Offsetting your carbon
Customer Michael Hewitt contacted us to let us know about a website that aims to offset the amount of carbon dioxide we produce (from travelling, heating our home, etc). This is what Michael had to say:
“For a number of years I have been following Russ's advice about leaving hi-fi equipment turned on all the time. With all the recent publicity about the impact of energy use on the environment I decided I should try and offset the environmental impact of this practice. I have been able to do so by using the Climate Care website to buy 0.67 Tonnes of CO2 emissions for £5, which I calculated would be the amount produced by my system (174W power consumption on standby) being left on 24 hours a day for 1 year.”
If you want to offset your carbon accurately, you need to work out >>
Read the rest of the article on russandrews.com here
posted by Russ Andrews @ 12:22 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I believe it's all about balance.
I leave my HiFi on all the time (Teac VRDS-T1, Marston DAC, Quad Pre and Power Amps and Quad ESL's).
To compensate, we have fitted energy efficient light bulbs throughout the house, turned our boiler thermostat down to the minimum setting and we switch all other electrical items off at the wall when they are not in use.
It's easy to do and worth it for the consistent sound quality and system protection.
Keep up the great work Russ, your products are inspirational!
Hm. How about just turning off your hi-fi and bathing in the warm (but non-CO2 producing...) glow of knowing you are doing your bit to defeat global warming? That strikes me as a more reasonable 'balance'. Offsetting CO2 is a cop out - it is still being produced – it’s like paying a pound to a medical charity every time you smoke a cigarette: it’s still killing you, but you feel better for the donation. Only by cutting emissions can global warming be halted. That is the cumulative effect of people turning off TVs, etc., that consume on stand by. That, unfortunately, includes hi-fi too.
It is about balance. Leaving equipment off at the mains saves little if we jet off to far climes for out hols. The biggest contributer to Global warming is air travel. Stay at home and enjoy your music - oh and support the British Tourism industry.
Since it was my e-mail which started this off I feel I should contribute.
I don't beleive offsetting CO2 on it's own is the solution to global warming nor do I think it is a cop out.
I accept that the easiest way to deal with my conscience about leaving my hi-fi on all the time would be to switch it off. But I didn't want to do that, I'm as selfish as anybody else who has hobbies or leisure interests which produce CO2 emmissions, hence my efforts to neutralise the relevant CO2.
Along the way I started to think what else I could do and have started to replace my light-bulbs with energy-saving ones, switching TVs and computers off and cycling instead of drving where possible.
I think the key here is that I am now interested in maintaining a balance having never considered it historically.
The very fact that we are all discussing this with a passion reflects our concerns about global warming (and an acknowledgement on guilt!).
If everyone does their bit to contribute at least it's a start!
Having checked out the Climate Care website it seems only fair to note that the CO2 compensation they have providing doesn't amount to research into how to limit CO2 or to limit its effect; it is in fact about providing real verifiable reductions of CO2 in the atmosphere that exactly (or better) compensate for the amount of CO2 paid for.
Of course we should also do the low energy bulb thing where appropriate along with other measures but we can all choose to offset our entire annual personal use of CO2 production related to our domestic usage for £40 a year. Now if we all do that there'll be a major benefit to the environment.
Moreover, shouldn't we also be thinking of whole-life costs and CO2 production in relation to electronics (including computers as well as HiFi etc); if turning it on and off routinely wears it out sooner and so we replace it sooner, we'll be causing much more CO2 release (related to manufacturing new equipment etc.) than if simply kept it on!
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