Carbon offsetting for their flight

Or how I feel guilty about flying when I try to be the most eco-friendly of all my friends

I'm increasingly asking myself about offsetting my carbon emissions, both for car travel and plane travel. I think I consume too much. I took a test once and the result depressed me for weeks. I alone consume almost 2 planets. What a shock. I told myself I needed to change my behavior ASAP. But should changing my behavior stop me from living?

I still went on vacation and took: a plane (to go to Croatia)

And then I: felt guilty

So I told myself, "Listen, Ludivine, offset your flight." But isn't that an easy way out? I don't really know, to be honest...

So I calculated my trip's carbon footprint on different websites.

So 1.28 tons for just 15 days of travel, when we know that "normally" we shouldn't consume more than 2.1t of CO² (so that the temperature doesn't rise by 2° by 2050). It depresses me. I really ask myself, how do I do it?

So, I offset on the GoodPlanet site, I told myself that one was rather honest. There's also the Belgian site GreenTripper which seems a bit more transparent. But anyway. So what is our money for?

I foolishly told myself "they must plant trees" (clever, I know, like a clever bison), but in reality, not just that. There are many renewable energy projects in Africa.

After all, I would have consumed much less if we had traveled by train (I'm not at all ready to spend more than 24 hours in transport), or by car. But we could also have reduced our impact by not having layovers. I didn't know it, but the moment an airplane consumes the most is takeoff/landing. And we probably could have done a Dubrovnik/Lyon on the way back, which would also have saved us from missing our connection and sleeping in Vienna. But oh well, I'll know for next time.

Despite everything, should we stop traveling? This is a real question I ask myself, and I confess that I would be willing to pay 10 extra bucks when I buy a plane ticket if airlines offered to offset our flight; I would undoubtedly feel less "guilty."

It's also funny, this feeling we have of being "guilty" for consuming when we are just ordinary people. It's businesses that pollute, not really us.

Anyway, I don't think I'm the only one in this situation, if you have any leads or anything, I'm interested (otherwise, Croatia was really great!)

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