There are lots of ways to reduce your carbon footprint, or the amount of greenhouse gas emissions you generate as a result of your daily life. Trade in your car for one with better gas mileage, for example. And walk, bike, or take public transportation whenever possible. But chances are you must drive sometimes - so one way to counterbalance the carbon emissions from burning gasoline is to help build renewable energy sources like wind farms.

With CoolDriver, you can do just that. For $6 a month, CoolDriver lets you offset the average car's annual emissions, which amounts to six tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. An initiative of Native Energy, which invests in renewable energy technologies including wind, solar, and dairy-farm methane, and the organization Clean Air Cool Planet, a nonprofit that helps implement climate change solutions, CoolDriver lets you ease your conscience about driving, by helping reduce the use of fossil fuels elsewhere.

Native Energy offers a travel calculator that lets you see the impact of your travel (for trips by car, bus, train, plane, and even for hotel stays).

But as the web site sort of hints ("Step 1" is to drive less and drive an energy-efficient vehicle), you can't just sit back and rest on the promise of that $6 monthly contribution. CoolDriver is a form of carbon offset program, a nifty way to minimize the planetary harm your lifesyle causes. Other forms of carbon offsets are planting trees and sequestering carbon (such as underground or in the soil). But if everyone continues to live as they are (driving a car that get 10 miles per gallon when it's just as easy to walk, say) but buys carbon offsets to ease their guilt, then we won't really be much better off. It's a bit like bumper-sticker activism.

Still, carbon offsets are an important part of a balanced climate-change-solutions diet, when combined with other methods of reducing your carbon footprint.

Image credit: CoolDriver