Since the industrial revolution our increasingly comfortable lifestyles have been fuelled by carbon laid down as coal, oil and gas millions of years ago. We are rapidly putting this carbon back into the atmosphere as we burn our way through this fossil fuel legacy.

One consequence of this is that the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing faster than at any time in history. CO2 is a greenhouse gas - it traps the sun's heat and prevents it all being radiated back into space. More CO2 in the atmosphere means more heat is retained and the Earth warms up. We need to reduce our CO2 emissions to avoid runaway warming with all the disruption and suffering this would cause our children and grandchildren.

Governments are doing what they can, but what happens next is really up to us. We can vote for and lobby the people and policies we think will work, or give to our favourite environmental charities - but we can also act more directly by making changes in our lifestyles.

The two areas this site is focussed on are emission reductions in our personal lives and carbon offsetting. Personal emission reduction involves a lot of complicated purchasing and lifestyle decisions, and the answers aren't always obvious. Carboncarbon will help you through the emissions minefield to a greener life

You can reduce your own emissions substantially, but your lifestyle is still unlikely to be 'carbon neutral' (another concept you can explore on this website). This is where carbon offsetting comes in. Personal carbon offsetting means that when you do do something that creates CO2 you do something else that will take the same amount of CO2 back out of the atmosphere. In its simplest form this could be planting a tree for every thousand miles you fly. There are many carbon offset schemes - we will discuss them here and point you at some of the better ones.