Carbon Neutral Entertainment

With the incoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, organizers are trying to plan the first ever carbon neutral games. officials predict that the winter games will be responsible for adding 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Sources of emissions include transportation bringing fans and athletes into Vancouver as well as the several years of venue construction leading up to the event.

In order to offset the emissions, VANOC (the 20 member team responsible for planning the carbon neutral Olympics) are trying t find sponsors to help pay for carbon credits which can cost any where between 8-16 dollars per ton. The offset credits themselves would come from investing in renewable energy projects.

The annual global CO2 emissions is a little over 27 billion metric tons so in the big scheme of things 300,000 tons really isn't that much. Also, instead of trying to reduce carbon emissions, VANOC is still emitting but just paying to be able to pollute. So in reality, this really isn't helping the problem because as long as companies can pay to pollute they will instead of paying more money to reduce their pollution.