A few days ago, I was discussing with some colleagues whether to buy carbon offsets for air travel and other emissions. If I were an institution, I probably would. However, as a private citizen, I don’t. Here’s why:

Carbon offsets, even at their best, are fundamentally marginal. We don’t need marginal changes in emissions; we need (to borrow @ewarren’s phrase) big, structural change.

So instead of buying offsets, I’m calculating my emissions, converting them to dollar climate damages using a reasonable social cost of carbon, and making correspondingly large contributions to candidates committed to acting on climate change.

The return in terms of carbon emissions is less certain than (well designed) offsets, but the expected return is substantially higher: offsetting a few tons here and there will never get to the necessary scale, but political change can.

I’m doing this on my own, but I do think there is potential for someone like @LCVoters or @votesaveamerica to tie an emissions calculator and a well targeted slate of pro-climate candidates in tight races together.