Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Destroying the Planet is Incredibly Economical!

I just booked a round-trip flight from Dulles to Boston on JetBlue for $185. That figure includes taxes & fees. 

I don't mean to complain about a cheap flight. But considering all of the negative societal costs of flying -- intensive reliance on imported fuel, massive climate pollution (not to mention asshole passengers driving flight attendants to leap from their planes) -- it's an incredibly low out of pocket cost.

The Green Miles offsets his carbon footprint through TerraPass, but how many air passengers do that? Maybe a few per plane? Why should I have to pay for my carbon pollution when others can pollute for free? And if JetBlue cared about being accountable for its pollution, wouldn't it work to offset its emissions on its own, or at least offer an offset option at checkout?

That's why we need a national price on carbon pollution -- either through cap & trade or a carbon tax. It's simple, it's fair, it cuts pollution.

3 comments:

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Paul said...

Yo Miles,

JetBlue does a fair amount to reduce their carbon footprint. I know that they have worked with Carbonfund.org to offset their corporate travel and do provide their customers offset options through the checkout process, but you have to go to an external page on the Carbonfund.org website to actually offset your footprint. So not ideal, but better than nothing I guess.

To this day it baffles me why an airline doesn't simply include the price of offsets into every ticket they sell. It would generate millions of dollars for the selected of projects and would be a key differentiator for the millions of consumers like you and me that need to fly but hate the impact. I mean seriously, if it was done for all domestic flights for one airline, you could realistically get the additional price per flight down to $5 flat fee. If say United Airlines went 100% carbon neutral I would choose their services every time (providing they don't break my guitar).

Brenda said...

Terrapass sounds brilliant! I am going to suggest it to my org since we all travel a lot internationally and probably have a large carbon footprint. They have this going green effort right now, so it would be the perfect time!