Air travel feels routine for frequent flyers… its climate impact is anything but.

SOUNDBITE (English) Barbara Haya, Director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project:

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“A rule of thumb is that a mile traveled, on average, in an airplane is about equal to a mile traveled in a gasoline vehicle. And if you think about it, you know, how much do you drive and how much do you fly, you fly longer distances.”

To put that into perspective: skipping just one roundtrip flight from LA to New York is like skipping a month of driving the average U.S. gas car.

SOUNDBITE (English) Diane Vitry, aviation director European Federation for Transport and Environment:

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“We often talk about the hidden side of aviation's climate impact is all the other emissions. And most notably are the contrails, the white lines in the sky. They may seem beautiful, but actually they are very, very bad for the environment. So we're actually talking about kind of nearly 5% of kind of global warming is aviation induced.”

As a way to compensate, some airlines and companies sell carbon offsets. You can figure out how much your share of a particular flight's emissions are, and then pay a company that promises to do something, like plant a tree, to offset those emissions.

SOUNDBITE (English) Barbara Haya, Director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project:

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“My recommendation is always don't buy carbon offsets that you haven't vetted carefully, there’s so much overcrediting on the offset markets. My suggestion is always, you know, number one, the most important thing is reduce your emissions in some way. And then second, I would say, if you want to compensate for the emissions from your flight in some way. and you can donate to a local environmental organization, a global environmental organization.”

And it’s not just about how often we fly, but who’s flying the most.

SOUNDBITE (English) Diane Vitry, aviation director European Federation for Transport and Environment:

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“We're talking 1% of people cause 50% of aviation's climate impact. And those are the corporate travelers, the private jet flyers, the frequent flyers. That family that takes that one flight a year to go and visit their family. That is not the problem.”

AP Video by Aya Diab