Do you feel guilty when you fly? Or do you think that statement is crazy? Personally, I love to travel by plane and although I have done a lot less air travel in the past few years, my late teens and early twenties took me on a few inter-continental trips. I also enjoy high speed trains, but these are few and far between in the States, so I continue to find air travel to both a wonderful luxury and an occasional necessity. Many people must travel for work (although video conferencing is a great substitute). And given the spread out nature of our country, many others must travel long distances to visit loved ones.

I am also of the opinion that each individual should spend a portion of his or her life living and traveling in cultures that are different and diverse from his or her home culture. In my humble opinion, I believe that many of our world’s problems could be solved, if only the people at the the top (such as Mister G.W. Bush) had actually lived and traveled abroad. Seeing how folks on the other side live, is integral to understanding how the World works. So, when I first read that air travel is one of the most gas guzzling and highly polluting ways to travel I was crushed.

Most recently, I took my 9 month old son to visit his Michigan grandparents. Some of the most memorable experiences of my young life involve my grandparents and I am not about to let a few states get in the way of Baby Green Me getting to know his grandma and grandpa. However, I have been experiencing some green guilt, so for this trip I decided to look into buying carbon offsets through Native Energy and I was pleasantly surprised. The total cost for the offsets of a round-trip flight between Denver and Detroit was only $12 dollars!

In the past I assumed that carbon offsets were too expensive for our family to afford. In fact, we often fly on off times, off days and off season, just to get more affordable tickets. Consequently, I had not previously bothered to look into buying carbon offsets to balance our travels, because I figured that was just one more expense. However, as the author of a green blog, I could not in good conscience take my son to see his grandparents, without offsetting our travel. Baby Green Me is still under a year and sat on my lap, so I only purchased credits for myself. If my husband had traveled and we had bought a ticket for Baby Green Me, the total for all three of us would still have only been $36. Less than the taxes and fees on a single ticket!

There are a few programs out there, but I chose Native Energy, because carbon offsets from Native Energy go to support the actual development of renewable energy sources and local economies. Native Energy specifically works to build wind farms and methane digesters. The projects that Native Energy supports are owned and operated by Native American groups and farmers in the US. Buying carbon offsets from Native Energy thus is not only good for the environment, but also good for small rural communities.

Follow this link to see current Native Energy projects and prior successes.

Follow this link to calculate the cost of your carbon offsets for travel or commuting.

Action Ideas: Carbon Offsets are so affordable I don’t see why they couldn’t be built into ticket prices? Maybe the cost would be slightly more to handle extra administrative costs, but at $15 per flight I’d personally still be okay with the price. We fly Frontier, because it is a Whole Different Animal (insert laugh here), and because you only need 15,000 frequent flier miles to get a free ticket! I am now off to compose a short note to Frontier, suggesting that they incorporate carbon offsets into ticket prices! Send your own email to Frontier suggesting that they suppot carbon offsets by clicking this link.

And, or: If you have a green mom in your life, you might also consider buying carbon offsets for her Mother’s Day to help relieve her green guilt. In my case I suffer from green guilt car guilt for: numerous extended nap drives; extra runs to the store due to “mommy brain;” and trips across town looking for the perfect toy on Craigslist or attending play dates.

(Photo via Flickr taken by BFIguy)