Air Canada green flights

Terra Curve reports that Air Canada will offer voluntary carbon offsets to all passengers wishing to make their flights "green."

Powered by a new partnership with Zerofootprint, a leading organization in the global fight against climate change, the bilingual Voluntary Carbon Offset program offers travelers the choice of two new ISO-14064 certified carbon offsets projects – including an Ontario-based landfill gas recovery project and a tire recycling program in Quebec.

Read more here: Choose to fly green with Air Canada

Photo from Global Giants

See Pearl Jam plant trees

Mother Nature Network reports that band Pearl Jam will offset their carbon output from last year's tour by planting trees.

Pearl Jam has announced a donation of $210,000 to the Cascade Land Conservancy (CLC), a Seattle-based organization that works to conserve natural areas and restore neighborhood trails and parks. The donation will offset the carbon emissions from the band's 2009 tour and lead to the planting of 33-acres of native trees and plants around Puget Sound.

According to calculations from the CLC, the band's 32-date tour produced 5,474 metric tons of CO2.

Read the full story: Pearl Jam offsets 2009 tour with tree-planting initiative

Photo from Handout / Getty Images

Offsets don't always erase carbon footprint

Reuters reports that people may be "fooling themselves" when they offset their air carbon footprint.

Critics of carbon offsetting claim that it is difficult to fully offset ones carbon footprint because different airplanes put out different amounts of carbon dioxide, the global warming greenhouse gas.

"Carbon offsetting has also had to contend with critics who say that it only creates an illusion of fighting climate change, focusing on marginal efforts such as planting trees or building wind turbines rather than tackling the underlying problem, for example by flying less or burning less coal."

A poll about the meaning of carbon offsetting by travel website Expedia found that only one third knew what it meant. One in ten thought carbon offsetting "meant to walk to work instead of driving."

Read the full story: Critics say air travel carbon offsetting too crude

Online eco-booking

The Associated Press via the Sacramento Bee highlights two online travel websites that now have eco options.

Orbitz and Expedia now have sections making it easy to book green hotels, hybrid rent-a-cars and carbon offsets.

Read the full story: Web watch: 'Green' trips easier to book

Green travel dilemma essay

Eco-conscious traveler Jennifer Bernstein ponders "how easy is it really to travel green?" in her essay on the Brave New Traveler website.

Anyone can go to an eco-lodge and offset their carbon footprints, but what does this really do for the local habitats and people who live there?:

"Green means asking complex questions about what is right, and these questions get increasingly challenging in the context of an unfamiliar culture.

Plus, travel is about movement, which means you visit somewhere and then leave. Better travelers are environmentally and socially responsible, and make a genuine effort to learn about and appreciate the area they visit."

Read the full story: The inconvenient truth about green travel

Air New Zealand now offers carbon offsets

Yahoo! 7 News Australia reports that Air New Zealand now offers travelers the option of purchasing carbon offsets to counter their flight. Air NZ joins Australian airlines Qantas and Virgin Blue who already have offset programs. For example, flying from Los Angeles to Auckland, the distance of around 6500 miles, will cost about $70 (NZ$88).

Read the full story: Carbon offsets from Air NZ

Dark side of carbon offsets

Travelers concerned about carbon emissions from their plane trips have been led to believe that by simply buying carbon offsets they will erase their carbon footprints. Popular offsetting programs plant trees in developing countries; the notion being that young trees absorb lots of carbon, will balance out emissions and help the developing country too. But what doesn't get talked about is what actually goes into getting the trees planted. First-worlders who assume that the third-world will benefit from new trees don't really know what happens after they buy their carbon offsets. Plenty Magazine reports on Ugandan villagers who were brutally forced out of their villages all in the name of planting carbon offset trees:

"Early one morning in 1993, Wilson Turinawe woke up to the crack of gunfire in Uganda’s Kibale National Park. Paramilitary park rangers were attacking his village. His thatched hut was set on fire. His wife grabbed their infant child and ran... Turinawe is one of 30,000 villagers who have been kicked out of their homes in Uganda’s Kibale National Park to make way for a massive, 86,000-acre tree-planting project. The trouble, Turinawe says, actually started 4,000 miles away in Europe, where businesses have been giving money to the Forest Absorbing Carbon Dioxide Emission (FACE) Foundation, a Dutch nonprofit that pays the Ugandan government to plant trees that will one day offset carbon emissions."

Read the full story: The carbon offset trade is booming. But how fare is the trade?

Caribbean resort promises zero emission vacation

Environmental News Network reports on the environmental friendliness of Caribbean island Grenada's Paradise Bay resort. Visitors will have their carbon emissions from both flight and hotel stay offset. All organic food is grown locally. And volunteering will get guests involved with local agriculture. The resort also uses energy produced by its own windmill which actually produces much more energy than is used.

Read the full story: Grenada resort fine tunes sustainable approach

Vatican to be carbon neutral

Although the Vatican started a new airline recently, it is interesting to see a report in the International Herald Tribune about the Catholic nation's carbon offsetting program. A "denuded" forest in Hungary was donated to the Vatican by the Klimafa company, who will plant enough trees that they claim will absorb all the carbon emitted from the nation-state's "various activities."

"In so doing, the Vatican announced, it would become the world's first carbon-neutral state. 'As the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, recently stated, the international community needs to respect and encourage a "green culture," ' said Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Planting forests is only "a partial solution, and a temporary one. [It] will only compensate for a small fraction of emissions, even if you cover all of Hungary in young trees," said Laszlo Galhidy, forestry officer for the environmental group WWF Hungary, although he praised the [Vatican] project as a useful step."

Read the full report: Vatican agress to a carbon offset scheme

Carbon offsetting explained

Budget Travel magazine's online article explaining the do's and don'ts of offsetting airline travel is a breath of fresh air so to speak. Carbon offsetting is a big trendy word and environmental snobs seem to always proclaim that they do this. Although it is a noble cause - to give money to a company to plant x number of trees to counter the greenhouse gas emissions spewn out from airline travel - knowing what these offsetting companies actually do with your money and if it is really worth it is always sort of mysterious.

Read the full article: On Flier's Remorse