The Traveller's Carbon Footprint
According to CBC, two U.S. conservation groups have allied themselves with online travel companies to offer travellers the option of offsetting the carbon dioxide emissions created during their travels by purchasing trees that will then be planted. This little nugget was found within a larger discussion on the traveller’s carbon footprint..
According to Treeflights, carbon-offset planting has probably been responsible for the establishment of more living trees than any other individual planting initiative in the history of the planet.
However, if an offset planting scheme promises carbon-neutrality it is actually promising something that it can’t really deliver mainly because it will take a very long time before the putative carbon-neutrality is achieved and secondly because no one who is alive now is going to be around to check on the trees by the time they mature. Oaks, for example can live for a thousand years. It would be better to say…that flying is inherently destructive for the planet, that you should do as little of it as you possibly can and that if you are going to do it, you could do something that is ecologically positive at the same time. You should also understand that it’s going to take many, many decades for your tree to soak up the amount of CO2 that your flight is producing
Nathan was thinking green at 3:29 PM on April 12, 2007
Comments are sorta kinda broken right now. We're working on it but to save energy can only work in daytime when solar system is at peak performance.
cbc carbon+footprint travelling+footprint
