Guest essay by Eric Worrall
How many global warming crusaders do you know about, who manage more air miles in a year, than most normal people manage in a lifetime?
President Obama is not shy about air miles – according to Breitbart, he is scheduled to fly on Airforce One, to give a speech in Florida on Earth Day, about the dangers of global warming.
On Earth day last year, for instance, Obama burned more than 35,000 gallons of fuel and emitted 375 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in his trips around the world.
Air Force One burns five gallons of fuel every single mile it flies and costs the American people $179,750 an hour. But that is just for the plane itself as the personnel also include 75 people who travel with the president each of whom often get paid overtime during the trips.
Perhaps President Obama will be joined by UN environment ambassador Leonardo DiCaprio, who also seems to believe his mission to save the world, trumps any personal carbon expenditure. According to a report about Wikileaks, DiCaprio flew a private jet 6 times in 6 weeks, in April and May 2014, courtesy of Sony.
Al Gore’s carbon footprint has been a running joke for years – his eye watering home electricity bill, his beachfront mansion, his willingness to fly long distances, to lecture the rest of us about the environmental dangers of flying, the way he made a vast personal profit by selling his TV station to oil interests. You have to almost admire Al Gore’s apparent enthusiasm, for trampling the environmental sensibilities of his green admirers.
What about climate scientists? They might not quite manage a Presidential scale climate footprint, but in my opinion some of them live pretty well – they seem happy to say take a long distance flight to Tahiti, and use their grant money to buy a little Tahitian luxury accommodation, in order to save the rest of us from enjoying similar experiences.
Of course, if there isn’t a pressing green reason to visit a luxury hotel in Tahiti, there is always the next annual climate Jamboree, in some expensive, exotic holiday spot. Or one of the intra-annual working groups, if you want to get more involved in the green jetset lifestyle.
My point is, the only green I have ever heard of, who received any kind of censure for carbon profligacy, is Richard Branson. And he owns an entire fleet of jet aircraft.
The lesson, in my opinion, is clear. If you want a green pass for flying your own private jet, without attracting green disapproval, all you have to do is say you are concerned about CO2. Then nobody in the green movement will care what you actually do – all they seem to care about is what you say. By voicing support for approved green narratives, you will have established yourself, in the eyes of the greens, as one of their in crowd. You will not be expected to live by the same rules, and standards of behaviour, as ordinary folk.
Do as I say, not as I spew.
It can be said better: Do as I spew, not as I do.
Obama and company’s behavior is consistent with a pro-choice religion. Personal interests take precedence over sincerely held propaganda.
I’ve said for years that one of the reasons why many of the elite support the global warming nonsense is to make it harder for hoi polloi to visit the good vacation spots. Making them less crowded for the elite to enjoy.
Greenie and the Jets
by Elton John
If the commoners use carbon energy, there will be less for the elites, you know, the aristocratic greens, they royalty of climate profiteers as mentioned above.
All animals are equal – some are more equal than others.
Rules are for the little people.
Morality is for the middle class. The poor cannot afford it and for the rich the world is a supermarket.
Air Force One (AF1) is just a part of the flight package… one or more C-17 transport planes accompany AF1 on each presidential trip. These large aircraft bring along his ground vehicles and helicopters for local transportation at each destination. There are undoubtedly areas where AF1 is also escorted by fighter planes.
The press always talks about the flying costs of the President’s 747/VC25 aircraft alone… but as I stated above, his personal toy is only part of the picture. Whenever he travels, there is a huge effort involving multiple aircraft.
not to mention advance trips by secret service to scope it out early on top of the c17 flying the day of the action.
And don’t forget all the extra CO2 exhaled in heavy breathing by Secret Service and the local ladies in the “service” industry.
Don’t forget a refueling aircraft attendig AF1 on demand.
And then, at his destination, there’s the 40 vehicle motorcades. In fairness, the slew of white vans are for the press. But nobody, but nobody is going to tell me that these pompous motorcades need to be followed and attended by over 20 motorcycle police, lights flashing. Sorry, he’s a public servant at the will of the people and having some grand emperoristic parade everywhere he goes is unseemly and an insult both to average people and what this country’s supposed to be about.
On overseas trips there is sometime a backup AF1.
The Presidential Limo is The Beast. It has a Cadillac logo, built by Cadillac, but is in no way a stock automobile. Purpose built from the ground up, it can survive multiple RPG and 50 cal. rounds on the glass and side panels. It has a self contained environmental air system to defeat bio and chem gas attacks. Amoured to survive road side bomb blasts. Very heavy and low fuel economy. Transported on the C-17 with the President’s drivers and other security advon members (advon is a military term for advance onsite team).
http://max2.leftlanenews.com/photos/content/january2013/thumbnails5.0/beast-ri_653.jpg
It’s rumored to weigh over 20,000 lbs! I wouldn’t be surprised to know that the tire contact pressure is over 200 psi, (probably just solid rubber), so routing has to take into account road surface load rating. On most residential roads it’s probably gonna leave two ditches in its wake.
Don’t forget, there are two VC-25s available to be AF1. And also don’t forget Michelle and the VP have their private jets as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/19/us/9-die-in-crash-of-c-130-carrying-clinton-cargo.html
Look, I am not in the Top Five Billion of the BHO fans, by any rating, but I believe, from the UK, that it is reasonable the POTUS has respectable security.
I don’t know the details, but I assume that Presidents Xi (China); Mukhergee (India); and even Hollande [France] have more than a boy scout with a catapult if they go to dangerous areas.
Our David Cameron is known to have a full detachment of the Bekonscot Model Village Yeomanry on standby in Buckinghamshire – if he goes North of the Tweed (so into Scotland)!
[/Sarc dear moderator, for this last paragraph alone . . . . )
Auto
It’s green carbon. For the planet.
It’s not just Air Force One that burns fuel. When Obama visited Australia in 2011 there where at least another four C17 heavy lift cargo flights bringing in the Beast (his car) and sundry other pieces of gear. Not to mention fighter escorts. He would be the most carbon-dioxide emitting human on the planet. And that’s not even including speeches.
All those aircraft have the legs necessary, but with fighter escort tack on a large number of KC135 tankers as well.
A 300 passenger aircraft needs as much fuel as tens of thousands of Volkswagen Beetles. I wonder how many Priuses that would be.
I wonder how many Priuses that would be.
The same number. Two vehicles with the same cross-sectional area and drag coefficients will consume the same amount of energy travelling at the same speed, whether powered by electric batteries or steam.
And equal rolling resistance of the tires.
Not true as the real beetle has an aged fuel inefficient engine and even the fake modern one is not really very good on fuel compared to most cars of its size like Honda Civics for example. The energy requirement may be the same but the input energy to produce that is dependent on the engine efficiency.
Incidentally also the per passenger fuel requirement of a full jet is nearly the same as that for a family car on a medium haul journey, though not one set up for a self styled demi god rather than mere first class aristos. Roughly a range of 6,000 miles is typical on 40,000 gallons or 7 galls / mile for roughly 350 passengers according to the figures which cannot be so easy to fiddle without planes dropping out of the sky.
In terms of fuel per passenger, an aircraft filled with passengers uses a very similar amount of fuel as a car with only the driver, approximately 40 miles per gallon;
http://www.theicct.org/blogs/staff/planes-trains-and-automobiles-counting-carbon
Refer to Figure 1.
In actual fact the fuel consumption per revenue passenger mile for most modern aircraft such as a 737/800 is in the 100mpg range, the newer aircraft such as the Airbus 350 and the Boeing 787 are in excess of 140mpg per revenue passenger mile. There are no standard road vehicles that have the same fuel economy. Also apart from the airports for departure and destination there is no ground infrastructure required, no roads, bridges, tunnels, ferries to be continually maintained. Even the old Boeing 747/400 returns over 50 mpg per revenue passenger mile.
Apart from the fact that CO2 has only a favorable impact on the environment and climate so CO2 emissions are not a problem, aircraft are the most efficient means of transport for distances of 500 miles or more in all measures – safety, efficiency and environmental impact.
Don’t be drawn into the CO2 argument even if the warmists and associated gullibles are being hypocritical.
Well said! And in Aus, we have idiots wanting to build high speed trains between major cities! We already have the most efficient method of transport between major cities in Australia; it’s called an aircraft!
“How many global warming crusaders do you know about, who manage more air miles in a year, than most normal people manage in a lifetime?”
This old saw sort of reminds me of people and governments that fight wars to gain the peace.
That makes no sense.
No surprise there.
Have you not heard of Skype?
You need to be present on the battlefield to shove a gun in the face of some idiot from Islamic State.
However, you can lecture people about your wing-nut theories about ‘carbon’ without being in the same room or even the same country. The internet is a wonderful thing.
Oh please, talk about sophomoric tropes. Tell me about the Fourth Punic War.
The only way to get peace is to beat the bad guys.
I know that’s a hard concept for most girly men to understand, but 5000 years of recorded history have proven the concept over and over again.
Except for Smith, I guess my comment is lost on you guys.
Eco warriors use carbon to move around so they can get people to stop using carbon.
Soldiers use guns to get people to stop using guns. (sort of)
(And actually, David, while I agree in part with you, Skype doesn’t work for many things.)
It’s okay to burn all the carbon you want provided you really, really, really, really, really, CARE.
And, of course, Barack, Al, Leoardo et al really, really, really, really, really, CARE.
Of course they care! They is dimmacRATs! They cannot not care! Oh, the HUMANITY!!!
I did some work on this old poem and improved it, I think. Unfortunately “great art requires a great subject” and for that reason this will always remain a fourth-rate poem.
Al Gore — American Bloviator
Forever, forever, it’s all Al Gore
Now, in the future and always before
Spinning himself with the words he can whirl
The earth is his oyster, he is its pearl
Carbon dioxide is filling the air!
And there’s no escaping — IT’S EVERYWHERE!
It’s up in the sky, it’s under your bed
It’s deep in your lungs, comes out of your head!
The polar caps melt from CO2’s heat
The seas will be rising twenty-five feet
The Ocean Conveyor ceasing to flow
Where water goes stagnant algae will grow!
A growth in plant life that carbon promotes!
Green seas where sargasso seamlessly floats!
If acid rain scared you — THINK ABOUT THIS!
Oceans acidic and warmer than piss!
The teddy bears — Wait! — the polar bears drown
As carbon goes up survival goes down!
Once as a young man Al fully believed
First before others himself he deceived
Then sure of THE TRUTH his dictums were hurled
Like God, by The Word, creating the world!
The sky! It is falling upon your head!
Sharknadoes increasing with millions dead!
(That’s in a movie — I make movies too
Seeing’s believing so all of it’s true!)
Weather is weirding and its everyplace!
Our footprint of carbon on Gaia’s face!
Calamitous Climate! None can escape
Gaia’s revenge for Capitalist rape!
Science is settled! We know all the facts!
These super storms need a new super tax!
The U.N. will lead! The models are right!
Peer reviewed models! — Mankind is a blight!
So go buy a bike and pedal to work!
2000 WAS MINE! AND BUSH IS A JERK!
Al’s actions say more than bluster explains
A hypocrite now he takes private planes
Mansions and autos, a party time yacht
Al owns such but preaches — others must not!
Note: Al’s four decker, fantasy class yacht is named the Bio-Solar One and
where it is docked it is called by all the BS One.
Eugene WR Gallun
Al Gore is not a great subject?
Wonderful poem.
‘I did some work on this old poem and improved it, I think. Unfortunately “great art requires a great subject” and for that reason this will always remain a fourth-rate poem.’
Absolute nonsense. That was a wonderful poem! Be very proud, sir.
Thought it was great, I’m no poet myself though.
Thanks Eugene, that was awesome!
Plus, I learned a new word: bloviation — the art of speaking for as long as the occasion warrants, and saying nothing.
You made my evening 🙂
Very good! You should apply to be our next Poet Laureate!
Congrats on a great poem, Eugene. It got me thinking with this little para…
For hundred grand speeches, jets travel fast
They cover the distances ever so vast
To rake in the dollars while the gravy train lasts.
Minor point: AF1 is not a specific aircraft, just the one carrying the President. By Marine helicopter, Marine One. etc. When he delivered a speech at the Air Force Academy a few years back, six transports preceeded him. I watched from below.
Note to Robert of Ottawa: Not really, efficiency does vary. Priuses may be a bit better than Beetles. Depends on how well they convert fuel to motion. (energy, yes, but that wasn’t Designator’s point)
Did you include the added energy-conversion step required by a Prius? Some are dependent upon the energy of a fossil fuel being converted to electrical, then converted to mechanical. In a VW, it’s fossil directly to mechanical.
The advantage in a properly designed hybrid is that the gasoline engine runs at a more constant speed while acceleration bursts are picked up by the electric motor. Running at a more or less constant speed allows the gas engine to work closer to it’s peak efficiency more of the time, increasing gas mileage even with the energy transformation steps.
Indeed, the hybrid can run at the ‘sweet spot’ for most of the time. Also the electric motor is driven by stored energy recovered by regenerative braking, energy that in the VW is just converted to waste heat.
Most heavy IC engines are hybrid drive for the reasons other commenters list below. Locomotives are a perfect example. Nuclear powered ships rarely use direct drive – preferring to generate electric power and use electric motors.
I am under the impression that every new president gets a new Boeing 747 (AF1) with a custom built interior, with a back-up called AF2. I could be wrong, even so the current WH is using it quite a bit and the support that goes with it is ludicrous! ( If anyone knows it would be nice to find out the details)
Checked, a new Boeing 747-8 is now under construction for the next president, the 747 now used were refurbished for each new pres, since Bush and Clinton, but they also have access to various other planes for shorter trips.
Whoever follows Obama in office, should insist on a new AF1 and that the White House fumigated, and have the staff undergo an exorcism. And I’d water the lawn with holy water for good measure.
A VW beetle is not fuel efficient by today’s standards. There are dozens of compacts today with smaller engines, more power, and less fuel consumption.
Ah, but there’s a difference, you see. Those people exist on a higher plain (or, is it plane?) than us folks (an earthy word, intended by a certain someone – ‘O’ – to denote commonality with, well ordinary folks, where, in his mind, absolutely no commonality whatsoever actually exists). Thus, their CO2 emissions exist on a higher plain as well, compared to the CO2 emissions of us lesser beings. You see, our CO2 emissions reek of flatulence whereas their CO2 emissions are sweetly perfumed and thus able to perfumigate the very same theories that they spit, vomit, growl, and belch out at us. Their CO2 emissions are famous, and monied, and cuisineistic, and our’s are faceless, and labored, and Big Mac’d. Their CO2 emissions are magical.
Gotta problem with that?
I think this is really very generous of our leaders in film, politics, and industry who understand that they are not only smarter and more knowledgeable than we are, but are also in a position to help the planet while we are left to scrounge beer money and can’t afford a travel vacation beyond the back yard. We work hard to pay taxes on income, property, carbonated fuels and since we are now so poor that we can’t afford to watch Leo on the Silver Screen, but must employ Al’s excellent internetty to download the torrent, they in true kindness spew Magic Gas CO2 food from the sky for us and the plants. I think it’s sweet of them really. slash
So if I say I care about CO2, someone will give me a private plane?
I care! I care! I care a lot!
Please deliver plane to Brisbane.
Or do I just get a pass, and have to provide my own plane?
I think you have to provide your own plane.
Although they could give me the plane, I couldn’t afford the fill-ups. Even a modest Gulfstream GIII burns 568 gallons per hour. Around here Jet A looks to be around $4 per, Yikes!
I also care about commas, and again I have to urge you, Eric, to rip out the comma key from your computer.
Or get an editor to remove the misplaced commas from your articles.
[The moderators, as a class, refuse to comma on this topic. Future comma’s will be parentheseized, anesthetized, and anti-freezed. .mod]
Uh-oh; I see an apostrophe catastrophe.
OK, a question – we’re coming up on the 9th anniversary of An Inconvenient Truth –
Release date: May 24, 2006 (USA).
Why hasn’t there been a sequel? isn’t it past time?
Surely Al isn’t too busy. What does it mean that An Inconvenient Truth II hasn’t come forth?
Maybe I missed it.
Yes and, as expected, Rush Limbaugh is right on top of this. We have less than 281 days left before we all burn up into one big cinder block! http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2006/01/27/algore_we_have_ten_years_left_before_earth_cooks
The anniversary will arrive January 27, 2016 and we can expect that leftist MSM’s criticism of him will be about as dramatic as a kitten farting into a pillow.
I have names to suggest for a sequel which could be made by anyone:
An Inconvenient Ruse
An Inconsequential Truth [perhaps my favourite]
Some Really Inconvenient Truths
Some CO2 Experiments That Almost Work
Greens With Envy – An Aircraft Selection Guide Confessions of a Prodigal Whore [no insult is intended by the juxtaposition of ‘-al’ and ‘Whore’]
An Inconvenient Truth, Redux Edition
Sick of Going Green, Reflux Edition
And to paraphrase Tom Lehrer’s first album title:
An Evening Wasted With Al Gore
“Now if I may indulge in a bit of personal history, a few years ago I worked for a while at the Los Alamos scientific laboratory in New Mexico. I had a job there as a spy.” – Tom Lehrer
“My SUV is very green conscious, produces only .001% of Obama’s vehicles.”
Can we have a bumper sticker like this?
I’d definitely put it in my SUV and pick up truck.
😃
0.01% Of CO2
Their hypocrisy is just accessory to their blatant dishonesty. Truth will catch up to them in the end.
Interestingly, the fuel burn per passenger is roughly the same for a long haul jet as it s for a car ( assumes 2 pax per vehicle and nearly full loading for the jet ) and equals very roughly 3 litres per 100 km.
The difference is that the jet covers the distance much quicker. For the average driver, taking a reasonably long overseas return flight burns about the same amount of fuel that they would have used had they been driving for a year.
For the super rich who fly jets with far fewer people on board, the figures are of course much higher.
If you are going to be a hypocrite you may as well be a large one.
What amuses me are the increasing numbers of universities who allocate large sums towards staff global travel despite that very handy networking tool called the internet, and at the same time proclaim proudly that they support divestment of fossil fuel shares.
It’s all about public demonstrations of piety, or what can be called ‘virtue signalling’.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9501282/hating-the-daily-mail-is-a-substitute-for-doing-good/
Actions speak louder than words. Could this account for their “communication problem”?
The environmentalists won’t even notice the hypocrisy of such things until a Republican takes over. Then the media will wake up and start reporting the war dead again, and the homeless and the inner-city murders. The fact that the lunatic fringe has been rather silent about these things has been just about the only positive to having a Democrat loon in the White House.
Yeah, What ever happened to “Code Pink”? They were SO concerned and SO vocal during the last administration.
I guess GWB solved all Code Pink’s complaints just in time for BHO to step in.
Just in time for BHO to step in WHAT? 😉
do what I say but don.t do what I do
AGW = Hypocrisy, Lies, Hate,Deception + lots of CO2
Talking about VW Beetles. Those Germans who “bought into” that “system” never ever saw a “Beetle”. Never ever saw their “holiday camp”. In fact no German ever saw a “VW”. Hitler went to war on those funds. In fact, it was Allied military that saw the first “VW Beetle”, 12,000 or so. Many “allied” countries didn’t take up the “offer” of what is now VW etc.
But they sure saw their Kübelwagen.
http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/uploads/pics/kuebelwagen_8.jpg
http://www.whq-forum.de/cms/466.0.html
Basically the cross version of the Beetle.
They sure did as well as the amphibious version too.
Mr Kuhn,
Where are you?
The warmists have suddenly gone very quiet when it comes to attempting to defend green hypocrisy.
Another one for Crispin’s list:
Kermit’s Lament (It isn’t easy being green)
OT: Wondering how many posties at WUWT would boycot Facebook?
I already do.
On FaceBook you’re not the customer, you’re the product.
I boycott Google and Wal-Mart as well.
FB are now demanding a photo ID (Passport, drivers licese etc), via unsolicited e-mail, to prove who I am. I say that pages like “No Treble” (A page for bass players), “Penrith” (A city in NSW, Australia) and “The Fred Hollows Foundation” (A brilliant man passed away) cannot possibly have been setup with someone with a photo ID. Not sure if my account was “hacked” or not, but it’s a bit too much “police state” like for me. So I guess it’s adios muchachos FB!
Jebus Crust Alminty – Branson owns a SPACESHIP!
He’s so proud of it his gigantic jets often sport a sign that says ‘My Other Plane’s a Spaceship’.
Whiney, bogus green billionaire.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr!
He’s a Ted Turner clone. Probably on his way to irrelevent insanity Like Turner.
Leo dicaprio is building an Eco resort at sea level on the uninhabited island he bought in Belize where he can take advantage of weak or non existent environmental protection laws to build over 100 residences for 5$ million and up . In nearby Costa Rica where environmentalism ( and social justice ) is actually taken seriously no development is allowed on the first 100 meters of shoreline ,which is public property . By contrast dicaprio intends to ” improve ” his island by excluding the local subsistence fisherman from their traditional access to the island for the last 100 years . Human shoreline development is the single greatest destroyer of coral reefs worldwide , but that is okay because dicaprio plans on building artificial reefs to go along with his air purification and enhanced circadian lighting he plans to share with his Eco buddies while hosting environmental conferences . Doesn’t get much more natural than that . How he plans to power the energy hungry desalinators he will need for the swimming pools , toilets , showers and gardens his uber rich Eco buddies will enjoy , not to mention the waste water and sewage treatment plants he will need on his environment enhancing 100 acre Eco resort is not clear as yet . But since fossil fuels will bring people , supplies ( garbage ? ) and such , to and from the Eco resort it seems like a fossil fuel generator may help . What I really don’t get though , is ( especially as a UN climate ambassador ) how he could build a half billion dollar resort at sea level , in a hurricane zone too , while preaching the dangers of global warming . One can only conclude that either he doesn’t believe a bit of what he espouses or else he is a mental defective . You pick .
A recent trip to Seattle was interrupted by the arrival of His Highness Obama. The reason for the master to come down from his mountain to talk to the unwashed masses. A Democratic party fund raiser and $1000 a plate dinner with a speech by the most exalted one Obama as the main entertainment. Not only were Air Force one and two C17’s at the airport it was rumored in the media that Air Force two was on standby to come to Obama’s rescue if something would cause Air Force one to become unusable due to a fault. If you look at the carbon foot print of the cross country junket it becomes apparent that Obama does not have a clue what a reasonable expenditure of fossil fuels is. Jet fuel is measured in LBS on an airplane but a 747 hold over 50000 gallons for 4000 miles range. A C17 holds over 35,000 gallons for 5000 miles range. Add it up and you get around 150,000 gallons of fuel expended for a fund raising dinner junket.
“On Earth day last year, for instance, Obama burned more than 35,000 gallons of fuel and emitted 375 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in his trips around the world.”
So how does 140 tons of fuel (approx. wt of 35,0000 gallons. ) turn into 375 tons of CO2?
Take the principal component of Jet A1 to be C12H26, giving ~144/170ths of the fuel as the weight of the carbon, and the weight of CO2 at ~44/12ths of the weight of carbon, 140 tonnes of fuel generates ~435 tonnes of CO2. However, I make 35,000 US gallons of Jet A1 to be 105 tonnes, not 140, giving 326 tonnes of CO2.
I regard myself as green, and have no less right to take foreign holidays or foreign business trips than anyone else, including those who question AGW. The problem of high CO2 emissions is a problem for human society as a whole to fix, and individual reductions can make only a limited difference. We have a solar hot-water panel and I use public transport almost exclusively (easy when you live in London and happen to qualify to get it for free), but it’s only a start.
So what can you do individually to be carbon neutral in a society providing very little support for it?
At the moment the best way is to offset your personal CO2 emissions by paying for more trees to be planted than would otherwise be the case if you did kept the money. In my case the extra trees are probably expanding a forest in Tanzania. The scheme is run by BP and is called BP Target Neutral. See https://www.bptargetneutral.com/uk/ . The cost of offsetting 22,000 miles of air travel for two of us was £60 or around $90.
And how do we know that BP Target Neutral actually uses the money to plant trees? Well they hire some well-known environmentalists and greens to oversee and audit the scheme. People who are involved with organisations I trust, like WWF who prefer to work with industry to persuade them to do the right thing rather than Greenpeace who often try to sabotage it.
So my conscience is clear. And so should Al Gore’s be too, since he is also offsetting. CO2 gets emitted from flights, and the same amount gets absorbed by additional new rain forest financed by the offsetting contributions. Net zero CO2 emissions. End of story.
The letters “offset” do not appear even once above in 88 posts. The US president and Al Gore have jobs that require travelling and resulting CO2 emissions. They ensure that additional CO2 is absorbed elsewhere to match their emissions.
But carbon offsetting is no more than a short-term solution. It just isn’t possible to plant enough trees to offset all the CO2 emissions each year from burning fossil fuels. I (and they) can use it right now because not many people care about offsetting so there’s plenty of suitable spare land for it. The long-term solution for air flights is probably some sort of biofuel farmed using energy produced by renewables. But it isn’t in place yet. My guess is it will take 20 to 30 years. I may not be around then.
And talking of trees, although not part of such an offset programme, China has planted 66 billion trees as part of the “Great Green Wall”, albeit with only limited success in their aims of rolling back the desert. See http://www.economist.com/news/international/21613334-vast-tree-planting-arid-regions-failing-halt-deserts-march-great-green-wall . I do not believe this particular project would qualify as offsetting, since the trees are going to be planted anyway – they are not extra. That is why offsetting schemes have to have good audit credentials or they would be worthless.
It’s amazing that trees can live of that CO2 poison.