Carbon Neutrality!

The greenhouse gas emissions from our flights have now been neutralized! Two people flying from Halifax to Reykjavik, Reykjavik to Paris, Barcelona/Girona to Dublin, London to Reykjavik, and Reykjavik back to Halifax generates 7.3 tonnes of emissions, and is about 15,000 miles.
The company we chose to offset our emissions with is Climate Friendly (https://climatefriendly.com/). We didn't want to choose just any company - the business of offsetting emissions is mostly unregulated, and often companies will use the money as 'subsidies' for environmental things that they would be doing anyway, or use it for projects that do not address the problem.

So I did some research.

There was a really good article from the Vancouver Sun: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=896e8e53-ca86-4c6c-9e0a-9adb458a8e2b
and the David Suzuki Foundation had a lot of good information: www.davidsuzuki.org

I learned that the things to look for were 'additionality' (the money goes towards projects that would not have happened otherwise), alternative energy (rather than tree planting, which it turns out, is not a good way to offset your carbon - it would take decades for them to grow enough to absorb the equilivant amount of carbon, they could be cut down and burned, etc. etc.), and the Gold Standard - the highest standard in the world for carbon offsets. It means that they have met strict environmental criteria, fund 'additionality' projects, have social and environmental indicators to ensure sustainable development, and have been independently varified by a third party.
Read all about this here: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/climate_change/what_you_can_do/carbon_offsets.asp

Climate Friendly, an Austrailian company, meets Gold Standard and Kyoto Protocol requirements. Their carbon credits support organizations such as Greenpeace, WWF, Austrailian Conservation Foundation, and a whole bunch more. They also have a wind energy project in Rajasthan, India. They are a solid company because they "fund projects that: address the root cause of climate change: fossil fuel emissions, prevent greenhouse emissions (i.e. keep carbon in the ground),are additional (i.e. go beyond business as usual),are independently verified for quality, and have a 'real time' impact (i.e. they neutralise your emissions close to the time you emit them)". https://climatefriendly.com/projects

"All of Climate Friendly's carbon credit projects:
-Address the root cause of climate change - We only select projects that effect the rapid transition to a sustainable energy future.
-Are permanent - We only select credits from renewable energy projects that are guaranteed to permanently reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
-Are additional - Our projects are over and above 'business as usual', i.e. projects that would not occur without outside investment through carbon credits.
-Are verifiable - All of our projects are verified by independent, third party experts and are real and tangible.
-Are project/community based - We do not purchase credits from projects that are allowance-based, such as those that are part of complying with national emissions reduction legislation.
-Contribute to sustainable development - We select projects with broader environmental and/or social benefits beyond climate change.
-Are synchronous - The abatement from our renewable energy projects are closely matched to the time our customers' emissions occur.
-Are exclusive - We ensure that there is no double counting of carbon credits from the projects we select." https://climatefriendly.com/quality-assurance

Finally, they don't just balance CO2!!! "It takes into account not only carbon emissions, but also the other effects of flying that contribute to global warming, such as nitrogen oxides that convert to ozone at high altitude, contrails, and ice clouds. The global warming impact of air travel is approximately 2.7 times that of fuel alone." https://climatefriendly.com/faqs?q=12

So basically, it was the best, most complete way for us to make our trip non-evil!!!