I've been sent more details today about my holiday in Morocco. The company is very into responsible tourism - employing local guides and porters, staying in local homes and encouraging us to offset our carbon emissions from the flights through Climate Care.

I've read a lot about carbon offsetting and not really known what to do. Some companies, including my electricity company, plant trees but there's not too much evidence that this really helps in the long term other than salving our consciences. Climate Care plants some trees but focuses on addressing climate change by "reducing emissions through developing renewable fuel sources or boosting efficiency, rather than by focusing on sequestration." Their projects for 2005 included the installation of wind turbines in Karnataka and replacing normal bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps in South Africa, which was itself expected to save 14,100 tonnes of CO2 emissions, more than offsetting one person's emissions from the annual UK emissions.

The Earth Day Footprint Quiz also makes for interesting and uncomfortable reading. I try to be as conscious of the environment as I can be, but I really lost points by living on my own (not much I can do about that!) and by travelling 140 miles on an almost daily basis by car or train. I was shocked in myself when I discovered that "if everyone lived like you, we would need 7.3 planets." It's not ideal.

What can I do about all this? I've been impressed after reading through Climate Care's website and will offset my flights to Morocco and consider if to extend that to offsetting everything else. As soon as I find out where my job for next year is, I need to move there if at all possible, preferably within cycling distance. In the meantime, just quickly looking at my flat for things I can change today, I need to take the train as much as I possibly can, I need to finally get round to replacing my bulbs with the environmentally friendly bulbs, and I need to stop collecting plastic bags at the shop. Any other suggestions?

And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food."
Genesis 1:28-29