an unchecked market that is potentially worth millions. Already companies have been bickering over whose offsets really lead to a cut in emissions elsewhere. The confusion could sour the whole idea for consumers, who might wonder whether they or simply buying an eco-illusion.

“You have to differentiate between the junk that’s being bought and sold for 50 cents a ton and quality reductions that are actually having the intended environmental benefits,” said Mark Trexler, president of Trexler Climate and Energy Services, a Portland-based firm that works with companies on climate-change issues.

“There’s a lot of that happening: buying offsets that aren’t really real.”

Doing one’s share

The basic concept of a carbon offset is simple: It’s an eraser that people or companies can buy to make up for the tons of greenhouse gas, such as carbon dioxide, that they create by driving, flicking on the lights or flying in a jet.

So instead of selling the family car or sitting in the dark, you can, at least in theory, become “carbon neutral” by paying into a system that pumps money into carbon-reducing business ventures.

For example, Justin Baeder, a 25-year-old Seattle school administrator, paid $50 to TerraPass, a San Francisco startup company. It then buys carbon “credits” from other companies that trim their carbon emissions in various ways, like building wind turbines instead of coal-fired power plants.

That way, Baeder is supposedly cancelling the five tons of carbon-based gas that his Saturn sedan spews out every year.

The amount of carbon bought by people like Baeder is tiny compared with global emissions. One estimate is that all voluntary carbon offsets — ones that aren’t required by government regulations — add up to at least 10 million metric tons a year. But in one year the U.S. alone pumped out about 7 billion metric tons.

Even so, for Baeder it was one more step he can take.

“It would be incredibly difficult for me to eliminate those emissions now, yet I feel responsible to,” Baeder said. “This is a way for me to work toward doing that now.”

Nebulous concept

But how does anyone know that the money is actually buying back global-warming gas? After all, Baeder never gets a box in the mail with five tons of carbon inside. All he gets is a window sticker for his Saturn.

The European Union closely regulates a carbon-offset market because it has government-enforced limits on greenhouse-gas emissions. But the U.S. has no such rules.

At least 40 Web sites currently offer offsets to individual buyers, and all of them promise the money will go toward something eco-friendly, from tree plantings to wind turbines. To set themselves apart, some companies, including TerraPass, have turned to independent auditors to allay consumer concerns.

That’s what helped win over Baeder. And it was enough for travel giant Expedia, which now sells TerraPass offsets along with its plane tickets.

“They just have a really scientific approach to quantifying the amount of carbon it offsets,” said Katie Deines, an Expedia spokeswoman. “It’s kind of a nebulous concept for some consumers.”

But that hasn’t ended the debate.

Some offset dealers say they are paying to plant trees or protect forests, because trees store carbon dioxide and deforestation adds to carbon in the atmosphere. But critics point out that it takes decades for saplings to grow large enough to hold much carbon — if they survive.

Other companies promise to support renewable-energy projects such as wind farms, the benefits of which they market as “green tags.”

But activists such as Mike Burnett of The Climate Trust, a Portland nonprofit that runs an offsetting program for Oregon’s power plants, say those tags don’t actually reduce carbon if the money just adds to a power company’s profits instead of helping make a clean-energy project viable.

Sellers such as TerraPass, which uses green tags for some of its carbon offsets, say the critics are nitpicking. They say green tags reward the clean-energy industry and make it more attractive to energy developers.

“To decide that we are going to have some group of intellectuals sitting around deciding whether particular projects need the money, then we are going to stifle the market,” said Rob Harmon, vice president of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, a Portland nonprofit that markets green tags.

Consumer protection

Nonetheless, politicians are getting involved.

State Rep. Maralyn Chase, D-Edmonds, plans to push for rules for carbon offsets. She said she’s driven partly because she is hoping to set up a system for Washington businesses to get tax credits for offsetting their emissions.

But she said she also sees it as a consumer-protection issue.

“You can’t just hang out a shingle and say, ‘These are carbon offsets,’ ” she said.

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com

I should point out that the “credits” TerraPass and similar companies purchase are not simply “We pay you to pollute less, so we can pollute more” tradeoffs. They are investing in, and thereby funding, cleaner energy production and industry. The projects that produce energy without greenhouse gases, such as wind turbines, are often not cost-effective to build intially, even though their long-range benefits are clear.

The great thing about this approach to fighting pollution is that it gives market forces a shove in the right direction, without requiring additional regulation. It builds awareness and makes green energy more affordable, which I believe will have a long-term impact on consumer and governmental demand for cleaner power.

I can now check off step sixteen in my plan to take over the world (of which Aaron took my only copy, unfortunately).