Discussion on answer by Avery: Were the emission savings of Greta Thunberg's trip by boat outweighed by crew flights?

-1 The answer is yes. There is an agenda being saying no. Moreover, offset does not mean one completely compensates for the effects (you cannot re-imprison the carbon under the Earth).

I'm also very much not impressed by the way that critics of Thunberg are strawmanned in this discussion as having an "irrational hatred". I have seen huge numbers of people object to her rhetoric, and precisely zero expressing anything that could remotely be described as "hatred" by a rational person not suffering from political tribalism.

You can of course buy carbon offsets for everything and then claim that it's carbon neutral, even the flight. It seems to me that the answer should be "yes" if all that saved them was the offsets.

@Avery - But that's not really an apples-to-apples comparison, is it? Shouldn't you either be comparing fly with offsets vs. boat with offsets, or fly without offsets vs. boat without offsets? If you compare "one means of transport with offsets" vs. "one means without offsets", then the one with offsets will win every time, even if it's "coal-powered steam engine with extra coal-burning stoves wherever there's room for them, with offsets" vs. "walking without offsets".

-1. I smell a Red Herring.

@LightnessRaceswithMonica Yes, offsets were purchased to reduce CO2. Yes, this means that the net CO2 change is lower. No, this doesn't mean that the CO2 produced (i.e. the actual question) by the journey was lower - which is exactly what the quotes say. As an exaggeratedly-extreme example, it's like suggesting giving birth to twins and then killing someone isn't murder, because the net result is an increase in population... I agree that carbon emissions are bad, I agree that offsets effectively reduce your contributions, I disagree that this is the same as "producing less CO2".

@candied_orange you are absolutely right. It depends on the nature of the ship, speed of travel, length of travel, etc. The bottom-line is: If we're talking about a cargo ship, the carbon emission tends to be lower... Especially over short distances. If we're talking about a passenger ship, the carbon emission tends to be higher. If we're talking about a monstrosity like a cruise ship, the carbon emission is tremendously higher compared to flight.