Doubters who are new to the site often question whether I am green, presumably trying to show me up as a hypocrite, as someone who doesn’t practice what I preach. Here’s a typical recent comment:

People who really are worried about AGW [anthropogenic global warming] should go beyond indulgences (sorry, offsets) – that is – they should buy offsets, but also make some real sacrifices – painful ones, like cut down their air-traveling, cut down their electricity consumption, and their consumerism, in general.

Dr. Romm – would you care to tell us what you’ve been doing along these lines ? Would you like to mention the “sincere attempts to reduce your carbon footprint” that you have made, and their results ? Would you care to publish your carbon footprint, and the multidecadal trend in it (up or down) ?

I tend to think the question is largely irrelevant. I worry about AGW a great deal, but I don’t advocate individual sacrifice, since it won’t solve the problem — nor is it necessary. For instance, you don’t need to cut down on your electricity consumption if you purchase renewable power (although efficiency will be good for your pocketbook).

We need collective action at a national level and then at a global level. That is the focus of this blog. I don’t preach sacrifice so I don’t practice it. That’s one reason I’m not as big an advocate of offsets as some.

Still, Problogger says you should tell readers about where you are coming from. So — without implying others need to do the same — here is a list of the things I have done to lower my carbon footprint:

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The Chinese link their recent record flooding to global warming.

China’s coal use has made it the world’s top CO2 polluter.

“Flooding set off by torrential rains trapped 172 men deep underground in a coal mine in eastern China.”

‘Nuff said.

The “virtuous traveler” at the Toronto Star interviewed me for an article on offsetting air travel, “The winds of (climate) change.” The piece is pretty good. Here are some highlights:

Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and author of Hell and High Water, is a critic of tree-planting as a carbon offset option.

“Trees take a long time to grow and they can be cut down,” he says. “I think planting and preserving trees is a good thing, but it won’t solve global warming.”

Offsets might “leave people with the impression that you can solve the climate problem by spending a few bucks,” he says. “The solution is going to take a lot of hard work for many decades.”

Still, he admits they are a step in the right direction.

“If you get well-credentialled offsets, it’s a good idea,” he says, suggesting that green-minded travellers seek out offset companies focused on clean energy projects.

The article focuses on the two offset companies that testified with me in July, Terrapass and Native Energy, both of whom seem well-credentialed. The article notes that a very high standard for offsets exists:

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