It is a fact that frequent travelers face: we’re burning tons of jet fuel and causing carbon emissions. As a travel writer, the unspoken side effect of what I do is to encourage yet more of this. Reflecting on the “Green Year” that was 2007 started me thinking about how to reduce my own carbon footprint, because traveling is not only my work, it’s what I love.

A major impetus in causing me to consider my carbon footprint was reviewing Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and a Journey to the Ends of the Earth, a book written by Newsweek correspondent Daniel Glick a few years back. He decided to take his two young children on a five-month trip around the world to see some of the planet’s most environmentally endangered wonders. From visits to the Great Barrier Reef to the Javan rhinos of Vietnam, from witnessing tigers in Nepal to threatened orangutans in Borneo, the family odyssey was a last look at many vanishing species and places.

Let’s face it, even if we are lucky enough to see them in the wild, our children will probably never see animals like the hawksbill turtle, giant panda, tiger, or closer to home, the alligator snapping turtle, which according to the World Wildlife Federation is among the top ten most endangered species on the planet.

Can I as an individual do much to stop this? Probably not, but I have to do something. I’ve weatherized my house and switched lightbulbs, yet as a travel writer, the jet fuel and gasoline I burn is part and parcel of my line of work. Reducing the impact of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) and carbon I send up into the atmosphere seemed the logical starting point, so I recently began purchasing carbon offsets to take a step toward being more carbon neutral in my travels.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m no Greenie radical. When my uncle Jimmy walked out in his rural backyard a few years ago and saw a flock of turkeys, turned around, grabbed his shotgun, and delivered the most succulent of Thanksgiving dinners, I rejoiced and ate heartily. I love my Subaru four-wheel drive. And don’t try to separate me from my barbecue. In the grand scale of things, think of person carbon trading as a practical step beyond the 1970s call to “leave nothing but footprints” and the enviro-mantra of “Think Globally, Act Locally” which became so popular in 1980s and ’90s.

Unlike those feel-good slogans, however, personal carbon trading actually outlines a specific course of action revolving around the central concept that each citizen should be given an equal carbon allowance as part of a larger “Cap and Trade System” aimed at controlling carbon emissions. The cap is set, and allowances (or carbon credits, as they are often called) would be issued to individuals and used when purchasing fuel or electricity. Folks using less than their share could sell their surplus to people using more than their share. This provides an incentive for individuals to reduce their carbon emissions. It also provides a way to show how our own actions affect our environment and to contribute to the growth of renewable energy.

But there’s a problem: there are no working schemes universally accepted by a worldwide governing body. The solution? Concerned and socially aware travelers are taking matters into their own hands, thus the proliferation of sites that allow you to reduce your carbon footprint by purchasing offsets for house, car, and travel.

So, how do you avoid “greenwashers,” people or companies that take advantage of your good intentions in this regard? How do you separate the opportunistic startups from the real, genuine organizations? The Tufts Climate Initiative, a pioneer in climate change study at the university level, has recommended several offset providers (see below for links) which make for a good starting point. And the Center for Resource Solutions’ new Green-e Climate program is now auditing carbon offsetting companies’ credentials, a welcome start.

The first step, then, to reduce your carbon footprint is to have some idea of what the heck your carbon footprint is. Start with calculators such as the ones found on www.climatefriendly.com to determine what your greenhouse gases or GHGs are. You can calculate your car, home, and travel emissions. As a travel writer, I decided to start tracking and offsetting my airline miles to and from destinations. During my last trip for Executive Traveler I went to The Regent Palms in Providenciales, Turks & Caicos, which is 2,397 miles roundtrip generating 1.15 metric tons of C0₂emissions. It cost $26.35 to neutralize that carbon.

Sustainable Travel International (www.sustainabletravelinternational.org) began selling carbon offsets in 2005 and collected $342,926 in revenue, equaling approximately 30,000 metric tons of C0₂being offset. They also developed the first online custom carbon calculators (with STI, my trip to The Regent Palms amounted to 0.9384 tons at a cost of $14.31 to offset) as well as a more generic short flight/long flight calculator if you want to keep it simple.

None of this is an exact science. Frankly, neither is recycling or biking to work instead of driving. That’s not exactly the point. The point, for me at least, is when my son asks me in 20 years, “Dad, what were you doing back in the day when global warming was first making headlines?” I’ll be able to respond, “Well, I was doing what I could.” It might be a drop in a bucket of GHGs, but it’s a start. 

Offsetters Recommended by the Tufts Climate Initiative

www.atmosfair.de
www.climatefriendly.com
www.nativeenergy.com
www.carboncounter.org
www.carbonfund.org