How to Seize the Initiative

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How do the consumer offsets work? Take the nonprofit Carbonfund.org It sells absolution for personal and commercial emissions at a cut rate of $5.50 per ton of CO2. (A full year of carbon neutralization typically costs $99.) Carbonfund allows buyers to choose where their money winds up--in alternative energy, forest conservation or energy efficiency. Co-founder Eric Carlson says Carbonfund has offset about 40,000 tons of CO2 so far. That's not much. But its ultimate aim, he says, is to channel what support it gets into driving down the cost of clean energy--and, along the way, increase awareness of climate change. "There is an educational value in these things," says Judi Greenwald of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "People realize that what they do can make a difference." So, apparently, do rock stars. --By Unmesh Kher

SWEDEN CLEANER AIR OVER SCANDINAVIA

Like the U.S., Sweden is addicted to oil. Unlike the U.S., it has a plan to kick the habit--and a deadline. By 2020, says Mona Sahlin, Minister for Sustainable Development, the country will no longer be dependent on fossil fuels. "By then," she declares, "no home will need oil for heating, no motorist will be obliged to use petrol [gasoline] as the sole option available."

Can Sweden do it? Probably. Back in 1970, before the first Middle East energy crisis, Sweden got 77% of its energy from oil. By 2003, even though industrial production had risen dramatically, that figure had dropped to 34%. Part of the country's impressive record comes courtesy of its abundant resources. "We have access to large amounts of hydropower," admits Sahlin, "large amounts of biomass and good conditions for increased use of wind power."

But that's not the only reason Sweden was rated the world's second greenest nation (just behind New Zealand) in a study issued at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Sweden's leaders have passed laws that would be unthinkable for a U.S. politician--taxes on fuel and CO2 emissions to induce car owners to trade in their gas guzzlers for hybrids, for example, and tax exemptions for home owners who switch from oil heating to renewable energy. Indeed, whereas Americans are likely to complain about higher taxes or infringements on their rights, most Swedes seem to embrace the idea of helping save the planet.

Take, for example, Sweden's nationwide rush to convert cars from gasoline to fuels like ethanol and biogas fermented from plant waste. Stations that sell alternative fuels are springing up all over the country, and fully 13% of new autos sold in February, the most recent month for which numbers are available, can run on ultra-low-emission substances.

What Americans might appreciate is the way local governments are encouraged to come up with their own strategies for meeting the national goals. For example, in Helsingborg, a coastal city of 120,000, buses run on biogas made from garbage and other organic waste from households and nearby farms. It's part of a program that dates from 2000, when city officials decided they would get 20% of municipal vehicles running on renewable fuel by 2010. By 2004, they had reached 23%. "We have upped our target so that 50% of the city's cars, vans and trucks should use renewable fuel by 2010--and we will meet that target," says Ulla Ingers, Helsingborg's assistant director of environment.