Edit: I’ve posted before reading others comments. Others have already made this an similar points.
Here is a story of how ethical offsetting can be effective.
I was trying to decide if I should fly or go by train. Flying is much faster and slightly cheaper, but train is much more environmentally friendly. With out the option of environmental offset, I have no idea how to compare these values, i.e. [my time and money] v.s. [direct environmental effect of flying].
What I did was to calculate what offsetting would cost, and it turned out to be around one USD, so basically nothing. I could now conclude that:
Flying + offsetting > Going by train
Because I would save time, and I could easily afford to offset more than the harm I would do by flying, and still pay less in total.
Now, since I’m an EA I could also do the next step
Flying + donating to the most effective thing > Flying + offsetting > Going by train.
But I needed at least the idea of offsetting to simplify the calculation to something I could manage my self in an afternoon. In the first step I compare things that are similar enough so the comparison is mostly straight forward. The second step is actually super complicated, but it’s the sort of thing EAs has been doing for year, so for this I can fall back on others.
But I’m not sure how I would have done the direct comparison between [flying + donating] v.s. [going by train]. I’m sure it’s doable some how, but with the middle step, it was so much much easier.
Edit: I’ve posted before reading others comments. Others have already made this an similar points.
Here is a story of how ethical offsetting can be effective.
I was trying to decide if I should fly or go by train. Flying is much faster and slightly cheaper, but train is much more environmentally friendly. With out the option of environmental offset, I have no idea how to compare these values, i.e. [my time and money] v.s. [direct environmental effect of flying].
What I did was to calculate what offsetting would cost, and it turned out to be around one USD, so basically nothing. I could now conclude that:
Flying + offsetting > Going by train
Because I would save time, and I could easily afford to offset more than the harm I would do by flying, and still pay less in total.
Now, since I’m an EA I could also do the next step
Flying + donating to the most effective thing > Flying + offsetting > Going by train.
But I needed at least the idea of offsetting to simplify the calculation to something I could manage my self in an afternoon. In the first step I compare things that are similar enough so the comparison is mostly straight forward. The second step is actually super complicated, but it’s the sort of thing EAs has been doing for year, so for this I can fall back on others.
But I’m not sure how I would have done the direct comparison between [flying + donating] v.s. [going by train]. I’m sure it’s doable some how, but with the middle step, it was so much much easier.