If you must fly: purchase carbon offsets!
Do you experience carbon-guilt when making reservations to fly across the country to see your family? If so, then purchasing carbon offsets can mitigate some of the environmental impact of your trip, but not all - for truly changing our lifestyles to use less carbon is the optimum response. Carbon offset programs should ideally remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere through actions that would not happen otherwise (a concept known as additionality). An organization created to help people maximize their climate giving, Giving Green, recommends carbon-offsetting programs that have strong additionality:
Giving Green Recommendations (they choose top climate non-profits for donors each year)
Other places you might consider supporting:
Rainforest Trust which has made a $500 Million Commitment to help ensure 30 percent of the planet is being protected and preserved in the most important places for biodiversity by 2030. Check out The Rainforest Trust on Charity Navigator.
Well Done Foundation, a non profit that has plugged 29 orphan oil and gas wells in several states, permanently reducing harmful methane gas emissions (80X more harmful than carbon dioxide) by more than 500,000 metric tons of CO2e. This foundation not only plugs the wells, but also returns the land to a useable form.
Soul Sister because one way to reduce carbon output is by empowering women and girls. Soul Sister does this by investing in local women entrepreneurs to start, grow and sustain successful clean energy businesses. Check Soul Sister out on Charity Navigator.
If you are interested in funding other emission reduction efforts, check out watchdog groups like The Gold Standard and Green-e to identify worthwhile projects.
There are a number of sites you can use to determine how much your offset should be, just do a search for ‘flight CO2 calculator’, such as the World Land Trust Carbon Calculator. There are also apps that you can get for your phone to do the same. These sites, of course, want you to invest in the offset that they support, but you can use the information to invest in the offset you prefer.