Off-setting your carbon emissons
Off-setting your carbon emissons
A while ago, I posted a link to climate care (not sure if anyone remembers...) Basically, climate care will off set your flight emissions - you pay them a couple of quid per flight, they plant trees and hey presto! Flight emissions are off set, and you're ok to go on holidays.
I read this article today. I'm planning on off-setting my flights on my RTW trip and it should cost about £40 - £50 (not bad considering....) I'm also planning on using boats/trains/buses as much as possible.
Ethical travel & carbon off setting...
My flight from Paris to Rome is about £70. The train is £100 and overnight. I'm justifying the cost as I don't have to pay accommodation for the night that I'm on the train, but if there was more than £30 difference, I'd probably fly. Until trains/buses/other options are comparable in cost to budget airlines, people will continue to fly.
On the forum related to that article there are a couple of interesting view points...
quote:
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Its all a big con to gain extra taxes, how can you have a carbon tax when the large country's like USA, India and China do not take part and want no part of it. For a start China are building 35 new coal burning electrical plants so even if we had no carbon footprint they alone would cause more pollution than we save. Brown is rubbing his hands together not only has he become the worst chancellor for tax increase's he now has the do offering him another sure way of getting more. Do you really expect this government to spend the money raised on green issues.
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and
quote:
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Green Propaganda. I totally agree with what you all say above. If we in the uk were to decide overnight to go back to the stone age and not have any carbon emissions it would not make one iota of a difference to the planet. India alone is predicted to treble its emissions in the next twenty years thus negating any effect we have reducing ours. As you have said its a way for the green brigade to try and make the ordinary person in the street feel guilty about driving and flying while the government sit back and raise taxes and pretend their doing something for the world. Rubbish, another excuse to make money out of us.
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Anyway - what do you think? Will you be off-setting your flight emissions in the future? After reading this article, and other peoples views, I'm starting to wonder whether it's worth it...
Also posted in green living.
Answers:
I think it's worth doing. I'm going to Thailand later this year and will off-set my flights (although I haven't looked into it properly yet). Evidently this will not make a great deal of difference to the bigger picture but I personally would prefer to fly without adding to carbon emissions and agree that people should do whatever they can do minimise their carbon footprint. Saying "well, one person's actions won't make a difference" or "why should the UK do it when India, China, the USA etc aren't" just smacks a bit of apathy and "no one else is doing it, why should I".
I did read an article some time ago about off-setting in New Internationalist, which as I recall was quite critical of a lot of the companies that claim to offer carbon off-setting and said that a lot of them are not legitimate or effective, so it's worth looking carefully into who you give your money too.
As for the government introducing a tax on flight emissions, I suppose it's good that they are recognising the problem and perhaps it will encourage other countries to follow suit, but are they just paying lip service to the issue and where will the money from the tax go?
I don't know an awful lot about the issue but just my 2p.
Answers:
SInce the new air duty tax hike (cheers GB you f*ckwit :mad: ) BA have actually stopped offering the offsetting payment to customers.... used to be there while booking- not any more.
Answers:
SInce the new air duty tax hike (cheers GB you f*ckwit ) BA have actually stopped offering the offsetting payment to customers.... used to be there while booking- not any more.
No they haven't! It's on there somewhere. Can't remember where. For various reasons I won't go into it had to be moved from where it was on the site but it's definitely still there. Will try and find it for you.
ETA - Here it is:
http://www.britishairways.com/travel...t/public/en_gb
If you do the emissions calculator it then gives you the option to offset your flight.
Nat J
Answers:
Ahhh ok
The mail I got said they had scrapped it due to Gordons new tax. Nice of them to let people know it was available again.
It definitely used to be on the booking page.
A while ago, I posted a link to climate care (not sure if anyone remembers...) Basically, climate care will off set your flight emissions - you pay them a couple of quid per flight, they plant trees and hey presto! Flight emissions are off set, and you're ok to go on holidays.
I read this article today. I'm planning on off-setting my flights on my RTW trip and it should cost about £40 - £50 (not bad considering....) I'm also planning on using boats/trains/buses as much as possible.
Ethical travel & carbon off setting...
My flight from Paris to Rome is about £70. The train is £100 and overnight. I'm justifying the cost as I don't have to pay accommodation for the night that I'm on the train, but if there was more than £30 difference, I'd probably fly. Until trains/buses/other options are comparable in cost to budget airlines, people will continue to fly.
On the forum related to that article there are a couple of interesting view points...
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Its all a big con to gain extra taxes, how can you have a carbon tax when the large country's like USA, India and China do not take part and want no part of it. For a start China are building 35 new coal burning electrical plants so even if we had no carbon footprint they alone would cause more pollution than we save. Brown is rubbing his hands together not only has he become the worst chancellor for tax increase's he now has the do offering him another sure way of getting more. Do you really expect this government to spend the money raised on green issues.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
and
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Green Propaganda. I totally agree with what you all say above. If we in the uk were to decide overnight to go back to the stone age and not have any carbon emissions it would not make one iota of a difference to the planet. India alone is predicted to treble its emissions in the next twenty years thus negating any effect we have reducing ours. As you have said its a way for the green brigade to try and make the ordinary person in the street feel guilty about driving and flying while the government sit back and raise taxes and pretend their doing something for the world. Rubbish, another excuse to make money out of us.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway - what do you think? Will you be off-setting your flight emissions in the future? After reading this article, and other peoples views, I'm starting to wonder whether it's worth it...
Also posted in green living.
Answers:
I think it's worth doing. I'm going to Thailand later this year and will off-set my flights (although I haven't looked into it properly yet). Evidently this will not make a great deal of difference to the bigger picture but I personally would prefer to fly without adding to carbon emissions and agree that people should do whatever they can do minimise their carbon footprint. Saying "well, one person's actions won't make a difference" or "why should the UK do it when India, China, the USA etc aren't" just smacks a bit of apathy and "no one else is doing it, why should I".
I did read an article some time ago about off-setting in New Internationalist, which as I recall was quite critical of a lot of the companies that claim to offer carbon off-setting and said that a lot of them are not legitimate or effective, so it's worth looking carefully into who you give your money too.
As for the government introducing a tax on flight emissions, I suppose it's good that they are recognising the problem and perhaps it will encourage other countries to follow suit, but are they just paying lip service to the issue and where will the money from the tax go?
I don't know an awful lot about the issue but just my 2p.
Answers:
SInce the new air duty tax hike (cheers GB you f*ckwit :mad: ) BA have actually stopped offering the offsetting payment to customers.... used to be there while booking- not any more.
Answers:
SInce the new air duty tax hike (cheers GB you f*ckwit ) BA have actually stopped offering the offsetting payment to customers.... used to be there while booking- not any more.
No they haven't! It's on there somewhere. Can't remember where. For various reasons I won't go into it had to be moved from where it was on the site but it's definitely still there. Will try and find it for you.
ETA - Here it is:
http://www.britishairways.com/travel...t/public/en_gb
If you do the emissions calculator it then gives you the option to offset your flight.
Nat J
Answers:
Ahhh ok
The mail I got said they had scrapped it due to Gordons new tax. Nice of them to let people know it was available again.
It definitely used to be on the booking page.