Originally Posted by
zombietooth
If there is a problem with air travel producing too much "carbon", there really should be no way to buy your way out of that problem. Politicians tell us that this is a matter of life and death. Well, if that is true, then the rich shouldn't be allowed to pollute just by paying an extra "tax"-it would be akin to buying a license to murder your fellow citizens.
If flying is so damaging, it should be banned.
The best way to ease the carbon footprint of societies is to limit population and migration through mandatory measures. Nobody wants to talk about that anymore but, in the 60's and 70's, it was a big movement.
I hope this doesn't devolve into a climate change denial thread, but yes, there absolutely is a way to offset. You don't remove the actual pollution of the plane, of course, but your money could (for example) help build methane capture systems for landfills. Hence
offset.
As to OP's question: I use terrapass. They are quite transparent about how they address the issue you bring up, along with other potential issues -- basically, by following the Gold Standard mentioned by another poster above. You'll find that there's a surprising amount of internal regulation within the industry:
https://www.terrapass.com/standards/