1.7 Million Brits Lied to About Carbon Offsetting

Posted by Tim on August 21st, 2008 filed in Air Travel

CO2 offset? I’ll just put out the BBQ | Metro.co.uk

The Metro is a free UK newspaper with around 1.7million readers each day. This morning they published an article about how most people in the UK have no idea about carbon offsetting. So what’s wrong with that? The trouble is that neither did the writer who went on to regurgitate a load profit-boosting baloney from a budget flight website, Expedia.co.uk.

This sort of rubbish is so damaging to the environment it should be illegal. I just had to say something, so I made this comment on their website:-

I am shocked at how misleading this article is, but perhaps it is to be expected from capitalist companies that put profits above everything else.

Expedia took advantage of the average consumer’s ignorance about carbon offsetting when they falsely claimed that planting trees is a sustainable solution to aviation. It may be an “inconvenient truth” that a tree takes several decades to absorb the carbon created in just a few hours of aircraft flight. We don’t have that much time to sort out global warming.

Also there are many other sources of CO2 that need offsetting, but we can’t keep planting trees indefinitely.

Tags: carbonoffsetting flights