Trash Talk #4: Flying Responsibly (Sort-of)
Taking one international round-trip flight generates more CO2 than citizens of some countries produce in a year.
While 2021 flight volumes are still below pre-pandemic levels (good for Covid containment), this summer has seen a steady uptick in flight bookings as an increasingly restless population once again seeks out leisure travel (bad for carbon emissions, and the surging Delta variant).
There is no doubt that air travel is one of the worst impacts that one can leave on the environment within their individual footprint. While completely avoiding flying is one option, the appeal is still obvious — we travel across the globe to visit beloved family members, reunite with adored friends, and broaden personal horizons. Some of these experiences could never be fully replaced through just reading a book or connecting over a video call.
While I encourage everyone to learn more about how to reduce the impact of their air travel (see this article for some introductory tips), there is an additional way to partially make up for the impact of necessary flights. It’s called carbon offsets.
What are carbon offsets?
All of your daily activities — transportation, electricity use, waste disposal — cause greenhouse gas emissions, carbon being one of those gasses. Carbon offsetting is a means of compensating for the environmental impact of these emissions.
For the equivalent of each metric ton of carbon dioxide released, one carbon offset is created. You can then buy these carbon offsets, which are essentially investments in renewable resource projects that remove carbon from the atmosphere — thus “offsetting” your impact. Examples of these projects could look like funding renewable energy development, capturing methane from livestock, or distributing clean cookstoves.
Carbon offsets are controversial.
There are many who argue that carbon offsets are not the right solution, for a few reasons:
- Carbon offsets allow people to continue their current habits without feeling guilty or actually changing behaviors.
- Carbon offsets do not always come from reputable sources, and therefore may not be offsetting anything.
- Carbon offsets are nowhere near as efficient as other solutions, such as investing in making airplanes more energy efficient.
As carbon offsets become more and more common, it’s also become more difficult to determine whether the projects that are being invested in:
- Would’ve happened anyway without your funding (thus, not a real offset) or if they truly rely on your purchase in order to execute (a marker of quality known as “additionality”),
- Will result in lasting, long-term effects (“permanence”),
- Are not sold multiple times through different channels (“double-counting”), and
- Does not make another environmental or social problem worse (“leakage”).
Carbon offsets are still the best immediate thing you can do.
Regardless of the kinks that are still being ironed out within this new market however, if you are going to continue taking flights, carbon offsets offer you some way of mitigating your impact. At the very least, carbon offsets will help you keep in mind the impact of your travel. If you can afford to pay for an air ticket, then it is likely you can also afford to pay for the pollution caused by that flight.
While it can be daunting to research and find high quality carbon offsets, the good news is that the hard work has been done for you! Second Nature has a table at the bottom of their site which lists offset companies that have gone through robust 3rd party verification to attest to the quality of their projects. Out of all of these, my top choice and recommendation would be Cool Effect, because they operate as a non-profit. This means you’re paying the lowest fees possible with your offset — just enough to cover their operating costs.
Purchasing carbon offsets in 3 easy steps:
- Go to Cool Effect’s Travel Offset page.
- Select the duration of your flight, making sure to select the # of hours for the total round trip.
- Click “Offset Now.”
As I wrote this article, I purchased an offset for a recent coast-to-coast flight, and it only took 2 minutes and cost $13.08. For the price of a 6-pack of beer, you too can fly with a slightly less guilty conscience.
