Calculating the Impact of My FOSS4G Trip

Forget about whether participants liked my presentation at FOSS4G2009, what was my other impact?

Like most Canadians, except oil company executives and our Prime Minister it seems, I want to limit my impact on the environment, especially when I hear that (unlike Australians, Spainiards, Italians, Finns, Brits and Germans whose countrys' emissions dropped in 2008), Canada's emissions increased by more than five million tonnes in 2008 (see http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/11/17/tech-carbon-emissions.html).

So what was the emissions impact of my trip?

The Air Canada website offsetting page took me to http://flightoffsets.zerofootprint.net/. Their calculator returned 2.8 Tonnes of CO2/person for a flight from Victoria to Melbourne. (Note that although the conference was in Sydney, I traveled to the south for some surfing and bike-touring. Yes, I'm one of those closet climate criminals that smugly bikes to work every day but then uses a jet to get to a nice place to do low-impact recreation.)

Better check that figure, I thought. So I then used terrapass (http://terrapassaviation.com/carbon-footprint-calculator/#air) to calculate my emissions: Victoria, BC to Melbourne, VIC with two stops is 16,341 miles (26,298 km) and 7,273 lbs (3,298 kg) CO2.

I did some additional searching on the web and found an interesting paper comparing flight emission calculators entitled "Calculating the Carbon Dioxide Emissions of Flights" by Dr. Christian Jardine of the Environmental Change Institute of Oxford University (see http://www.docstoc.com/docs/14926513/Calculating-The-Carbon-Dioxide-Emis...). Jardine suggests that calculators range greatly in complexity. Some go for a simple multiplier. DEFRA uses 0.1056 kgCO2/km, while the WRI uses a flat rate of 0.18 for any length of travel. For my trip, these formulas would return 2,777 kg and 4,733 kg respectively. Jardine explained that the SABRE calculator would do a much better job as it gathers seat occupancy data and flight times and aircraft types, etc. But I guess I will be content with a ballpark estimate of between 2.8 and 4.7 tonnes of CO2 being my contribution to Earth's blanket this trip.

By the way, if you are looking for a destination where one can really feel one's flying having an impact on climate, I highly recommend long distance flights to Australia, in the summer if possible. If you're extra lucky you'll land in one of those freak smoke/dust storms and have your climate guilt meter shoot right off the scale. As it happened, FOSS4G2009 kept us indoors, safe from some beautiful clear blue spring skies (my ski buddies would call it 'bluebird') and the place was tinder dry so early after 'winter'. While we were there the fire season was just starting to flare up. I swear Aussies will be lynching long haul travelers as they arrive in Sydney in a couple of years.

For all you conspiracy buffs and Rapture forecasters, here's another angle on the whole emissions issue:

[Taken the day before FOSS4G conference at Darling Harbour, Sydney. Of course, he used several more hundreds of kg of H2O to add 'Saves'. Good to know.]

So, what about "offsetting"?

First you should watch some of the video at http://www.cheatneutral.com/. These bright lads have a wonderful way of showing just how absurdly far of the mark we are with offsetting.

Ok, but... if I were to offset, I hear you protest, how much should I pay others for my blanketing ways? (Come on you cheap bastard, pony up!) ZeroFootprint recommends that I should spend $48 to offset my 3 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Another site, JPMorgan Climate Care (its quite a band wagon it seems, http://www.jpmorganclimatecare.com/) suggested 35.41 British Pounds. Sheesh. Something smells fishy.

I have a different plan.
First off, I'm going to do more carbon accounting and foot-printing. I always loved that Wackernagel Ecological Footprint book. Then I will try to fly even less in 2010, take the bus and train to get around locally, rent hybrid cars when I have business travel, and most of all, volunteer more time at The Land Conservancy's Wildwood Woodlot.

Offset smoffset, lighter footprints and healthy forest ecosystems are a far better way to go. Oh, and FOSS4G 2010 in Barcelona? Owwwww, it's so tough to say No! Better start planting eelgrass!