Author Archives: Karin Kloosterman

Karin Kloosterman is a freelance writer who can’t stop herself from writing about the environment.

Her work has appeared in newspapers around the world, and most notably in places such as National Geographic, E! Magazine and Grist; she also writes regularly for the world’s most popular enviro blog, TreeHugger.

Karin is excited to join Carbon Catalog’s latest project, Carbon Catablog and will be the first to admit, that she has lots to learn about carbon offsetting. And please, don’t be shy about pointing that out to her! Tips, feedback, and ideas are – of course – always welcome.

Feel free to email Karin at karin (dot) kloosterman (at) gmail (dot) com.

To Profit, Part 3: Belgium’s CLIMACT

(A Few Good Men: CLIMACT’s Pascal Vermeulen, Dimitri Mertens and Hugues de Meulemeester)
Carbon Catalog’s been globetrotting over the last few months, but virtually in a carbon neutral sort of way. During our travels, we’ve handpicked a sample of carbon offset providers from the offsetting world, in order to make sense of the market, because consumers [...]

To Profit, Part 2: Canada’s ZeroGHG

The voluntary carbon offsetting market is young and because policies and strategies differ around the world – as well as opinions – we’ve been talking with a variety of organizations and companies.
Two weeks ago we interviewed America’s for-profit carbon offsetter, TerraPass. And previously, we cast our net wide and interviewed non-profit providers from countries such [...]

Offset Your Avatar at Second Life

If you don’t have much of a real life, consider offsetting your virtual one: starting this week some 20 million registered users participating in the multi-player game Second Life (SL), now have a chance to offset their carbon emissions produced during play.
Linden Labs, creators of the game, recently partnered with 4Offsets and Jorel Ventures, [...]

To Profit, Part 1: America’s TerraPass

The question comes up among policy makers and those in the carbon offsetting business, and more recently among consumers: should carbon offset providers be non-profit entities, or will carbon emissions be more effectively reduced by for-profit companies who make money with every offset purchase?
After Carbon Catablog’s series of interviews from the non-profit world (see the [...]

The Best Laid Plans are Cool: The Democrats on Global Warming

Obama and Clinton are neck-in-neck in a very hot race for presidential candidacy. But who will be the best Democrat for the planet?
According to Salon, the greatest threat to America’s future won’t be terrorist attacks or national security, it will be the effects of global warming and unrestricted greenhouse gas emissions.
So what are the Democrat [...]

UK Report Shows Online Offset Purchasing Confusing and Inconsistent

The Internet makes almost everything easier these days – buying plane tickets, finding your true love, and managing your finances. But tread warily if you go online to reduce your carbon footprint, warns the Scotsman today.
“Carbon offsetting websites are inconsistent and confusing, with costs varying by up to 540 per cent,” says the Scotsman. The [...]

Not to Profit, Part 6: The Roundup

Choosing how to offset your carbon dioxide emissions is complicated business. Readers have been asking us: what’s the difference between providers who offset for profit, and those who offset as non-profit organizations?
In our quest to find some answers we spoke with five different prominent non-profit providers from around the world – the United States, [...]

Not to Profit, Part 5: Canada’s Offsetters

Making our way around the globe, today we speak with Canada’s non-profit carbon offset provider Offsetters.
In previous weeks, we’ve met with Goodplanet/Action Carbone from France who does not see “the offsetting environment as a competition.”
There’s been the non-profit take of the Swiss-based myclimate. They believe climate protection should not be done to “increase your own [...]

Through a Carbon Lens: an Offset Atlas

Large-scale events, cycles and processes can be best grasped through graphs, flow-charts and maps. If you’re resourceful, you can even use software that helps you generate your own.
At Carbon Catalog, we’ve added a feature from Google maps that lets our readers pinpoint the location of the offset project – many of which are in far-flung [...]

Great Balls of Carbon Fire: The Power of Methane

In our last post on the topic, we talked about CO2e being a handy unit of currency – one which we can use to make sense of the different kinds of greenhouses gases and their effects.
Even though CO2e may be closer to an estimate than “exact change,” it gives offset providers (and projects) the ability [...]