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By Sean Mussenden | Media General News Service

Published: August 6, 2008

WASHINGTON — John McCain and Barack Obama call climate change one of the biggest challenges facing the world, and both pledge major reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide, if elected.

To spread that message, though, the two campaigns are pumping thousands of tons of the global warming gas into the atmosphere.

On a single, two-hour flight from his hometown of Chicago to Washington, Obama's 757 emits an estimated 19 tons of C02, about as much as the average American is responsible for producing in an entire year.

For McCain, a four-hour flight from his Arizona ranch to Washington on his Boeing 737 emits an estimated 34 tons of C02, almost twice as much as the average American.

"Air travel is so carbon intensive. It takes a lot of energy to get a big plane off the ground," said Billy Connelly, marketing director for Native Energy, a renewable energy firm that has worked with political candidates to reduce carbon emissions from campaign travel.

Few activities are as air-travel intensive as campaigning for president. Both candidates spend a great deal of time in the air, visiting two, three or even four states in a day to fire up supporters and raise money.

Each flight contributes to the warming of the planet. So does the gasoline to ferry candidates, staffers and members of the news media from airports to rallies to hotels, and the electricity to light, heat and cool satellite campaign offices in dozens of states.

To mitigate the environmental damage, several presidential candidates purchased "carbon offsets" from private firms this year.

The campaigns use mathematical formulas to determine their "carbon footprint." For example, Obama's Boeing 757 burns about 900 gallons of fuel per hour, according to estimates by the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Each gallon of jet fuel emits 21.1 pounds of C02, so a two-hour flight emits about 19 tons of the gas.
The average American's activities put about 21 tons of carbon per year into the atmosphere, according to a 2008 assessment by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Once the footprint is determined, the campaign pays a firm like Native Energy, which handled carbon offsets for Hillary Clinton's campaign, for a share of construction of new alternative energy projects that use wind, solar or other clean power sources.

The carbon-free energy produced by those projects replaces energy that would have otherwise come from a carbon-belching coal-fired power plant. Supporters of offsets say the replacement negates the carbon put into the atmosphere by the candidates' travel.

Obama's campaign buys carbon offsets from Carbonfund.org, through Air Charter Team, the company that coordinates air travel for the candidate, a campaign spokesman said.

Carbonfund.org uses the money to fund plant trees that capture and store carbon, and on energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, according to its Web site.

It's unclear if McCain's campaign purchases carbon offsets. The campaign did not return two phone calls seeking comment this week.

Reach Sean Mussenden at smussenden@mediageneral.com.>/i>

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