I donated $35 to offset my carbon footprint for this year

I want to start donating annually to offset my carbon footprint. I don’t really think of this as a charitable cost - instead it’s internalizing my externalities.

This is the first time I am systematically deciding to make an annual donation - I wanted to walk through my thinking in case it’s useful for anyone else! This post also serves as pro-Effective Altruism propaganda.

• How much carbon do I need to offset?

  • The average American seems to emit about 15-20T of CO2 per year (source, source, source). I’ll assume 20T.

  • But I travel a lot. A round-trip flight from London to New York emits ~1T of CO2. This year I took 5 international flights - most had multiple legs, so I’ll assume I emitted 15T more than the average American.

  • So let’s say I have to offset 35T of CO2 each year.

• Where should I donate?

  • I trust Vox’s Future Perfect on stuff like this. They recommend donating to a climate change fund such as the Climate Change Fund from Founder’s Pledge

• How much should I donate?

  • I’ll use the top recommended climate charity from Vox’s Future Perfect as a benchmark. As of December 2023, this is the Clean Air Task Force

  • Founder’s Pledge estimates that a donation to CATF can avert 1T of CO2 emissions for $0.1-$1

  • So that would put the amount I have to donate to offset all my emissions at $3.50-$35 per year

  • I’ll be on the safe side and assume I should donate $35

Conclusion: I just donated $35 to the Climate Fund from Founder’s Pledge to offset my yearly carbon footprint. I intend to make this donation annually going forward, and encourage you to as well!

—

Effective Altruism has been under some heat lately - with the collapse of FTX, and the drama around the OpenAI board ousting Sam Altman.

EA is both a philosophy and a community. I think the above exercise illustrates why both are really good, despite recent drama.

• The philosophy of Effective Altruism gave me the intellectual motivation to donate in the first place. And it informs my decision about where to donate: I should not just donate to what feels the best - I should donate where my dollar will have the highest impact in terms of tons of CO2-eq averted.

• The community of EA has created institutions (in this case Vox’s Future Perfect, and Founder’s Pledge) that help me quickly (1) identify a good donation opportunity, and direct my funds effectively. Also, a post on the the EA Forum provided extra social motivation to make this donation

Is this system perfect? No. Perhaps I could have spent more time finding a better charity to donate to. Perhaps I should be doing more in my lifestyle or in political activism to be addressing the problem of climate change.

But I think my actions here are a lot better than they would be if Effective Altruism did not exist (2). So overall I remain proud of Effective Altruism - both the philosophy and the community.

—

1. It only took 1 hour to do the research and decide to donate!

2. For what it’s worth, the philosophy and community of EA were also key motivators in my decision to become vegetarian