Carbon Offsets: Offsetting The Carbon Footprint Of Work Trips

Grist:

Lately I have been traveling a lot for work. This has made me seriously consider buying offsets for these trips. I know that it is better to not travel at all, but outside of quitting my job I can't get around it. I have considered spending money on projects around the house to lessen my footprint, but using a carbon offset seems to give you more bang for the buck. My question is, are these offsets really helping or should I save my money for a bigger ticket item like a solar water heater?

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Comments

[jsarets]

"However! Remember that voluntary offsets do not erase, vacuum up, cancel out, or otherwise negate the actual emissions you produce."

Unless your offsets are buying the planting of trees that will consume as much carbon as you emit, or the cultivation of vegetable biomass that will consume your carbon before being composted into soil or processed into biodegradable biopolymers (including papers and textiles).

We need a more specific class of financial products called carbon sequestration offsets, where providers are required to document the carbon content and material type of the biomass they produce. When the material type is a combustion fuel, call them carbon biofuel offsets.

CSOs would be carbon-negative, and CBOs would be carbon-neutral. Both would be priced in equivalent tons of carbon dioxide.

The existing types of carbon offsets are vague to the point where they can only be understood as investments in reducing carbon-positive consumption in the future.

[donnajr]

pee in a cup & use the left hand for stool removal , not only will you be going green but yellow & brown too .

[AJH]

Reduce your own emissions they are the only thing you can actually verify and ensure are real.

The offset you buy today will be some poor persons job tomorrow if we don't see massive technological breakthroughs or a massive change in how developed nations live.

Be accountable to your values don't take the easy way out and assuaging your conscience like a hollywood movie star with credits that may not even be real or permanent but certainly are finite even if real and therefore represent lost economic production in the future if you had other options to reduce and didn't. If you've otherwise done everything you personally can well then credits might be an additive option.

Control your own footprint if you believe it's the only way that certainly leads out.

[DrJohnS]

May we assume that Kevin, whose conscience about his "carbon footprint" bothers him, is already making footprints to a clothes line in his back yard when his laundry is ready for drying? But maybe he can pay his way out of that too.