Here's why offsets are bullshit. Imagine that I go and plant trees every weekend, because I like them and because I don't want to see my world burn. I'm planting trees, everyone is happy. One day, someone contact me and say "I like your work! Would you like to receive 50 cents for every next tree you plant? I want to support you. Just print a paper certifying that I'm supporting your work". I can't refuse that offer, right? I'm getting paid to plant trees! My new treelover friend is happy too: he's saving the world, and he can travel all over the world without remorse, since he's offsetting his flights.
To be clear, this isn't an indictment against carbon offsets, it's an indictment against fraud, because your hypothetical carbon certifier is committing fraud. Carbon offsets are supposed to represent a decrease in emissions or sequestration that would not otherwise happen without that funding. A proper example would be funding someone to go around $somePoorCountry (where wood fuel is common, highly polluting, and bad for respiratory health) and replacing their wood-burning stoves with electric stoves, and then revisiting that country every few years to make sure those new electric stoves are still in use.
Where are the huge Easyjet forests? Planted just so the rich can fly?
I'm sure they have some kind of contract, somewhere, but I can't verify that. And of course any "new" tree can be attached to an offset, that isn't the problem. How can a third-party says that this tree wouldn't have been planted otherwise, when whole world has no choice but go greener/cleaner? All those who make genuine efforts would be stupid not to take the cash (prisoner dilemma). Carbon offsetting is buying time to slow down changes in devastating behaviors.
Are you being willfully obtuse or do you seriously believe the only way (or even the most effective way) to lower carbon emissions is by planting trees?
Right, but (1) there's no evidence to support this, the whole point of offset certification is to prevent this sort of fraud and (2) there are lots of more effective carbon offset initiatives than planting trees, so of course we shouldn't expect to see massive new EasyJet forests.
You have accidentally made a point in favour of paying for planting trees while from the tone of your post the reader is lured towards the conclusion that it's somehow bad.
