Did you know that for a family of four to fly from New York to Honolulu and back produces more carbon dioxide emissions than the average American family car does in one year. Many scientists agree that carbon offsets do not work and that they can cause more harm to the environment than any potential benefits they may have. Wouter Buytaert, a scientist at Imperial College in London specializing in environmental studies said, “Planting fast growing pine trees on grassland will help to lock up carbon in the tree, but it may also disrupt the soil and release carbon already stored in the grassland. And in some cases there can be severe negative side effects too. Extensive areas of grassland in the upper tropical Andes, South America, have already been planted with pine trees, paid for by carbon credit schemes. The pine trees guzzle water much faster than the native grass, reducing stream-flow by around 70 percent and drying up the water supply for towns and cities downstream such as Cuenca and Quito in Ecuador. “It is just a case of substituting one problem for another,” he said.

If we are ever to become a carbon nuetral world we will have to come up with some better ideas and fast to help our planet. We need to have our goal be sustainability and conservation, otherwise we will never succeed in our mission.

For more information and to take the Green Guide’s Smart Travel quiz follow http://www.thegreenguide.com/travel-transportation/green-travel-quiz

(Quotes found on National Geographic website article by Kate Ravilious)