Do you offset your carbon emissions?
 

Do you (or anyone you know) offset your carbon emissions?
On the BA site, there was a section inviting me to calculate our portion of the carbon emissions for our upcoming flight, Toronto to Paris. For the two of us it was 1.36 tonnes.
I was then asked if I would like to pay the amount required to offset them (10.20 GBP) to a Clean Air Organization.
About as much chance of my doing that as...
Let me phrase it another way...Does ANYONE ever do this?

If i did i would not admit it. tokenism.

I use Beano.

"About as much chance of my doing that as..."

May I finish it with "As snowball in Death Valley in the summertime!"

I don't because I don't buy the "offset" argument. Nor do I buy BA's maths.

Because of the magnifying effect on warming that emissions at 30,000 ft have, most reputable analysts put one person's one-way transatlantic flight at the equivalent of 1.8 tonnes of carbon. Since BA don't fly Toronto-Paris, and therefore robjame had TWO landings/takeoffs each way, the total emissions for Robjame alone were equal to 2.5 tonnes each way.

The two of you - if travelling in cattle - did as much damage (10 tonnes) in a two way trip as the average prudent European did by ALL their activity, in a year. If you were in Club World or First, double the numbers

Now many North Americans might like locking themselves in a fantasy world and pretending none of this matters. Just as Clinton used to boast that no-one cared about terrorism.

Go onto Amazon. Buy Chris Goodall's "Living a Low Carbon Life", which is written with proper West Oxfordshire scepticism, humour and lack of preaching.

Then ask yourself how your grandchildren will think about you.

So what do you do flanner? Take the Bishop of London approach?

He takes the Queen Mary 2.

Hmm - a little limiting in terms of available destinations!

Yesterday on Bavarian TV "BRalpha" they showed a rerun from 1979. Professor Haber on global warming. Not only was it exactly the same thing they say today, including the charts he showed. He even said that "30 years from now, people will face much bigger problem due to increased CO2 than today with the discussion on nuclear energy". Well we (I) didn't care then, why should we care today?

I would suggest that 'clean green' flanner ole chap that you are responsible for way way more carbon emissions than the average person in the world. Me too though i rarely drive or fly.

But it's a conundrum - if the West, especially Europe and especially the U.S. as well as China were to limit their emissions per person to the world average our economy would of course go into the tank.

so the answer may be not to limit such emissions though that is great but hugely fund other approaches - like mirrors in the atmosphere that if defelected just 1% of sunlight would end global warming in its tracks.

or organisms that eat up the ozone pollution.

i suggest all our actions in UK and US needlessly in some form contribute to global warming - needless packaging on every day products - investing in stocks that encourage pollution to gain a profit - heating houses that are way too large for our needs - driving cars too big for what we need - not taking public transit always, etc. etc.

some may be better than others but it's a drop in the bucket. Whilst i am not familiar with the excellent sounding book you recommend i think our societies will not bear to take the really austere steps needed.

Ice in your Martini?

Well flanner, even though we approach the situation from a different point of view, I guess we arrive at the same answer...

"I don't because..."

I also suspect that despite any attempts to foist this off as a North America caused problem, the average "prudent European" thought this about as much in deciding how to combat the problem as the average foolish North American did in causing it.

I don't, though I probably should.

We live a very "low carbon" lifestyle in general (walk or take pub transportation to work, boy locally grown food, shut off lights/appliances when not in use, etc), so I guess that makes up for it?

flanneruk

"I don't because I don't buy the "offset" argument"
"Now many North Americans might like locking themselves in a fantasy world and pretending none of this matters."
"Go onto Amazon. Buy Chris Goodall's"
"Clinton used to boast"
"written with proper West Oxfordshire scepticism", "ask yourself how your grandchildren will think"

Okay, a lot of phraseology and rhetoric but you seem to double back upon yourself. Sorry, but I am somewhat confused by your answer.

I don't because I think it is as PalenQ said "Tokenism".

I don't understand the premise. Does BA mean <u>each of the 175 passengers in a 777</u> emits 1.36 tonnes? That comes out to 280,000 kg, or 616,000 pounds.

That seems somewhat more than I would expect transporting one person would produce.

however you want to figure reliable sounding figures i've heard are that airlines cause about 15% of all harmful emissions worldwide

I'm going to help by turning my computer off - don't forget to turn yours off and not leave it on!

No. The whole idea of offsets sounds to me a bit too much like the papal indulgences of yore: sin at will, just so long as you cough up the dough.

As Martin Luther decided, money might salve the conscience of the sinner, to say nothing of fatten the coffers of the offset collectors - but it doesn't address the basic problem. Emissions aren't going up because taxes (which is what offsets amount to) are too low. BA would do better to start updating its fleet with craft that are more fuel efficient.

And flanner - we're not going to get the problem solved by having a holier-than-thou contest. Our collective mental energy, to say nothing of our other energy expenditures, would be put to better use elsewhere.

Sue - IMHO there is a slight difference between papal indulgences and carbon offsets. Global warming is a fact....

Rob - the 1.36 tonnes was the calculation, return for two people

Sue, &quot;Papal Indulgences&quot; LOL. Haven't thought of that in awhile. When I was a kid, and started to complain about something, my mother would always say &quot;offer it up for the souls in Purgatory&quot;. Just can't beat that old-time religion.