Originally Posted by GUWonder

About 20-25 years ago, I was asked about taking a different course and building a business selling carbon offsets. It made me suspicious that the whole thing really wasn’t at least as much as or more about money than about delivering positive environmental returns and that it would be but a vehicle for (what would later be termed) greenwashing and paying off intermediaries not necessarily all that vested in delivering on growing environmental concerns. Since then, I’ve never directly put a penny toward buying carbon offsets for my personal activities and am not a fan of the airlines trying to sell me on them — especially in the way they do.

While I do fly a lot and appreciate what my contribution to flight demand may do, I consider my partial offset to be other lifestyle adjustments and pursuits rather than directly paying airlines or airline selected vendors for carbon offsets. It also hasn’t been all that motivating to buy them via airline channels when the airlines seem more interested in post-purchase sales of seat selection, luggage, lounge access, etc. and the side push for carbon offset sales comes across as the airline seeking subsidies from their customers sort of in the way they do with some of these “miles for charities” things that go on.