The Conservancy's carbon calculator is distinctive in showing how individual choices and actions either increase or decrease a user's impact on global warming. It provides information about the choices people make each day in their homes, their travels, and even in their daily meals. Unlike other calculators, it puts these choices in context, allowing them to better understand the relative impact of their actions.

The calculator also provides tips and suggestions for reducing emissions and allows people to compare their overall impact to national and worldwide averages. It estimates emissions of all greenhouse gases, not just carbon dioxide. Because some of the gases that drive global warming and climate change stick around in the atmosphere for up to a century or more, today's actions will make a difference to several generations that follow.

"This calculator is a critically important tool in our fight against global climate change," said Suzanne Case, executive director of The Nature Conservancy in Hawai'i. "Not only does it help explain how our actions contribute to rising global temperatures, it also helps us each make better choices which, when multiplied by millions of people, are crucial to the future of our planet."

Not merely encouraging others, the Conservancy in Hawai'i is taking serious steps to shrink its own "carbon footprint" in its facilities and operations program-wide. Early this year, all staff participated in a survey to audit the group's energy use. "We're taking a hard look at the way we do business and we're willing to make changes, to reach our goal of becoming carbon-neutral," said Case.