Flying Carbon Neutral

I have known for a long time that flying creates a lot of carbon emissions. By some estimates, a single round-trip flight across the United States for a single passenger creates nearly the same amount of carbon emissions as a year’s worth of electricity for an entire family.

While planning for an upcoming flight, I was feeling a little bit guilty about this, and asked some of my smart friends what they thought about buying carbon credits to offset the pollution from my flight.

One responded, “it’s better to not fly at all”, while another responded that “since it’s a new field, they are making stuff up too, and probably the checks in place to verify consistency of implementation with plan are haphazard at best.”

Carbon credits seem to be based on anything from capturing measurable CO2 from a landfill, to some guy saying “pay me not to chop down these trees.”

I needed a way to find “credible credits.”

Fast forward to a few days ago, United Airlines sent me an email, enticing me to upgrade my seat on a flight I have scheduled. I had no real intention of upgrading the seat, but I decided to take a look anyway, just to see what they could offer me.

At the very bottom of the page where I can manage my flight, United Airlines informed me that my flight will create 0.55 metric tons of CO2 emissions.

Partnering with http://sustainabletravel.org/ , they offered me various options to offset the CO2, starting at $5.90.

I opted to donate $10.90 to a cause that offset the same amount of CO2, but also protects wildlife at the Garcia River Forrest, not too far from my home in Oakland, CA http://sustainabletravel.org/project/garcia-river-forest/

Hey, that was pretty coincidental, and now I’m flying carbon neutral. Do all airlines have partnerships like that, or just United?

How do I feel afterwards? Meh, not much different, to be honest. It’s pretty cool that the technology is there to let me fly carbon neutral for a few extra bucks, and a few extra clicks. I was emailed a receipt informing me that my donation was made to a 501(c)(3) non-profit of the U.S. IRS Code. I really have no idea if my contribution made any difference though.

I do think that it’s pretty amazing that it only costs a few dollars to make a flight theoretically carbon-neutral. SustainableTravel made the process pretty easy once I found the link, and provided me with a few different donation options, and a very simple web form.

Thinking back to my friend who suggested not flying at all had me wondering about the following scenario: Is it ok for someone to throw a piece of trash into the ocean, if he also picks a piece of trash out? What if someone throws a piece of trash in the ocean, but pulls out two pieces of trash? Is that better than doing nothing?

I’d love to hear what more people think. Is carbon-neutral, or even carbon-negative flying going to catch on?