Greening TB:A
-Posted by Patrick Alan Coleman

The world’s culture has become obsessed with its demise. According to Reggie Watts wonderfully absurdist prophesy, Disinformation, that demise will come in 2012, when the Mayan calendar ends. More likely it we be a long, drawn out, uncomfortable process. According to Leonardo Di Caprio and Al Gore, it will be ecological disaster stemming from fossil fuel use and the subsequent carbon emissions.

Based on our personal energy use, we all have a “carbon footprint,” the amount of carbon emissions we are responsible for pumping into the atmosphere. Businesses and events generally have significant carbon footprints.

The TB:A festival’s carbon footprint must be remarkable. Consider the artists that are shuttled around the globe, harried participants driving from venue to venue and the amount of energy it takes to light galleries and stages. Luckily, many participants choose public transportation or bicycles to get from place to place. Still it’s likely that the festival is responsible for an additional carbon load over its 11 day run.

There is something that festival participants can do. An increasing number of organizations are selling Verified Emission Reduction credits (VER’s). When VER’s are purchase the money is invested in companies and non-profits that are working to reduce carbon emissions through methods as diverse as planting trees and burning harmful methane gas from landfills.

Anyone interested in offsetting the carbon emissions of festival participation can find a list of organizations selling VER’s at ecobusinesslinks.com. Just think of the piece of mind you’ll have watching the Portland Cello Project, knowing that the emissions produced from your drive to the Works has been offset by the planting of a few new trees.