TerraPass claims to reduce a specific amount of carbon dioxide, but don’t some of your projects actually reduce methane?
Yes. Methane is one of the greenhouse gases officially recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a major cause of global warming, along with carbon dioxide and four others. Methane comes from a variety of sources both natural and manmade, such as farm waste and landfills. All of the six major greenhouse gases are typically converted into their “carbon dioxide equivalent” for ease of comparison. For example, methane is 21 times as powerful a warming agent as carbon dioxide, so we multiply methane reductions by a standard factor to calculate their carbon dioxide equivalent. The reduction associated with each TerraPass purchase is stated in pounds of carbon dioxide, but we’re really talking about carbon dioxide equivalents. In fact, all carbon offsets are denominated this way.
