Trees for the future: carbon offset programs

If you have been following my blog, you have seen that I am feeling guilty about air travel and the environmental impact. I wrote about this earlier and got some good feedback in the comments from Rolf which lead me to Trees for the Future where I just bought $100 worth of trees to offset my carbon footprint from air travel. TFTF will plant trees to the tune of one per dime. So I just bought 1000 trees which will each absorb 50 pounds of carbon a year for 40 years. So my trees will absorb 2.5 25 tons a year. Each transcontinental leg I fly emits 1 ton (that is per passenger) so really all I did so far is offset one and a quarter round trips from New York to Seattle (in the first year). I have nutralized 12 round trips between NY and Seattle.

I am going to also buy some carbon offsets from Sustainable Travel International which invests in World Wildlife Fund approved carbon offset programs.

While I might not reach carbon neutral this year, I figure that if every year I invest about $200 in carbon offset programs, within about 4 years I will be net negative on my carbon footprint, and if I continue to make those investments each year, I will very quickly offset my past carbon pollution.