Ease your guilt by offsetting your air travel
Just in time for the Labor Day Weekend, two on-line travel agencies, Travelocity and Expedia, have recently launched carbon offset programs for their travelers.
Expedia teamed up with the carbon offset experts at Terrapass. The program allows a traveler to pay his/her offset fee anytime before checking out. The money goes to a host of domestic clean energy projects such as wind farms and methane capture plants as well as the retirement of carbon offsets on the Chicago Climate Exchange.
Travelocity's program, dubbed GoZero, is limited to travelers who buy vacation packages. Those customers will have the option of sending a tax-deductible donation to The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit organization that plants trees.
Travelocity users who opt for the carbon offset program can expect to pay $10 for an average one-night trip which includes air travel, a hotel room and a rental car for one person. $40 would offset air travel, a 4-night hotel stay and a rental car for 4 people. Expedia's carbon offsets start at $5.99 for a 2,200 mile flight while 13,000 miles would cost you $29.99.
[Source: MSNBC]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Alternative Energy Blog 10:03AM (8/31/2006)
There are a number of issues with planting trees to offset carbon emissions, see:
http://www.carbon-info.org/carbonnews_071.htm
http://www.newint.org/features/2006/07/01/keynote/
http://www.newint.org/features/2006/07/01/carbon-cycle/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1687978,00.html
http://money.guardian.co.uk/ethicalliving/story/0,,1741244,00.html
As for Expedia's partnership with Terrapass it seems an example of greenwashing as I was unable to find any mention of the program on Expedia's website after several minutes of searching, while it is featured on the front page of Terrapass's website.
James
Alternative Energy Blog
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