Recently I've been watching the show Jet Lag on Nebula. It's an entertaining little reality show where people compete in contests which require a lot of travel, especially in commercial aircraft.

I've noticed that they are really really traveling a lot for a frivolous reason and having a huge carbon footprint. (Yes I understand that the flights they go on are booked anyway and would fly if they weren't on them, sort of).

During the show they sometimes use a graphic to show the travel distance and then also mention that they are using Gold Standard carbon offsets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Standard_(carbon_offset_standard)

I've read a bit about carbon credits and carbon offsets before. I think it seems like a bit of a boondoggle to let people with money greenwash their activities. Has anyone here researched this and come up with a different conclusion?

I think maybe this is a very newbie question to ask on this Tildes group.

I want to offset my carbon footprint, but I'm not sure what company (if any) is really making effective changes. Bill Gates says he pays $400/ton of CO2 he offsets - but the companies I've seen imply I can make my entire footprint of around 30 tons per year disappear for $150. That doesn't really line up. And with this being a product that isn't tangible I worry about the likelihood of being taken advantage of. How would I ever know if they're using my money in bad faith?

I've held off on buying any offsets so far because of these concerns.