| > What if I just can’t avoid that flight, or cut down on driving? If you simply can’t make every change that’s needed, consider offsetting your emissions with a trusted green project > we are still decades away from commercial flights running on solar energy Offsets need to be a bigger part of the conversation. This article buried it at #10, behind a bunch of changes no one is likely to do. It is so incredibly cheap, they should have brought it up earlier in the article and give exact numbers in order to result in more personal actions. I'll quote you some numbers to show just how accessible offsets are for people who fly. A rough estimate is about 1% of the ticket:
- SF to San Diego: 68 cents
- SF to New York: $3.87
- SF to Paris: $8.43 Driving is similar, to offset a gallon of gas it is about 9 cents, tack on 2-3% more than what you pay at the pump. I understand that it isn't ideal to pollute then clean it up [0], but this is a much more practical solution than asking people to stop traveling. The cost is so low that just about everyone who is doing the flying and driving can afford it. The concern is that by putting a price to clear your conscience for a bad behavior you will induce more of that behavior [1]. I would argue that personal travel isn't very correlated in this manner. How many people cut back their travel now because of their emissions? Very few. Would the average person who hasn't cut back suddenly start traveling more? Doubtful. It's not like they will suddenly drive for fun or it was factoring in on their vacation decisions [2]. So while I would be hesitant to put a price on all bad environmental behaviors, I think travel is safe. > Social scientists have found that when one person makes a sustainability-oriented decision, other people do too. That's good news! First make it easier to take an action, then make it easier for it to be public. That's why I'm working on an app that is a personal pledge to balance the negative impact of your travel. While carbon offsets exist, they are an infrequent action that cost a lot at once, and are opaque. We will make it more frequent for smaller amount of money, give a scoreboard of your continued impact, and help make it visible for inspiring others to join. If anyone is interested in keeping in the loop on progress: https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/pledge-balance [0]: YC recently asked for carbon removal technology startups. It will continue to get more impactful than simply planting trees, and those projects that prove successful will need money to scale. http://carbon.ycombinator.com/ [1]: Freakonomics looked at a daycare that added a small fee for late pick up. The rate of late pickups quickly shot up. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/chapters/freakonomi... [2]: If anything, this vast majority who aren't changing their actions now would become more aware and cut back. |