lifehacker.com: If you’re traveling again and have any amount of anxiety over climate change, you might have considered whether to buy carbon offset credits to minimize the environmental impact of your flight. One study found that 8% of carbon emissions across the globe are generated by tourism—and approximately half of that comes from transportation. Air travel makes up a very small percentage of overall emissions compared to driving (and industry, obviously), but it’s not nothing. So is it worth it to purchase carbon offsets for your flight?
2 comments:
The whole ‘carbon offset’ idea is very new to me and I had never heard of this before reading this article. I think the whole concept behind how it works is very interesting and sounds fairly easy for consumers to operate and get involved. However, I did have questions that are also mentioned in the article, such as how do we know that our money is actually going towards the projects promised by the company offering carbon offset. I think this does make me kind of having second thoughts before jumping in. So I think what the article suggests as alternatives are actually more reliable and in my personal opinion, more effective. For example, booking nonstop flights with higher passenger load factor can also, in a way, be a ‘green’ choice. I personally lean towards this alternative more than carbon offset, albeit it being a new concept.
As I am traveling more recently by air as a result of going to college out of state, I have been thinking about my carbon footprint more. I have tried to look for alternative ways to travel (which my parents shot down), in addition to ways to attempt to offset the pollution I created. Carbon Offsets is not a new concept to me, and like the article asks, I've never been quite sure of how effective it actually was. This article was super informative. It helped me understand not only the pros and cons, but how the industry actually works. Another important thing this article pointed out, when looking at pollution, the biggest creators of it are big companies. We often push individuals changing their lives to help the environment (which is great!) but we really need to also push this on large companies.
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