coyou

If you want to reduce your own carbon footprint, the advice in the media seems to be to avoid flights at all costs. Flights more than anything seem to be the most single damaging thing an individual can do.

There are lots of calculators online to help you work out how much co2 will be released in the atmosphere for each flight that you make, here is an example:

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/flight_calc.html

But is offsetting a good idea? Does it actually help at all?

Friends of the Earth advise against offsetting because they think it throws us off the real issue. Their website says:

Friends of the Earth, along with a number of other organisations, is becoming increasingly concerned that carbon offsetting is being used as a smoke-screen to ward off legislation and delay the urgent action needed to cut emissions and develop alternative low-carbon solutions. Offsets can even encourage businesses and people to continue with (or even increase) unnecessary polluting activities, promoting the mindset ‘I’ve offset so it’s OK to fly’.

I think it’s pretty hard to avoid all flights completely. You can try by taking the train or holidaying within your own country, but these are not completely realistic for most people. Sometimes due to time pressures you have to fly to go longer distances.
While we wait for Governments and business to create an alternative to high co2 emitting flights some questions remain:

As an individual is it better to offset or not offset?
And if you do offset, what is the best way of doing it?

Last Modified : April 6th, 2007
Filed under : travelling, Flights
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