Carbon Offsets for Your Summer Adventures
Image: ValentinValkov Adobe Stock
Have you considered the carbon impact of your summer vacation? If not, stop reading for a second to calculate what the emissions from your trip might look like.
Calculate your flight emissions
Calculate your driving emissions
If this exercise left you feeling icky, carbon offsets might help. While these tools cannot cancel out egregious fossil fuel emitting behavior (the worst of which is happening on the government and corporate level, by the way), they can help deter some of the detrimental environmental effects your personal activities.
How do carbon offsets work?
Carbon offsets allow you to fund initiatives that help remove carbon from the atmosphere. By investing in projects such as planting trees, gas capture and protecting against deforestation, you are theoretically keeping the amount of greenhouse gases generated by your vacation from contributing to global warming.
Are Carbon Offsets Effective?
Carbon offsets may help remove carbon emissions from the atmosphere, but the practice has a few fundamental problems. First, many businesses and individuals use offsets to continue their fossil fuel-guzzling behavior and to greenwash away the associated guilt and accountability, without doing anything else to decrease their contribution to global warming. Additionally, some investigations have found carbon offset programs to be ineffective. In a report published on ProPublica, author Lisa Song writes “In case after case, I found that carbon credits hadn’t offset the amount of pollution they were supposed to, or they had brought gains that were quickly reversed or that couldn’t be accurately measured to begin with. Ultimately, the polluters got a guilt-free pass to keep emitting CO2, but the forest preservation that was supposed to balance the ledger either never came or didn’t last.”
Other experts are more optimistic about using carbon offsets as effective climate solutions. In an article published on MIT Climate, Angelo Gurgel, Research Scientist at the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, acknowledges the constraints of carbon offsets, but concludes that “the advantages of carbon offsets may outweigh their challenges… if used appropriately, offsets can be a useful tool in the fight against global warming.”
Carbon offsets are not a perfect system, but investing in projects curated by a reputable company might help decrease your personal carbon footprint. Not only that, but purchasing carbon offsets might also give you a greater understanding of this issues surrounding fossil fuel usage and emissions, which could lead to greater community activism.
If you think you’re ready to venture down the road of carbon offsets, there are a number of online resources that allow individuals to easily purchase offsets at a variety of price points.
Here are a few to get you started:
TerraPass
Terra Pass allows you to purchase one-time carbon offsets or subscribe to offset your monthly emissions. TerraPass’s offsets include investments in programs such as landfill gas capture, which turns garbage into renewable electricity while collecting methane emissions, reducing the environmental impact of farm animal waste, methane capture at abandoned mines, and wind energy.
Carbonfund
Carbonfund.org supports offsets related to energy efficiency, forestry and renewable energy. They claim to have rigorous standards when it comes to choosing their offset projects, these criteria (many of which are also considered industry best practice) include:
Real (represent actual emission reductions).
Additional (requires the carbon emission reductions to be above and beyond what is usual).
Permanent (carbon removal actions that cannot be reversed).
Verifiable (the projects are monitored by independent, third-party auditors).
Least likely to create negative impact on surrounding communities (Leakage).
Effective geographic location.
Market transformation (projects that could lead to market transformation in the areas).
Social and environmental benefits.
Inspiring stories.
Ten Tree
The sustainable clothing line Ten Tree offers carbon offsets in the form of planted trees that align with specific activities such as a weekend getaway, binge watching tv or planting a boreal forest.
What Else Can We Do?
While buying carbon offsets to remove the greenhouse gas emissions of your summer vacation might feel like an easy fix, it may not be a sustainable solution to curbing fossil fuel emissions. According to the NRDC, In the United States, the burning of fossil fuels, particularly for the power and transportation sectors, accounts for about three-quarters of our carbon emissions.
While there are some things that you can do on an individual level to reduce fossil fuel emissions, it is important that you also take actions to move our systems away from a reliance on fossil fuels.
What Can I Do to Curb Fossil Fuel Emissions?
Working towards climate solutions can feel really overwhelming, especially when it involves walking away from activities that are embedded in our culture and economy. Here are some things you can do to move the world towards a more renewable future.
On a systemic level:
Vote for politicians at the national, state and local level who are committed to renewable energy.
Support companies who are dedicated to renewable energy and carbon emission reduction. Be on alert for greenwashing.
Divest from the fossil fuel industry.
On an individual level:
Travel less.
Buy an electric vehicle.
Source renewable energy for your home.
Use energy efficient appliances.
As you take these actions, share what you are doing — and why with your community. Getting your loved ones excited about renewable energy can help create a movement that pushes us in the direction of reclaiming a liveable planet.
