Carbon offsets for air travel?

This is the only company that I know of that has developed a carbon calculator for individuals and companies, and works with airlines on offsets, so hopefully it's at least "a start" to your research on the topic. I wish I could give you more to go on, but I can't (unfortunately).
http://www.terrapass.com/carbon-footprint-calculator/

Thank you, Agnes. It looks like one can not only calculate the carbon offset there, but also purchase. But they use wind farms and dairy farms as offsets. We were thinking of tree-planting, but perhaps that is not as effective. I do need to research more.

BA has offered carbon offsets when purchasing one of their tickets. That is perhaps the easy route with unknown results, but it is what we purchase to counter our carbon use. Effective or not, I don't know as I never checked it out.

Lola, I applaud you and your husband for this post, very interesting. For me, I wonder, is it necessary to use a "company" to do this effectively? Seattle, like many cities, seems to encourage tree planting, see link below-perhaps you already have. Perhaps a donation to a group like this makes sense?

I found the American Forests carbon offset calculator, and though I have not researched and qualified what they are about, just entering airplane flights to and from Europe for two-call it 24,000 miles, returns an answer of 9 trees to plant in order to offset the 375 gallons of fuel you'll use, and the resulting 7911 lbs of CO2 that will generate, at least per the calculator on their site.

Fascinating question!

http://www.seattle.gov/trees/getInvolved.htm

http://www.americanforests.org/discover-forests/carbon-calculator/

Thank you!

Wray, we are flying BA but I went right past the page for buying the carbon offsets when I booked the flights. I will look back and see if we can do it now. I do recall seizing somewhere that their program is well-rated, but I need to find that again to confirm.

Somewhere my husband saw mention of a program that plants a particularly greedy CO2- gobbling type of tree, with large leaves and fast growth. Maybe plants them in Brazil? If they do, I hope they have some way of protecting them from slash-and-burn destruction. I am looking for the website he saw but so far have had no luck.

Lola,

You've raised a really good point, and one that I've never thought of before. I'm not too familiar with "carbon offsets" so will have to do some research on the subject. We seem to have a few programs here that operate along those lines, but I'm not sure if they're the same thing as you've mentioned....

• http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/traveller/zfp.html
• http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/tbs/tp/climate/carbon_tax.htm