Travel agents love environmentalists. They love that greenies fly far and wide to satisfy their craving for new experiences. They also love the fact that greenies are just as determined as travel agents to convince us that carbon offsetting expiates flying's contribution to global warming.
However, if environmentalists persist in claiming that offsetting their air travel is legitimate, it follows that offsetting greenhouse gas emissions from other sources can also be legitimate. Can we therefore conclude that offsetting provides a simple solution to road transport's contribution to global warming? I was of the opinion that we need to improve rail services and introduce electric plug-in vehicles, both powered by renewable sources, but it seems that I am now free to drive about aimlessly in a Hummer, carrying no passengers, travelling nowhere in particular for hours on end, as long as I offset.
Can we also assume that if I decided to clearfell and burn some mature, native forest, greenies would be unconcerned about the global warming consequences of that activity as long as I purchased offsets to 'compensate' for the emissions?
The scientific consensus is that we all need to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We should be honest enough to accept that we don't have time up our sleeve to allow the release of greenhouse gases from any unnecessary activity, and this includes holiday flights.
We face a global challenge. The planet has already passed a safe threshold. We passed it decades ago when climate forcings from human-induced greenhouse gases caused the Arctic sea ice tipping point at approximately 350ppm of atmospheric CO2. It is currently around 389ppm and growing.
As a consequence we now have two mighty tasks before us. The first is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to zero. Every sector has a role to play, including stationary energy, housing and construction, agriculture, forestry, etc. Energy efficiency measures and a reduction in consumption are required too. The transport sector, which includes aviation, must also address its share of the problem.
The second task, running concurrently with the first, is to go 'beyond zero'. This means removing the excess greenhouse gases that we have already put into the atmosphere by ending the logging of native forests, by reafforestation and by the production of biochar from crop-residuals, etc. In short, we must reduce the atmospheric concentration from 389 parts per million of carbon dioxide to a safe threshold somewhere below 350ppm.
I could mention the fact that there are greenhouse gases emitted by air travel that are not accounted for in offsets. Nitrous Oxide (N2O) is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, and its global warming potential over a period of 100 years is 298 times greater per unit weight than carbon dioxide.1
I could also mention that offsets are of questionable credibility because air travel releases greenhouse gases directly and irrefutably, whereas the role of offsets in reducing greenhouse gas is indirect and conjectural.
Yet, as applicable as these facts are, it's the sheer folly of the unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions from the holiday flights of the world's wealthy that is so annoying given the scale of the global warming challenge we face.
I'd be more sympathetic if environmentalists used air travel for what they genuinely considered to be important reasons, but the fact is that too often they are merely jetting off on yet another holiday.
The aviation sector cannot be allowed to wilfully continue its trend of rapid greenhouse gas emissions growth. Despite the protestations of travel-loving greenies, carbon offsetting does not justify their holiday flights. There's a degree of hypocrisy in accusing motorists, loggers and the fossil fuel sector of being climate vandals when environmentalists refuse to accept that their penchant for air travel is so often an unnecessary contributor to global warming.
References: (Yet to be completed)
