Want to Go Green? Check out TerraPass

With experiences of this trip weighing heavy, today I'll go in for a bit of glass-half-full.

"Green" business (especially within our H/HC industry) is a particular interest. Tomorrow I'll share a Children's Hospital that's taken eco-friendliness to a whole new level.

With significant time spent in the friendly skies this year, I started thinking about ways to 'buy back' a bit of the trips' environmental impact.

Google "offset emissions" and you'll stumble across a veritable smorgasboard of companies offering programs to reduce the carbon emissions you generate via air travel, the daily commute, running the hearth & home.

But none are quite as nifty as TerraPass.

These guys and gals make it almost obscenely easy to breathe easy (literally and figuratively).

Just select programs customized for home, dorm, flying the friendly skies, etc. The nifty group of folks (Stanford students) at iinnovate have a great interview with Tom Arnold, TerraPass's Chief Environmental Officer here.

Click here for more info, and here to learn more about a green business with lofty goals.

You can even turn in old cellphones (usually the past 2 years' models) for cash. Then convert the bucks to cleaning your conscience and the environment by purchasing a 'free' TerraPass.

Click here to learn more and see what RipMobile will give you for your phone; they even provide old Berrys with a final resting place (or at least a second chance to addict a new user).

If I turned my T-Mobile Pearl model in now, I'd receive a $155 credit. Although I'd have to contact an ortho doc blogger to surgically remove the keypad from my fingertips first...

Now, here's the real question - is it worth it to throw a bit of cash at the problem, or should I take the lumps, and make some strategic decisions that allow me to fly and drive less?

Does plunking down a bit of change for a TerraPass really make that much difference in the global environmental trend? Check out the site - you be the judge.

I'm not completely sold, but it sure did make me feel better to purchase a TerraPass Puddle Jumper, which offsets about 6,000 miles of flying. My roundtrip from DCA to Miami this week was just under 2k miles of flight time, so I've got about 4k 'left' on the pass.

I got a tingly feeling when I checked out (They accept PayPal? This is only costing me ten bucks???)...it felt a bit like planning to buy a hybrid, cleaning items thoroughly before recycling, or picking up errant pieces of litter left by patrons in airport restaurants.

Enough tooting the horn, but if even one of you buys a TerraPass, this post is well worth it.

Now, who will be the first hospital to buy a TerraPass covering operations/executive travel for a day? A month? A year?