Green electricity.

Paul McRandle's treatment of "Green Energy" [Green Guidance column, January/February 2007] is a missed opportunity. Most consumers don't understand green power options, and McRandle perpetuates the confusion. Here's what everyone should understand:

First, buying clean electric power should be at the top of the list of personal actions to address global warming. At one stroke, for an extra few dollars a month, you can halt all your electricity-related emissions. (You can balance the small increased cost with energy efficiency measures that reduce your total usage.) In the United States, electric power generation causes about one-third of all global warming pollution. Buying clean power also helps support the fledgling renewable energy industry and brings costs down.

Second, you can buy clean electric power right now, anywhere in the United States. You don't have to wait for your utility to offer it. The way to do this is by buying Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). Contrary to what McRandle writes, buying an REC is not "offsetting your electricity consumption." When you buy an REC, you are literally buying clean electric power. Indeed, when you purchase green power directly through your utility, they may simply be buying RECs on your behalf.

To understand how RECs work, and get info on many other climate protection actions, visit 2People.org, an online social network for people committed to real climate solutions. Our priority is political action: making climate the dominant issue in the 2008 elections, but we're involved in many personal actions as well.

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PHIL MITCHELL

2People, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Paul McRandle responds: In referring to offsetting greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing RECs, I wasn't using the term in the technical sense of "carbon offsets," which suggests "additionality" through the support of new carbon reduction projects. Rather, I was suggesting that where consumers' only local option is to pay a conventional utility for energy from a coal-fired power plant, they can purchase an equivalent amount of power from a distant wind-powered energy supplier to "balance" their emissions and encourage an alternative. (Editor's note: World Watch will be running an article on RECs in a future issue.)