Carbon Emissions Be Gone!

We recently spent a week in Toronto for a big-city-fix, our first vacation in 6 years! Isn't it interesting to notice how your sense of vacation changes depending on where you live?  "You can take the boy out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the boy", to coin a phrase.

Because we only had 1 week, driving down there wasn't an option; it would have meant 5 days on the road, leaving 1 measly day to enjoy our destination. So I booked a free flight (thank you Aeroplan!) but felt bad about the ecological footprint involved. Canadians spend too much time on planes, and no matter how you cut it: planes ain't good for our environment and are part of the growing greenhouse problem.

Granted, Canada is just too darn big to travel by other means and still get there within a reasonable amount of time. So what to do? The answer: purchase a carbon credit!

When processing our online bookings I was pleasantly surprised when a window popped up asking if I wanted to offset the carbon emissions for these flights by purchasing a corresponding carbon credit. Turns out that in our case of two return tickets Thunder Bay - Toronto, the carbon credit cost us less than $25.00 - a no-brainer, of course.

Carbon credits are getting increasingly popular with consumers and industries alike. The basic idea is that by supporting alternative energy programs, like investing in solar and wind generation, planting trees etc., we can offset the carbon emissions created through the burning of fossil fuels in transportation and industries.

Now mind you, even though I felt not as bad about the flights, it isn't the solution. It's tempting to think we can maintain a basically destructive lifestyle simply by buying more carbon credits. Sorry, it's not the fix we need, it's only a band-aid. Ultimately, we have to drastically change our lifestyle, a tall order to fulfill.

So until then, purchase those carbon credits whenever you can. It does help, and hey, you'll feel a lot better, too!