Yes, I offset my carbon (using Wren). It comes out of my lifestyle budget, not my EA charity budget, because the carbon impact also comes from my lifestyle. I feel strongly it is not ok to offset carbon using my charity budget because it is not one of the most effective things to do with that budget, but it makes me feel better about the way the rest of my life is going.

Founders Pledge have a report on offsetting here.

"In the first post in this series, Climate and Lifestyle: policy matters, we discussed some of the most important lifestyle decisions for the climate and saw the effect that climate policy has on each person's potential impact. However, our analysis excluded one crucial lifestyle decision: donations to effective climate non-profits.

The potential impact of effective donations

Emissions per person vary considerably even across rich countries: the average American emits 18 tonnes of CO2 per year, whereas the average Swede emits only 7 tonnes. As a guiding rule, if you live in a rich country and live a typical lifestyle, then you probably emit between 5 and 20 tonnes of CO2 each year.

Our research suggests that Founders Pledge-recommended climate charities - the Clean Air Task Force and the Coalition for Rainforest Nations - have in the past averted a tonne of CO2 for less than $10 in expectation (i.e. after weighting the impact of the changes they worked for by the probability that the organisation actually made a difference), and potentially much less. Therefore, as Figure 1 shows, the expected impact of your personal donations is much larger than any of the lifestyle decisions discussed in the first post:

figure 1: Climate impact of lifestyle decisions compared to effective donations (tonnes of CO2)

Source: See the references and calculations in the Climate and Lifestyle calculations sheet

This being said, it is very important to choose carefully who you donate to. Many organisations offer surprisingly cheap carbon offsets, promising to abate a tonne of CO2 with high confidence for $1 or less. These figures are not realistic. The incentives are not set up well for organisations to provide reliable carbon emissions reductions. There is limited oversight of offsetting organisations' work, so they have an incentive to offer attractive price points without actually reducing emissions. Thus, choosing instead to donate to effective policy and research organisations is crucial. The impact is plausibly 100 times greater.

The limited ambition of offsetting

This raises the question: does donating offset the harm you do by emitting? We argue that looking at donating through the lens of offsetting is doubly flawed. Most importantly, it limits people's ambitions. People ask: how can I undo the effect of my own emissions? Instead, they should ask: how can I have the biggest possible impact on climate change?

If we only donate to offset our personal emissions and no further, then we hugely restrict our potential impact. A typical person emits 5-20 tonnes of CO2 each year. So if you assume that the most effective climate charities can abate a tonne of CO2 for less than $10, then you can offset your emissions for just $200 per year. Our recommended charities operate on budgets in the low millions but have led policy campaigns that have had a huge effect on global climate policy. Many people in wealthy countries could give more than $200 to support them, and thereby have enormous leverage.

Ethics and offsetting

Secondly, donating to effective climate charities almost never, in any meaningful sense, offsets the harm you do by emitting.

...

In sum, it is not usually feasible to truly offset the harm from your past emissions. So, on rights-based views, donations to climate charities do not offset any harm you have done by emitting. On consequentialist theories, offsetting is always irrelevant, and we should instead try to do the most good with our donations. If stopping climate change turns out to be the best way to do good, then donations should be a top priority for the climate-conscious individual. For a more detailed treatment of these and more considerations, refer to our full research report on Climate and Lifestyle."

Thanks for the link to the Cool Earth post. I don't offset for two reasons:

Climate offsets are frequently ineffective, for reasons discussed in the Cool Earth post and, more journalistically, here;

Focussing on policy change to reduce emissions such as a frequent flyer tax or mandating cleaner fuel or better fuel efficiency will have higher impact than focussing on individual carbon footprints, especially as the latter individual focus may take attention away from the systemic changes needed.

While many organisations offering offsets offer quite ineffectual solutions, there are likely to be a small proportion that are highly effective; however, these would take some searching and aren't obvious unless you do a significant amount of research. At any rate the ones involved from clicking 'offset this flight' on the airline's payment page are likely to be poor value.  

Given that there is wide public interest in and desire to contribute to offsetting, it may be that the most effective donations in this area could be to organisations that publicise and/or certify those few schemes that offer and can demonstrate genuinely effective offsetting, to ensure that more money ends up going there. I don't know of any such organisations though. Or there is the option of donating to organisations that lobby for evidence-based policy change - aviation emissions are significantly more impactful than public perception believes (source).

You're then into comparing effective climate donations vs effective global development donations at least! 

I encourage people to offset, but think of offsets as just intentionally paying the costs of externalities from their lifestyle rather than as part of their charity budget.

If you do decide to offset, know that offsets differ greatly in permanence and risk.

You need to buy ~10x the "planting trees" offsets to equal the permanence and risk of a permanent direct air capture and geologic sequestration offset. Use this calculator to compare: https://carbonplan.org/research/permanence-calculator

My current recommendation for offsets is https://tradewater.us/, which purchases and destroys high global warming potential refrigerants. It's a permanent counterfactual offset with few displacement/additionality concerns and they are relatively cheap (~$17/ton).

Thanks for opening up a topic that is in my opinion neglected on an individual basis within the EA community. However, I could make wrong assumptions from a few data points that I have.

I made the observation that a lot of EAs are frequent flyers and wonder if the awareness that offsetting can not be taken as an excuse to choose the plane instead of the train, is high enough.

E.g. within mainland Europe train connections are meanwhile quite good and I would do everything by train or bus that is <500km one way. The only problem is that the train often costs more than going by plane and you have to account for ~3h more (also considering the time you spend around the airport). However, personally I have experienced the slow mode of travelling and avoiding the hustle & bustle at the airport as very positive + you have WiFi in the train/bus and can do work. Therefore, I can do work more efficiently staying on the ground.

What are your thoughts on this? Can you provide me another perspective on the situation? Thanks!

I do, but not in the view of offsetting, but as an incentive system not to fly.

Like you, I usually have a moral dilemma about whether to fly or not to visit someone. To switch from a super hard and painful moral question I transform it into a money question by putting a price on carbon. I currently put it at around 250 USD/ton ,  an estimated "social cost of carbon", from an academic paper (also discussed by Future Perfect). It is on the upper end, but it serves my purpose and ensures I have a strong incentive not to fly unless really worth it.

Instead of paying this money to classical offsetting projects, I donate it to the most effective climate charities identified by Founder Pledge plus the Good Food Institute

For travel I calculate what offsetting would have cost, take the amount from my travel budget and donate it to EA recommend climate charities (via Effektiv Spenden in Germany).