We often suggest determining the carbon footprint of any travel plans you have or plan on and arrive at some type of offsets acceptable to you. For an online carbon footprint calculator, check out calculator.carbonfootprint.com.
Carbon offsets can be purchased online for each trip you take, but for my recent European trip, I calculated a footprint of about 6 tons CO2. To offset that carbon footprint and any other trips in our future, Kathey and I had installed on our home a 9,000-watt solar system. It produces an 8-10 ton CO2 offset each year. We don’t own the system, opting for a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the company that installed and maintains the panels. Thus, zero dollars out of pocket to start and annual savings in excess of 30 percent on our power bill—plus the CO2 offset. Sweet deal.