The carbon offset math at my local airport is way off, and it's bugging me

I was booking a flight from Chicago and saw the airline's offer to offset my trip for $12. I looked into their partner's projects, and they claim my $12 will remove a full ton of CO2. But a round trip flight like that actually creates about 0.9 tons per person. So they're selling offsets for roughly the same cost as the pollution, but most experts say real, high-quality carbon removal currently costs over $100 a ton. This feels like they're using old, cheap forestry numbers that might not be permanent or additional. Are we fooling ourselves with these cheap offsets, or is any action, even if the math is fuzzy, still better than nothing?

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4 Comments

jennifer7446mo ago

My grocery store sells "carbon neutral" bananas for five cents extra. It's the same trick, making a tiny feel-good fee seem like it fixes the whole problem. We're just buying a cleaner conscience, not a real solution.

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chen.olivia6mo ago

Remember when we all fell for that, @schmidt.cameron?

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schmidt.cameron6mo ago

Didn't cheap offsets used to seem okay?

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ward.anna5mo ago

Ugh, totally! I paid for an offset on a flight once and felt so good about it. Now it just feels like a tiny tax on guilt.

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