Whether we focus on the Kyoto Protocol, the struggles and partial results of the COP15 conference, the different rulings of the EPA or the climate change legislation in the US Senate, it's time to do something. MCF has created the CarbonNeg reforestation program to create bird habitat, buffer our bird sanctuaries and help conserve and build connectivity between various Birdlife International designated Important Bird Areas.

Ours is but one of many carbon footprint or emissions calculators on the internet. We encourage you to analyze your emissions as thoroughly as possible and recommend the Environmental Protection Agency's calculator if you want to perform a more detailed self-audit. For people who want to offset their air travel we use the simple rule of thumb: Miami-Quito round trip represents about 1,000 pounds of C0₂ and London-Quito nearly 5,000. If you do any research into the subject you will see that airplane emissions, because they occur up-up in the air, are subject to a little thing called radiative forcing, where they have a higher global warming effect than ground-level emissions. There is a very thorough and interesting discussion of this phenomenon and how one should calculate a reasonable multiplying factor at the Stockholm Environment Institute. That being said, the idea is that flights should be offset between 2 and 3 times. Logically, since we're selling offsets and need funds to plant trees, we would like you to offset your flights 3 (why not 6) times. Really, we leave that up to every individual's better judgment.

Similarily, one can find many ways to arrive at an individual's average yearly emissions, and it may be worth it to try to skip right over the emissions calculation process. There are a range of answers out there, but we'd like to point to the EPA's reasonable low average 20,750 pounds for individuals. Converted to tons of CO₂ equivalents, that equals 10.4 tons of CO₂ offsets. With CarbonNeg less than $100. Again, this is a low average and could be thought of as a minimal yearly commitment level for offsetting one's footprint. To achieve carbon negativity we recommend doubling up to be sure. For the international twitchers in the crowd, your footprint is much bigger. Count your flights, do the math and send us a mail with your request. We would also be happy to do the calculations for anybody out there who does not want to take the time. Send us your itineraries!