Earth Equity News

Top U.K. Travel Agency Drops Carbon Offsetting. By Jerome Taylor, London Independent, November 7, 2009. "One of Britain's leading ethical travel operators has launched a scathing attack on the carbon offset industry and has decided to stop offering offsets to its customers as a way of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. Justin Francis, the founder of www.responsibletravel.com, said he had decided to abandon offsets because he believes they have become a 'medieval pardon that allows people to continue polluting.' In 2002 his company became one of the first British travel operators to begin offering customers the opportunity to buy into an offsetting scheme. By paying money to a third party operator that ran carbon-reducing projects in the developing world, holidaymakers could jump on board flights supposedly happy in the knowledge that any carbon dioxide released during their journey would eventually be reduced by the equivalent amount somewhere else... 'Carbon offsetting is an ingenious way to avoid genuinely reducing your carbon emissions,' he said. 'It's a very attractive idea -- that you can go on living exactly as you did before when there's a magic pill or medieval pardon out there that allows people to continue polluting.' As some of the top polluters, the aviation and travel industries have been keen to promote carbon offsetting to their customers."