This past weekend I completed my holiday shopping with a two hour adventure ride through the streets of Providence. I was searching for a specific gift for my mother. Online sources couldn't get it here in time. As it turns out, only one store in Providence had it. I had a blast riding all over the place searching, but it was only later that I realized the significance of what I had done. All of my Christmas shopping was done either by bicycle or on foot. Zero driving! On top of that, (I'm pretty sure nobody in my family actually reads this...) I bought carbon dioxide offsets from Carbonfund.org for each of my family members.
Now to be fair, I should think about this further before I claim carbon neutrality. I will be driving my car 40 miles each way to go be with my family for the actual holiday. My family members will be driving quite a bit as well. The gifts themselves involve carbon emissions in their production and transportation to market. Making my bicycle created carbon emissions. There's no such thing as a free lunch and there's no such thing as truly carbon neutrality, at least yet. I think it can be done, though, with more use of offsets.
I have also been lucky in terms of the weather this month. It's easy to ride a bike all over town when it's 50 degrees out. Had it been a snowy, rainy, cold, nasty month, would I have had the dedication to shop this way? Who knows, but I'm proud that I did complete all my shopping without using my car. Sure was a lot of fun...
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