We got a car!
That’s right, you’re looking at Emily and my new (used) car! We ended up with a 2001 Toyota Corolla after weeks of looking. It’s got a few more miles on it than would be ideal and the brakes will need some work soon but overall we’re really happy with it. The guy who sold it to us was really nice because he remembered what it was like to be a poor newlywed with no car. He filled the tank, picked us up and brought us to the garage to have it inspected, gave us a great deal and was generally very trustworthy and nice. If only we could have found this guy three weeks ago.
So now we enter a new era as car owners, something I didn’t really want to be. My environmental concerns made me want to avoid getting a car at all costs but down here it’s more of a necessity than I could have imagined living in Ottawa or Toronto. We loaded up on groceries today and it felt great. Of course I’ll be buying offsets for our already fairly efficient car and driving back to Canada next summer will save a lot of carbon compared to flying.
Dude, I have no idea what “buying offsets” means. I even went to the website, and I still have no idea. A little help here?
Carbon offsets are “credits” you buy to reduce you global warming impact. Basically you pay an organization to invest in reforestation, energy efficiency or green energy programs. Essentially they estimate the amount of carbon dioxide you produce and plant enough trees to suck down that much CO2… or they build enough windmills to save the amount of coal that would produce the same amount of CO2 that you produce by driving. They might do a better job of explaining it at carbonfund.org than Terrapass or I did. And there’s always this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset