Carbon Offsets

I'm flying up to Portland this weekend to visit Lacey, along with Dad and Betty Lue. Thanks to Sustainable Travel International I learned that my personal share of this flight will create about 0.37 tons of CO2 emissions. But for less than $7.00, I can offset that through their MyClimate program, which invests in climate protection projects around the world. Not as good as avoiding the pollution in the first place, of course, but a heck of a lot better than nothing. In addition to air travel, there's a calculator to figure out carbon offsets for other things, like driving and home energy. There are other companies out there that offer other sorts of offset programs as well, some approaching it more along the lines of planting a certain number of trees, if you prefer that sort of thing. So if you're traveling this holiday season (or anytime, really) consider chipping in a few extra dollars at one of these places and help clean up a little bit of this mess we're all making.