carbon offsets

I recently had the opportunity to fly from Juneau to New York City for free to take part in a youth education conference and see my family. Why wouldn't I? Well, all that carbon dioxide.
One crude estimate is that flying is about 1.5 times as bad as driving in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. That is, flying 1,000 miles will produce 1.5 times as much carbon dioxide per passenger as everyone driving the same distance alone. So one round-trip flight from Juneau to NYC -- a trip of about 6,000 miles -- is like driving 9,000 miles, or about what I drive in a whole year. It's probably about the difference between driving a Toyota Prius for a year and the Toyota pickup I drive.
I ultimately flew to NYC, because what's more important than family? But it wasn't without some concern and some wishing I could mitigate my impact.
The NY Times' Andrew Revkin wrote a story this weekend about the growing market for carbon offsets and the skepticism about them. On the surface, the question is about whether planting CO2-sapping trees really cuts it. At the core, the question is about whether we can buy our way out of fundamentally CO2-heavy lifestyles.

. . . Recent counts by Business Week magazine and several environmental watchdog groups tally the trade in offsets at more than $100 million a year and growing blazingly fast.

But is the carbon-neutral movement just a gimmick?

On this, environmentalists aren't neutral, and they don't agree. Some believe it helps build support, but others argue that these purchases don't accomplish anything meaningful — other than giving someone a slightly better feeling (or greener reputation) after buying a 6,000-square-foot house or passing the million-mile mark in a frequent-flier program. In fact, to many environmentalists, the carbon-neutral campaign is a sign of the times — easy on the sacrifice and big on the consumerism.

See the whole story here.
Also, check out Planet Slayer, which looks like it's for kids but isn't. The site has a down-to-earth carbon calculator that factors in the carbon beyond every dollar we spend, and a Q and A section that explains when it's better (carbon-wise) to buy a new car and when it's better to stick with your old one, among other things. Click here for an explanation of why walking can cause more emissions than taking a cab.