The Carbon Offsetting Fetish

I think carbon offsets are great. I do. I'll never bash them. That said, I was thrilled to see Tim Leffel's take on the sloppy embrace of green issues in US consumer travel magazines.

Especially good was his job on the rush toward singling out air travel as somehow the most evil activity in environmental history, a rush that completely ignores lifestyle choice balance and lets car travel off the hook.

I'm reminded of a very good friend who asked me a few months ago how she could get from her major European gateway to the Yucatán without flying. I told her that if she were able to snag a repositioning cruise from England to South Florida and then find a way to drive around the Gulf of Mexico and south to Mérida, she could do it. But at what cost? I'd love to find a way to calculate the carbon emissions of such an itinerary versus the two flights that would deliver her from Europe to Mexico.

I agree with Leffel when he suggests that we need to think beyond flying. We need to think about how we travel and how we behave when we're not traveling. Carbon offsets are part of the puzzle, but they're not the redemptive answer, nor should they be made into a fetish.   

Comments

[poet with a day job]

here here. I'm not convinced they re of any value whatsoever. Planting 50 trees because you took a plane trip doesn't make any sense. How about just stopping chopping down the entire rainforest of the planet? That woudl offset our carbon by cajillions. Trading /offsetting is just another way weve found to excuse our bad behaviors (DRIVING, #1 on the list) and sally on as we always have.

Sure I am simplifying, but sometimes, things like this need to be simplified.

[denise]

Alex, I tend to agree with the people who say that carbon offsets are a great excuse to do nothing. We've certainly got a long way to go before the solar plane becomes a mass option. In the meantime, vive le train, vive le slow boat!