carbon offsetting

I'm trying to reduce my greenhouse gases while traveling. This experiment began last year as I researched alternatives to flying to visit family out West. It ends with my discovery that taking the train is actually nice and that I'll try to take it over flying. It didn't hurt that airline prices went through the roof as the price of oil reached angelic proportions. The real question is if my resolve will hold with oil prices crashing.

Last Christmas I took the Greyhound bus across the country to visit my family in Alberta. I researched and compared prices between the train, bus and carpooling -- all contribute considerably less carbon dioxide than air travel. Trains and buses are fairly close in terms of the greenhouse gases they emit during similar trip lengths. They differ greatly, however, in terms of comfort and romantic history. There is absolutely nothing romantic about the Greyhound. It's right down there with Coffee Time and Dollarama. It's the working class travel solution. My bus trip was a dreary 50 hours of windy roads of blowing snow, sick and coughing neighbours, and stops at Tim Hortons and Burger King parking lots every few hours. Other than the very low price, there is very little that's redeeming about bus travel.

My trip to Alberta is almost over and I'll be flying back to the Big Smoke in just a few days. I had started off planning my trip so that I could bring my bicycle along with me and go on a bike trip as well as visit family. (Warning: This post is not actually about me going on a happy cycling trip.) In the end it was too much of a pain to bring the bike and I began to worry more about the actually impact of an airplane flight on the environment and less on how much driving I'd have to do without a bike.

I had an environmentalist's existential angst about my trip to Alberta when I realized that flying as a passenger in a jet plane is one of the best ways to boost my personal contribution to climate change. Even worse was that there just isn't a viable alternative. I hate taking the bus; it's cramped and severely tests my endurance. I hate that the only stops happen in big parking lots to yet another crappy chain restaurant. The train is out of the question as well as it rings in at the absurd price of $1000 for a round trip from Toronto to Edmonton, and then I'd have to spend another $200 to take the bus all the way to Southern Alberta and back again. The fact remains, however, that my plane trip produces so much carbon dioxide (and other "climate forcing" factors) that it nullifies all the times in a year that I decide to commute by bike rather than by private automobile.