Gadget for Carbon Offset Renting from Trees
Designer Nitipak Samsen has designed the Automated Tree-Rental for Emission Encaging Machine (ATREEM), which essentially allows you to purchase carbon credits from a tree. The gadget measures the growth of a tree, translating into how much carbon dioxide the tree has absorbed. The gadget is designed to highlight just how long it takes for our carbon dioxide emissions to be reabsorbed.
The device is more about awareness than being a practical method for charging people for their carbon dioxide emissions. However, the gadget is capable of charging credit cards using its swipe-card interface. Just to give you an idea about carbon emissions, this is what I discovered on the designer’s ATREEM page:
The user interface of A.T.R.E.E.M. shows the intangible CO2 in term of gram and how long does the tree take to offset that amount. i.e. 10 minutes on tube journey emits about 350 grams of CO2 and the tree takes 2 days 10 hours to offset that amount. This way the user can imagine how good they are at leaving waste to the planet.
As part of the design, Nitipak Samsen created a tape measure that helps children to realise the hard-to-imagine metrics for CO2 emissions into actual tree measurements. I think it’s a fantastic idea, and would love to see it in schools!
Your Comments
This only works in the U.S. if Congress passes any sort of legislation that has any teeth, which it doesn’t look like it will. Nice try, though. I think we should charge clouds for contributing to global warming.
This is the dumbest damn thing I have ever seen in my life !
I wonder how much CO2 was manufactured in creating this stupid gadget ! I bet it was made in CHINA !
The day this thing shows up in my kids’ school is the day I will pull them out and start home schooling. What utter nonsense!
The gadget itself is nuts, but the tape on its own is a great idea.
Dan
It think it’s been generally accepted that planting trees as carbon offsets is naïve sadly. A nice idea, but a little behind the times.
High quality CER-based carbon offsets from companies such as http://www.clear-offset.com essentially allow private individuals to invest in green technologies that wouldn’t necessarily make commercial sense otherwise.
If the powers that can’t build a biomass plant or hydro dam as it’s too expensive, then have a guess what they’re going to build instead – yup, yet more coal / oil / gas fired power stations.
Carbon Offsetting is not a bad thing, in fact it can be very positive – it’s just been done in the past by the wrong methods (planting trees and treadle pumps), by the wrong people (those looking to make a quick buck). Open your eyes and take another look….
Add a comment