Happy valentines day, I’d fly anywhere just to be with you. Taylor Swift’s private jet use puts carbon credits, personal choice and personal influence under the spotlight.

Taylor Swift is making headlines, and not just attracting the attention of swifties. For those in the dark, it seems she now has only one private jet. This she uses to support her busy schedule while on tour, and accommodate her personal life including making a 12-hour, 5,000-mile, flight from Tokyo to Las Vegas to support her boyfriend playing in the Superbowl. Reportedly her jet emitted more than 8000 tonnes of CO2 last year. The global average I understand is around 4.7 tonnes.

But fear not because she has purchased more than double the carbon credits to offset the emissions from her tour – more than enough to accommodate the extra personal trips.

The media coverage of this naturally raises questions about personal behaviours and the choices people make – but people’s choices are based on their lives and circumstances that we may not fully understand to be able to pass judgement on.

What seems currently conspicuous by its absence is any clear signal that Taylor Swift is using her huge popularity and role as an influencer to positively address awareness of climate change with her fans. If she is, I can’t wait to hear. If she isn’t, why not? I’d like to hear about that too.

But what about carbon credits? I can’t help being reminded of the saying “if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.

I stopped flying nearly four years ago. Over the 12 months before that I paid myself for carbon offsets for the flights I took on business. Here are a few examples:

Heathrow to Santiago + Satiago-Madrid-Heathrow: 23,700kms – 4 tonnes of CO2 – £85

Southampton to Schiphol return: 900kms – 0.3 tonnes of CO2 – £6

Heathrow to Stockholm return: 2,900kms – 0.55 tonnes of CO2 – £12

It’s a joke right? If it’s that cheap to neutralise the adverse impact on climate change being caused by flying, then it would be ‘problem solved’, happy days. Next month I’m due to be travelling to Stockholm again. By train. It’s a long journey that has a slim chance of not facing delays or cancellations and I’m told is about four times as expensive as if I was to fly. All that cost and hassle when it could be avoided for 12 quid!

Does offsetting work? According to a Greenpeace article, the following factors have to be weighed up, amongst others:

Would the project being invested in by the offsetting scheme have gone ahead anyway? (e.g. a forest being planted)

Will the offset project permanently lock away emissions? (or could a wildfire burn that forest down?)

Will the project avoid another action that counters it not popping up elsewhere? (will another forest be cut down for burning wood intead?)

Who knows if the carbon offset calculations are reliable. It seems fraught with ifs, buts and maybes.

I wasn’t even convincing myself when I spent that year paying offsets.

#carbonoffsets