Forgive us, we flew to Cuba

As a little girl I was fascinated with airplanes. There was a time when my parents would bundle me into the car and take me to the airport Saturday afternoons to see the “a-ppies.” Since then, not much has changed except the obvious outgrowing of my childhood word for “airplane” and until very recently, little could overshadow the excitement I felt after booking a flight to a far off place. I think it’s safe to say that when it came to understanding the environmental impact of flying, I was blissfully ignorant.

Now I’m dating Mr. Green and, of course, everything is illuminated in a greener light. I’ve come to realize that air travel isn’t so hot for the planet, but there’s hope in the form of carbon offsets for those of us who both care about the planet and want to visit its every corner.

Like many things related to living greener, truly understanding what carbon offsets are required a little homework on my part.

At first, the concept of buying offsets was a little beyond me. Like a little kid challenging their parents about the existence of Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, I had an awful lot of questions. How do offsets work? Who sells them? Can planting trees really erase the sins of things like air travel?

With a little help from my pal David Suzuki, I’ve come to learn that buying offsets is like a get out of jail free card. Put simply: you commit some sort of environmental offence, in our case flying to Cuba for a recent vacation, and then by purchasing offsets your environmental infraction magically disappears!

Here’s a little carbon offset 101:

A carbon offset is a credit you buy from an organization or project that contributes to emission reduction, which means their efforts result in less carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

An example from David S – Wind energy companies sell carbon offsets. The wind energy company does this because selling offsets helps pay for their projects, which are producing greener energy. The people who buy offsets can then claim that their purchase resulted in new non-polluting energy, which mitigates or forgives their own greenhouse gas emissions like those generated by air travel.

There are several types of greener activity that can generate carbon offsets by displacing fossil fuels like renewable energy production – wind farms, solar installations, geothermal and biomass energy.

Other types of offsets for sale include those resulting from energy efficiency projects that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Reforestation and agriculture are familiar examples of this type of offset, but they can also include methane gas capture from landfills or livestock, which is 25 times more potent the carbon dioxide.

Mr. Green was telling me though that the problem with offsets is that they can create a false sense of redemption. It’s kind of like sitting in the penalty box for high-sticking. Instead of just not raising your stick in the first place (or: frequently travelling by air) sitting in the penalty box (or: buying carbon offsets) makes your egregious behaviour okay. You kind of miss the point that you’re not supposed to high stick in the first place!

Obviously, best case scenario, we all try and reduce how much we fly, but it’s not always possible. And that’s where offsets come in.

Stay tuned for a “how to” on buying carbon offsets once Mr. Green and I purchase ours in order to “offset” our beach holiday.