Chocoholics Rejoice, For You Can Help Mitigate Global Warming*

*Just buy these chocolate bars:

climate change chocolate

The label reads:

REDUCING YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT JUST GOT A WHOLE LOT TASTIER!
Put your feet up and treat yourself while treating our planet better. After all, it’s the only one with chocolate on it.
CONTAINS: 3.5oz of feel good all natural premium DARK CHOCOLATE (55% cacao) plus TerraPass(TM) verified carbon offsets to balance one’s average daily contribution to climate change

The chocolate bar collection was designed by New Zealand based Bloomsberry & Co., a designer chocolate bar company. Although none of their previous collections were obviously environmentally focused (link), these bars are wrapped, “in a wrapper with 15 tips for lightening your environmental impact. These helpful hints teach you how to save energy by making small changes to your daily habits.” Here’s part of the wrapper:

choco climate tips

TerraPass is a carbon-credit vendor that will sell you what amounts to a guilt-free conscience aka a way of offsetting the carbon dioxide emissions that result from your everyday lifestyle. From their FAQ page:

Carbon offsets are a means of funding projects that combat global warming by reducing carbon emissions. TerraPass funds three types of leading-edge projects: wind power; farm power such as dairy farm methane digesters; and landfill methane capture.

So, for $5.50 a ‘pop you can offset an average day of carbon emissions (133 pounds of CO2), while satisfying your chocolate need . In case you’re curious about their average (as I naturally was), according to the US EPA, the average 2-person household CO2 emissions is 41,500 pounds (or 20,750 per person) per year, resulting in ~56 pounds per person per day (i.e. 133 pounds ain’t that bad of a deal).

I have mixed feelings about selling coolness-for-a-cause like this. In one hand, coolness can impart change onto a group of people that might not adopt any of the fifteen tips (I couldn’t find a list of them). However, obvious marketing ploys like this are often shunned by hardcore converts of any movement. Personally, I’ve always been uneasy about making a buck off of the misfortune of others (any way you spin it, climate change could be all of our misfortunes).

DISCLAIMER: I have no relation with TerraPass or Bloomsberry & Co., and both have not received, and will not receive payment of any type for talking about their products.

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Dave Semeniuk spends hours locked up in his office, thinking about the role the oceans play in controlling global climate, and unique ways of studying it. He'd also like to shamelessly plug his art practice: davidsemeniuk.com