Virtue signaling at its worst. This article is the tone deaf, moral equivalent of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle flying off on Elton John's private jet while hectoring commoners to save the planet.
The biggest problem facing the earth is that there are just too many darned people and the fact that all of them want to live in the first world. We need negative population growth, and we need it now. Otherwise the human species is a lost cause.
33
Americans are well known not to be travellers, so it is easy for them to now act morally superior and claim it is for ethical reasons...
5
At 70 years of age, I just returned to the US after four years of traveling abroad. The first leg of the journey, from nyc to Paris, was supposed to be the sole plane flight, with cycling and public transport making up the rest; but my resolve wavered a number of times, as I managed to find various rationalizations for taking an airplane.
I have puzzled over this. Many of us would assert that AGW, unchecked, will certainly lead to the ruination of nature and end of civilization in the reasonable future. And we would certainly do everything possible to prevent that from taking place next week. But we won’t do everything possible to prevent that from taking place at some point in the reasonable future; we will find ways of rationalizing indulgences that we know are improvident.
2
I have decided I will never again fly anywhere. Yes, this will cut me off from travel anywhere outside North America—where I take trains, sometimes to the other coast—but it's my tiny bit to try to save the planet.
And judging from recent over-tourism trends, even if I go somewhere, hordes of tourists will block any attempts to see or do anything meaningful or beautiful.
I also don't drive, nor ever owned a car. Double carbon win!
8
Same here. I live in Italy. No planes, there's no need to take them.
1
In an age where grotesque corporate pollution goes unchecked by elected officials, where celebrities and well-heeled politicians fly private jets sometimes multiple times in a day, where billionaire CEOs take helicopters to and from the office each day to avoid the traffic below (which is reserved for the plebian laborers and bourgeoisie professionals), the remaining 99.9% are now being made to feel they should not take airlines, limiting their access to the rest of the planet, regularly trodden and occupied by the former 0.01%, whose multiple estates dot the planet like a constellation. Preaching vacation asuterity to vacationers is hardly effective in comparison.
19
Anything other than a substantial and complete carbon tax is nothing but spitting in the wind and virtue signaling. Live within your values for sure, but know it’s for you, not for making a solution. The solution has to be drastic, at scale, and simple/clear so everyone changes behavior accordingly.
I’ll support any politician who puts that real solution on the table and pay the extra (talking $8 a gallon gas) without complaint (possibly even gladly). But until then I’ve decided I’m going to live my life.
6
Possibly you should skip vacations, Seth. Analysis of Greenland ice-core data indicate that the annual-mean temperature increased by as much as 10°C in 10 years, some 10,600 years ago at the end of the Younger Dryas event. Were you on vacation then?
4
How is it possible - no mention of carbon offsets in the article or the "top" comments? Most of us can afford to fund planting enough trees that our overall impact can be neutral.
Find something morally suspicious with offsets if you like - it doesn't matter. Zero overall impact is what matters.
3
It's the delightful sense of shame itself that we crave. It used to be kinda slimy, associated with Puritanism or Catholic/Jewish guilt. But now it means we're "woke" and we can enjoy the shame without the guilt. Isn't life grand.
12
Probably no need to worry, millennials are killing off the vacation!
5
By coincidence, I've just written a half-serious half-whimsical essay on Medium titled "The Great Low-Cost Low-Carbon Vacation Escape" -- in which I share my personal secret to traveling the world free and without guilt.
https://medium.com/@schomer44/the-great-low-cost-low-carbon-vacation-escape-65b3764547c6.
In this essay, I think I go one step deeper than Mr. Kugel, in that I challenge how, in modern affluent culture, the concepts of ‘escape’ and ‘vacation’ have become so tied to the idea of travel that they have almost become synonymous with it.
Airbnb is a plague. Most people who use it are looking to save money and it is a way for property speculators to make money out of what is, actually, an apartment rental but at lower cost and avoiding red tape and safety. Pretending it is all right if you claim it is a place that a local lives in for the rest of the year (what, except your two weeks!!) is just nonsense. Even if places are just rented out for the tourist season, that extends from April (depending on Easter) to October.
Travel is a bit like eating, with a similar ecological footprint. The best recommendation is do it less and try not to fly (which is the equivalent of eating meat).
4
There is officially nothing left in the world one cannot virtue-signal about.
17
Of course, the US's emissions would go down dramatically if the government would invest in infrastructure updating. Independent of the bridges and tunnels at are dangerously unsound, it would help if we used permeable road surfacing that could absorb heavy rains (and reduce flash flooding and underwater roads), both high-speed rail and light rail, and maybe shifts in workday hours that could reduce the traffic pileups in cities like LA, NYC, and others.
China is doing this; why not we? We have some of the most wretched roads anywhere. Even for a climate apostate such as Trump, infrastructure would employ thousands. Seems like a win-win but it never happens.
8
Excellent points made about over-tourism and carbon footprints. I grew up in NYC, go back periodically to see shows and see friends and family. In spite of my connections to that place, I am still amazed at the number of tourists walking the streets, filling the museums, paying high rates for the downtown hotels, and paying dearly for Broadway shows. I wonder how they could afford all of this. The other issue for me is asking about the so-called romance with these areas of the world that have lost whatever special flavor they had a long time agao. And Is that person who takes a few less trips abroad, really more dull than those who never unpack their bags and say very little about their experience, except that it was a "great trip." So, what does travel really do for people that the old two week vacation on the shore or at a lake house used to do? What is it that we are all searching for as we step onto the soil of another country. Not claiming that it is a bad thing, but wondering what it is all about, really.
5
Intend to keep flying regularly and have no shame about it. Some 16-year old privileged Swedish kid can tube across the Atlantic to UNGA; those of us in the real world have neither the time, the leisure, nor the interest in virtue-signalling to worry about such non-issues.
21
Please keep in mind that not every energy saving process or product (and the combination of both) will not always have the optimal or desired result in the basis of the “law of diminishing returns” or impart some aspect of the principle.
For example, when I was working on a project with a committee with 12 coworkers during the planning stages for the installation of a 1,800 panel, ground mount solar panel system that was to offset 50% of the electricity needs for two thirds of a 140,000 square foot office building, I had realized that during this time that future energy saving projects that were under consideration would not have a significant impact to further reduce carbon emissions footprint & in the financial aspect would extend the ROI of the solar project past the acceptable 5 years by several years.
At this time the building lighting system we had changed to 28-watt T-8 lights several years earlier before the ROI for commercial LED light fixtures became reasonable.
So, after senior management approved the solar project, the company was asking for data on changing the light fixtures to LEDs. This equated to approximately a 1,560 kilowatt hours/month reduction and a cost savings of $230/month on electricity costs, which was not justifiable ROI since more than 50% of the power demand requirements were already produced by the solar panels while the demand was fairly constant and the savings from LEDs barely offset the need for power from the grid to spend $60,000.
Wherever I go, there I am. If I ride in a car or plane, my trip is primarily my contribution to making a car "run" or a plane "fly".
I see so much more nature close-up when I walk. It helps me live in the real time and place of the present. Very soothing to the soul.
2
I don’t know anyone who has the time or money to fly somewhere to go on vacation. Even those of us with the benefits of a job has seen the cost of living go up and up and raises, if they occur at all, are cost of living at best. Vacation days, what little there is, are spent caring for sick parents and grandkids or catching up on house maintenance that is hard to get done with 50-70-hour weeks (including working from home on the weekend). The biggest financial problems are two. The cost of healthcare that goes up and up (Copays, deductibles and what’s taken out of the paycheck), all while benefits go down. We also have two new utilities, broadband and cellular.
So, vacations? I’m just glad to be able to pay the mortgage.
13
It's about time this writer wrote this article. The article elicited responses that are to be expected; from rejecting any concern about the externalities of travel or claiming one's own particular travel is necessary, to virtue signaling that one already cut back or quit their traveling and already lives greener than thou, to accusing the author of merely recommending adjustments around the edges to salve guilt while continuing to travel...
But the main takeaways should be these:
1. First-worlders have become way too accustomed to traveling anywhere they want and most have given little thought to their impacts - only the most recent form of imperialist exploitation.
2. Whether we like it or not, or realize it or not, many many very "uncomfortable" and "inconvenient" changes are coming and sooner than we think. Global access works both ways. A billion climate refugees will give new meaning to the phrase "It's a small world." Shame is a luxury when the question of survival is imminent.
9
I've said for the past decade+ that in our capitalist economy there's trillions of $$ to be made in converting, redesigning, and innovating our energy grid and production including transportation. Doing this over the next 30 years changes everything: education, jobs/economy, healthcare, and most importantly the quality of life of all this planet's inhabitants. It's not the cost of doing it, it's the cost of NOT doing it. Can we afford that cost? I think not.
There needs to be serious discussions with corporations, policy makers, academia, labor, as well as politicians to get serious about this. The conversation needs to be about how and when and not if. My best hope is whoever is president on January 20, 2021 will say at their inauguration: "Today marks a brand new approach to living. We are committed to a total redesign of our economy with the centerpiece being renewable and sustainable energy and food production. I've been meeting nonstop with all the top people since the election and we will announce the Green Way Forward in early June. Stay connected to all your sources. Opportunities abound. Untold wealth to be created. The future starts today."
This is the type of leadership we need; not a clown show promoting the 2nd Amendment, white supremacy, tax cuts for the 1%, walls, Putin, and buying Greenland. Vote this ridiculousness out!
Me, personally, I'm vegetarian and live off grid with solar. Wish I could afford a couple of wind turbines like I had at my old place.
8
My husband and I chose not to have children.
We could fly around the globe in an otherwise empty dreamliner, burn tires in our backyard, use 4 or 5 plastic straws in every beverage we drink for the rest of our lives and not do the amount of damage to the environment that creating future consumers would have done.
31
This is a complex problem. But at the very least we could take fewer but longer (in time) vacations. We could avoid those “long weekend” air travel getaways. We could minimize our need to rent a car on our vacations by visiting places where you can get around by public transportation. Last year I met two Japanese tourists who had been on a five day getaway to Barcelona. Go figure?
2
I hadn't thought about whether jet travel is bad for the environment. Interesting article. However, I work hard for my money and if we want to take a trip to a far-away country, we need to fly there. When in Europe, we often take trains because the train systems in the countries we've visited - France, Italy, Germany are so superior to US train travel. It gets you there is less time than waiting at airports and waiting for baggage. It just depends on the circumstances. We took the train from Florence to Venice; a plane from Naples to Milan. At our age, we don't follow the Rick Steve philosophy of taking a hot, crowded bus somewhere - we take taxis or rent a nice car. Sailing across the Atlantic in lieu of flying is too extreme in my view. So is going back to horse-driven carriages.
5
You infer that inter- europe planes give you more time to visit different places on a trip. On our recent trip to Europe, we took an overnight train (in a sleeper car) from Budapest to Warsaw. We left Budapest just after dinner and arrived In Warsaw just in time for breakfast (it was a 10 or 11 hour train ride-- and we got an ENTIRE day in each place and saved $ by not needing a hotel room that night.
Last year we took an overnight ferry boat (with a bedroom very much like a hotel room) from Stockholm to Helsinki (again spending full days at each destination) These are great alternatives to inter- europe plane flights
5
It's unfortunate that Seth Kugel should be sending Times' readers on a guilt trip on potentially reducing their carbon footprint by flying less and using more public transportation. I would be interested to know how many air travel flights has he taken so far both personally and as a Frugal Traveler for the Times. I'm quite confident that the number of flights an average Times reader has undertaken in his/her life would pale in comparison with that of Kugel's.
Isn't there a double standard in that Kugel should be lecturing us on how to travel in an environmentally friendly manner?
5
Do as I say, not as I do.
The tell is the author's refusal to give up Airbnb so that he can meet locals and eat authentic local cuisine rather than deal with a hotel desk clerk and breakfast buffets. Seriously? You've never stayed in a small, locally-owned hotel that didn't offer a breakfast buffet? I'll bet you didn't even try to find one.
13
I have been depressed before. And I find that when I try to treat the climate crisis as a crisis with everyday actions- from hanging my laundry to walking to work to eating low on the food chain to reducing my air travel to voting out climate deniers - I actually feel better about myself.
Shame is not a good feeling and I try to avoid it. But it is not to avoid shame that I have severely limited my air travel since realizing the enormity of this emergency. It is from a desire to feel hopeful and alive, to live as if my actions matter, to feel as if this beautiful world matters.
There will be those who call me self-righteous. I'm not. I do what I do because I don't want to be depressed. At its core, my actions - including avoiding air travel - are about my self-preservation.
348
I have a similar approach to climate change as you. I do what little I can—grow my own food, drive an electric car, harvest rain water—so I can maintain my own personal sense of integrity. Because, in the end, all we have is our integrity. It’s the only thing that can’t be taken from you, but can be easily traded away or given up.
A lot of what this author writes about can be chalked up to “moral licensing” or a psychological bargaining that humans use to explain away immoral choices. “Well, I made the choice not to fly to the Maldives for that yacht trip (yeah me!) so that frees up my subconscious shame and allows me to say yes to that around-the-world cruise trip!”
38
@the quiet one
Thanks, what you wrote is really beautiful, and I appreciate your honesty; you inspire all the rest of us trying!
33
@the quiet one Beautifully said, thank you.
7
This article surprised me.
I was thinking about the guilt of employees taking a vacation.
Before teaching I would dread taking a vacation. Will it hurt my chance of a raise or promotion? Will I have to work for months to catch up? Will my job still be mine when I return (seeing as we have all seen people replaced on vacation, thanks “right to work laws”), how many times will I get an “emergency” call from the office to explain to my boss how to use a program, because their generation refuses to learn more that email?
This is the “guilt” for my generation. No wonder we rarely take vacations, plus most of us can’t afford to travel very far.
2
According to the ICAO site (follow the link in the article) the IPCC states that aviation accounts for approximately 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. So even if everyone stopped flying, it would make only a relatively small dent in global emissions. In the U.S., the ground transportation and power generation sectors are much more significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. These sectors are also areas where it’s far easier to reduce emissions with individual actions than in the aviation sector. While shaming individuals for flying is largely ineffective, there’s nothing wrong with pressuring airlines to reduce their emissions. Flyers can also purchase inexpensive carbon offsets through many airline sites when we book our flights and continue to reduce our personal carbon footprints in myriad other ways. My spouse and I were recently riding an airport parking shuttle and I pointed out the shuttle bus was electric. He said he hadn’t even noticed and I admitted the only way I knew was by the small decal on the window. That’s the point we need to be making to those who have been made to fear they’ll be forced to “give up their way of life”...truth is you won’t even notice the changes.
6
@Can’t Wait To Vote Again
I found the link to ICAO, but I have not yet found what you quote. Can you give a link?
@sutter
https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CORSIA/Pages/CORSIA-FAQs.aspx
It’s in the Frequently Asked Questions, number 1.2
If a greater percentage of Americans would get a passport and travel outside the US, over the long-term, flying might turn out to be worth the cost for two reasons.
One, we have a provincial attitude about how exceptional this country is. As a country, we seem to have little or no curiosity about how the rest of the world lives. We need a citizenry with broader perspectives before we can get past this arrogant idea about how America should be the colossus astride the globe. We've got a lot to learn from other countries about how people move around (among many other lessons).
Second, if Americans experienced the infrastructure of first-world countries, they might come home and demand the same. Local and distance travel in Japan is jaw-droppingly easy compared to here because their infrastructure is awesome. Americans don't see the benefit to such infrastructure because they don't experience it here and don't know what they're missing.
We used to think big like that. Not anymore. High-speed trains, abundant charging stations for electric vehicles? How socialist.
We are a can't-do nation now.
11
It is possible to travel responsibly. If flying becomes very expensive (as a result of a substantial carbon tax, for instance) it would create a demand for energy-efficient trains and buses. Even oceans can be crossed efficiently. These are less convenient but they can be done.
Or at least it would keep the poor from traveling, which would make the experience more posh.
7
@Rick
As a regular bus and train traveler I can tell you that not everyone who travels on these is affluent.
1
Well, I don’t feel guilty. We worked hard for forty five years, to be able to retire and live our dream of traveling. We own an electric car, which is charged with hydro-electric power and solar. So, when we go to Spain for our three weeks of vacation we will not feel guilty to be contributing to their local economy.
One thing we can all do, is refuse any plastic bag for anything we purchase! Refuse it, send a clear message to the store you are buying from. Take your reusable bags with you or save the paper bags and reuse!
Let’s stop our plastic addiction!
11
Stay at hotels, not Airbnbs, when possible. Airbnbs drive up local rents and depopulate city centers of locals. The locals who can no longer afford to live in the city are then pushed farther into the periphery, causing more demand for housing to be built on the city's outskirts, from where locals will then need to commute (so, more travel) back into the city for their jobs or for visiting their family and friends who still live there. Eventually, these city centers become hallow versions of their former selves, existing mostly for tourists (ever been to Venice?).
Also, if you're renting a whole place to yourself on Airbnb, you'll have very little contact with the owner. The richest contact I've had with locals has been with hotel staff.
7
I don't remember where I read this, but some wise person wrote that, as an individual, it doesn't matter if you recycle, limit/eschew air travel, etc. etc. perfectly. That will not get us our of this mess. What matters is vast numbers of people doing all the right things imperfectly. That is what will make a difference. Vote, vote, vote, and demand change from our politicians. As inspiration, look at Bolsonaro's turnabout on his Amazon policy due to other leaders' and large groups of people's boycotts of Brazilian products. Rising up and standing together can be effective.
8
Air travel is my last resort when I need to travel. Ridiculous schedules, confusing on-line ticket buying also open to scamming, airlines that then want to bump you because they intentionally overbooked, TSA and its theatrics including groping each passenger, gawd-awful planes that the Congressionally allowed de-regulation has foisted on us, endless fees, and grossly overweight people filling your tiny space. Rest assured, in the U.S., air-travel isn’t down because of carbon footprint scolds.
The U.S. has no high-speed rail and has no universal, affordable healthcare. In terms of citizen well-being, we're a second-world nation. We’ve got more to worry about than the carbon footprint of families or retirees vacationing by air.
Start simultaneously with power plant emissions that can be offset with renewables and start with high-speed rail replacing both intermediate distance air travel and a large percentage of car travel.
5
@Liam Jumper Flying has never been cheaper than it is today and there's always going to be a flight that works for your schedule. Your odds of getting bumped have never been lower (I enjoyed getting those vouchers that made my next trip free). The fees are transparent and booking directly with the airline is better than using an online travel agent (OTA) like Expedia.
I haven't had a problem with TSA or been groped in years.
But I agree with you on your other points.
I think it's cute that Mr. Kugel is worried about how his vacation will impact the environment. I haven't had a vacation in about half a decade.
3
Cruise ships are even worse than planes. Funny that was not mentioned. I would have also liked to have known which airlines are using biofuels. I think Alaska is one of them.
1
When China and India clean up their acts, I will start feeling guilty for taking mass transit to and from my vacation destinations, destinations that make me appreciate the planet even more than I did previously, further making me wish India and China would do their parts, too.
5
I am a Senior Citizen and have been for quite some time. I would love to see Paris and Rome and if i can get a traveling companion to go with me, am confined to a wheel chair, I am going! I have two children, two grown grandchildren, have always lived in small houses and was never an avid shopper. Seeing these cities and their art in person would mean everything to me. So my last act would be a selfish act? Even though i have given much to charities down through the decades, I guess i will die as a selfish person, selfish or fulfilled?
8
Talk to your children and grandchildren about traveling to Paris with you!
I wish I would have had the opportunity to see Paris with my grandfather, talk about bonding and making lifelong memories!
Go for it, you have earned travel!
8
“How guilty...”. Really? Man, are we messed up when we have to feel guilty about taking time away from work for physical and psychic rejuvenation. Explains a lot about the sad state of public civility.
11
Should I feel guilty about flying to spend time with family one precious time per year before I go back to my lower middle class existence as a corporate drone slowly working myself to death one day at a time? No.
Should the corporate CEO feel guilty about flying 2 Boeing 747s everywhere they go, including to the city where they board their mega yacht which is nothing more than a floating GHG factory? Yes.
15
I do not feel guilty at all. This is yet again another effort by affluent people out of touch with reality. Must be nice to take a racing yacht to a conference of talking heads. Sorry, I have to work 50 weeks a year so I can have 2 weeks of vacation. I am perfectly entitled to spend my money on air travel, and even a trip to an "overtourism" city like Venice. Just checked again, zero guilt.
18
@Dale -- seriously, it must be nice to be a homeschooled 16 year-old with rich friends and nothing but time to fill.
I don't get enough vacation time each year to sail ONE way across the Atlantic in a private yacht.
1
Rather ironic to throw guilt around, given that most Americans get little or no paid vacation.
Even more ironic if the generally small paid vacation times in the United States are compared with those of most European countries.
I'd suggest that priorities for laying on guilt start first with correcting the lack of paid vacation and sick leave and establishing reasonable paid parental and family care leave.
No point in wrestling with vacation travel guilt until, ummm, the majority of people can actually afford extensive travel.
8
What about honest and candid travel writing? That would reduce unnecessary vacation travel by half. Not everywhere must be visited. Indeed, many do not.
2
Worried about greenhouse gas emissions? So am I. I’m on vacation touring in Illinois, Indiana and soon into Ohio by car. The worst offenders are the hotels who run their air-conditioners at the highest levels. You step into the lobbies, it’s freezing. You step into the corridors, it’s freezing, and when you open the door to your hotel rooms, you wonder how many hours has the AC has been running. These are ways that vacationers can control greenhouse gas emissions. Say something. Tweet something. Put it out on Trip Advisor that the hotel you’re staying at is running the AC at too high a level. Airplane travel is the wrong bird to pick on. Choose something you can actually make a difference.
7
Agree!
2
“The more we try to change other people’s behavior — especially by making them feel bad — the less likely we will be to succeed.”
Where’s the evidence for this claim? Indeed, it seems to be working quite well in Europe. Imagine how different the conversation would be if the NYT and other outlets were honest about the chances of near term social collapse or even human extinction due to climate change.
4
I have three extremely well-educated siblings, Cornell PhD and two MD's from U of Va., and they don't seem to think one whit about the environmental cost of travelling.. Since I am on the camp of don't do it, it is unnecessary and the crisis is now, is my next step to question these siblings on why they don't seem to care a whit a bout the impact of their extensive vacation travel??And I mean extensive - my Cornell phd sister has been everywhere since she retired, and we are Foreign Service Officers daughters - we had already BEEN everywhere by the age of fifteen..Their trips to the Galapagos, the Faros, Paris every year, Maccu Piccu, Scotland Great Way, re-unions, coast to coast..all flying, every year all the time..They are baby boomers, and it seems to be true - the leftist attitudes attributed to the baby boomers is actually more a product of the generation of the 30"s and 20's..My siblings just don't seem to care..I just don't get it ..I will ask them someday, but I don't want to create a rift with my entire family..
5
If your everyday life is boring enough to require the stimulation provided by air travel, perhaps it's your life that needs re-evaluation. Guilty or not, partaking of our industrial lifestyle (cars, industrially produced food/clothing/housing, air travel) has driven us to the brink of extinction. Those who can do this with no guilt have an amazing mental skill, but not one that I can admire.
3
@David Veale — Once the human race goes extinct, I’ll seriously consider cutting back on travel.
Flying On A Jet Plane
What won’t I do to dial down my footprint?
The good earth needs saving 100%;
I’ll bike to the orient, swim all the way;
Or take a jet plane to fly far away
By coach or first class as I betray
Our planet’s health for my holiday;
Feel the guilt at confession, unrighteous fraud,
Green in my heart as I fly abroad.
1
Is there a thing where baby boomers are super defensive about their excessive consumption of resources? Leave something for the rest of us y’all.
3
Please just consider not visiting some places. Amsterdam has more visitors than residents. Similarly, my own city is so thronged with weekend-trippers that some streets are literally unpassable. There are entire blocks in the historic centre where no one actually *lives* - it's either tourist traps, Airbnb apartments (depriving locals of housing), or hotels. You don't have to see *everything* - I myself have made my peace with the fact that there are probably many places I won't see before I die.
4
Yes, with climate change.....it is only a matter of time before mass travel becomes an undoable endeavour.
2
This article is typical of liberal hypocrisy. Act concerned about the environment but fly anyway. Act concerned about racial discrimination but protest plans to integrate your local school. Act concerned about inequality but support taxing only the other guy just a little more wealthy than you are. This is one reason that I don’t take the left seriously.
I fly routinely for vacations, many times a year, even just for quick weekends to ski or get away. I live in a house many times larger than average and keep it cold in summer and warm in winter, because the cost of doing so isn’t meaningful to me. I drive SUVs and high performance cars because they are fun and satisfy my lifestyle. I eat meat when I feel like it and don’t think twice. And I have zero guilt.
Look, I’m not denying that climate change is an issue, but what I do isn’t even a rounding error. Pass global policies that make sense, such as cap and trade that can create incentives for innovation and conservation. In the meantime, leave me alone.
10
In June I took 25 high school kids from Portland, OR to Los Rios, Dominican Republic to build a basketball court for the local children. Flying from Portland to SFO, then onto Newark then Santo Domingo. From Santo Domingo we boarded a bus for the 7 hour drive to Los Rios on the border with Haiti. We slept in a high school classroom, under mosquito nets, with no a/c. Night time temps rarely fell below 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Building the court was hard work requiring 500 bags of concrete and mountains of sand and gravel...mixed on site. The pay off was seeing local children connect with our kids...and finally, be able to dedicate and use the court before we left. Was it bad for the environment? Maybe. Was it good for the community? Absolutely.
3
I’ll never understand the logic of Americans traveling to Latin America to build charity projects while Latin Americans sneak into this country to build homes for Americans. Plus the carbon footprint of those bags of concrete, yikes.
2
There are so many things wrong with this article, one hardly knows where to begin. Many of the comments cover the obvious issues. My favorite (I paraphrase): “Well, we didn’t have children so now we ought to be able to fly in retirement guilt-free.” But credit to the NYT for feeding its target audience!
4
@Anonomous --
Not creating future consumers is the best thing anyone can do for the environment.
People who feel entitled to ravage the environment because they drive a Prius or Tesla, because they have no children, or because they work for a non-profit.
3
I feel zero guilt. If I didn't fly, I couldn't visit overseas locations, or many within this continent. I intend to visit them, when and as I can.
3
@Longue Carabine yes, it is good to know that YOU are the most important thing on earth..I'll let everyone else know, your happiness comes before environmental degradation and species die-off..Good job, good leadership! You can join a lot of other humans in their inablity to see beyond their own nose..
3
@grace thorsen -+ I don’t consider myself to be the most important thing on earth, just more important than grace thorsen. But feel free to let everyone else know.
@grace thorsen Most if not all of us can't see beyond their noses. We may catch a glimpse now and then. I'm glad she intends to fly to Europe. She will probably become a world citizen, not just a citizen of the USA, and that will affect many people she knows or comes in contact with. We need MORE World Citizens. It might even make for fewer wars...some day.
1
the answer is easy- buy yourself a pair of virtual reality goggles or glasses, plug in to your computer and, Voila! there you are. Oh, I forgot one thing, what does it take to make a pair of goggles/glasses? Rare earth minerals?
1
What vacation. I haven't had one and can't afford to now.
I am a moderate pragmatic progressive liberal and I travel once or twice per year. My more liberal coworkers try to shame me into traveling less, and to places less far away. They do not try to shame anyone in the political middle or right of me because they know it is futile. So, I am vulnerable to the shame because I am liberal. The environmental shame strategy has been around as long as I can remember. It is not an effective way to solve our environmental issues.
Another travel writer Rick Steves wrote this piece:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/20/magazine/rick-steves-travel-world.html
I am with Rick on this one. I think travel is important. Yes, let's be thoughtful about our consumption, but there is a balance. We do not need to become like an ascetic.
2
Guilt? More than 10% of the world economy is related to tourism. I travel all the time to keep the world economy going. I think I should be proud and thanked.
As for problems with the climate, I'll believe they are true when Al Gore practices what he preaches and when the Obamas don't buy a $14 million vacation home on the edge of the (supposedly) rising ocean.
For what it's worth, I ride a bike a lot more than I ride in a car. But that's because riding a bike is more fun.
3
Airplanes aren’t going anywhere,either are airlines, cheers
1
I wish I HAD the money to the point where this would become a concern to me. A lot of privileged people who have the opportunity to fly at least once a year to wherever they want are now whining about this? Why don’t you talk to Trump about this – how many times has he flown to his properties and back since he’s been in office?
3
The world is a better place with fossil fuels and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Let’s focus on carbon capture and ways to actually solve that problem instead of being religious and Puritan
4
Shame made me give up my gig as a cruise ship musician, having been so employed for many years on Norwegian and Carnival cruise lines. Cruise ships are atrocities: for the environment, the much-abused crew, and the passengers (through overeating and drinking). Stay off ships, please!
5
All you have to do is sit in 8 lanes of gridlock and multiple this by all the cities in the world and realize the game is over. The gas cars are not going away any time soon.
Every time there is a report on some global weather extreme or event scientists say "Golly, it is getting worse a lot faster than we thought it would.
We don't deserve this paradise, earth. We are proving this every day. Humans are smart, but seldom wise.
Teach your young children how to forage and live nomadically, how to grow food and fix things.
I still plan to live smartly, drive an electric car and bike for recreation. This lets me sleep at night. Bbut what about the masses of water sport craft, snowmobiles and dirt bikes?
My actions are a negligible drop in the ocean.
Really the final human Ponzi scheme. Enjoy!
4
If you really want to feel less guilty, don’t have children! The root cause of our environmental problems is not tourism, it is over-population. If there was half the human population there was on the planet as there is now, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are now.
7
Millions of individual choices amount to large scale action. Also: the argument that travelling makes for better people is a cheap "get out of jail card". And it is smug. There are people who travelled the world who are still terrible human beings and kind people who never left the village. Immanuel Kant never travelled far. I love travelling and I struggle with these kind of questions but we should not be that lazy in answering them.
5
I don't know why the Times ever solicited this article if its only contribution is to skate across the surface of the problem. Yes, some people will feel better following its minor-league recommendations; meanwhile, many will feel as if we deserve better insight. We're not dumb consumers and we buy the Times because it usually thinks we're smart.
1
One more thing for the 10% to feel guilty about. It's tiring.
1
Feeling guilty about taking a well-deserved vacation: What an utterly American concept.
8
Most forests would be completely burned as soon as they' ve grown, without human intervention, as part of a natural cycle. Or destroyed by plant-eating animals (see the case of how they saved Yellowstone by introducing wolves again). 1-2 volcanoes are enough to pollute the atmosphere more than human do in one year. And the Chinese are polluting with plastics 10 times more than the West. The "natural environment" is nothing like the Christian bible has taught you.
1
Just to be that guy: the author uses as a funny/improbable example that one's carbon footprint might be bad if you "quit your job for the Nature Conservancy to become a coal lobbyist." Just want to spread the news that the Nature Conservancy owns an oil well, a well they leased on a piece of land that was given them to help preserve an endangered species. So, the Nature Conservancy is actually a pretty vile organization.
1
@Joe If they believe they can really do more good with the money from leasing that oil well than the harm it causes, would you argue that they still shouldn't on principle?
Countries in the process of developing now (maybe China?)
have dirty air due to their industries. Their argument is that
the US and western Europe were also dirty during the
development phase ...
I'm in that position relative to travel. In the past I could not
afford it, having been born poor. Now that I can,
it is suddenly shameful.
2
It's OK, we don't have to feel guilty. This was the world we were born into. We didn't invent cars or planes or any of our other carbon technologies that destroy the environment and will, if not eliminated, make much of the world uninhabitable. We should continue to do what we do because it's so difficult and inconvenient to change our behavior, and our politicians make way too much money from the status quo, the carbon industries in particular. Someone will figure this out, someone else will fix it and it will all be fine. The problem isn't really the technologies anyway, it's over-population, right? That's what our Republican friends like to say. That's another way of saying lots of poor people in undeveloped icky countries will just have to die, and then the problem will be solved. They believe the healthcare problem will be fixed in the same way only locally. We can call it "selective depopulation," or maybe "genocide by default", and remember it's someone else's fault. But again, not to worry, mostly all of those depopulated people will live somewhere else, in poor already marginally endurable places. So just keep doing what you're doing because it's someone else's problem to deal with and someone else will suffer the worst consequences... unless of course you actually have a conscience.
5
I’m as guilty as anyone in terms of flying. I would feel less so if the only planes I took were trans-oceanic and infrequent, and I’d probably enjoy it more to travel on the surface, but flying between European destinations with discount airlines, for example, is a lot cheaper than any train. Staying in short term rental flats likewise is cheaper, among other conveniences, than staying in hotels. They’re easy choices. Like most forms of more conscionable living, the “right thing” comes with cost and sacrifice; morality is a luxury of time and money. Is the issue a saturation of an industry that’s irresistible in our age of FOMO and social media posts, as well as economically accessible? Is travel our morally bankrupt zeitgeist?
3
Reducing air travel is one, small way to address climate change. If you want big change increase photosynthesis, which uses sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into sugars that the cell can use as energy. Healthy soils are the earth's largest carbon sink, cooling the atmosphere. How do we build healthy soils? Regenerative agriculture: farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle. Cancel your next flight and support your local regenerative farmer or rancher.
3
I travel a lot including by air, but have taken a number of steps to control my carbon footprint. I have been biking to work for 20 years and don't own a car. I use public transit often as well as Amtrak. When leasing an apartment I either choose 100% renewable electrical supply if offered or decouple my supplier from the local distributor to get 100% renewables. For the remaining footprint I track miles of air, train, and car travel as well as hotel nights and restaurant meals. For the past 10 years I have been using that annual estimate to buy carbon offsets. While I see some challenges with the regulation of offsets my primary concern is in deciding what to pay per metric ton of CO2. I have come across estimates ranging from $10 to $120. I would appreciate NYT articles discussing carbon offsets including their regulation, effectiveness, and price.
2
I feel no guilt ever about this stuff. why? I have no children. this is by far THE biggest single thing one can do to "save the Earth." In fact, if everyone was like me--this problem would end very soon.
So get a rescued dog instead! save the earth! end the reign of the human stain.
3
What an amazing article! It's hard to imagine the Times' (or anybody else's) food critic suggesting you eat out less frequently!
But mostly, I applaud Seth's VERY specific suggestions. It'd be extra sweet if he followed up with - a la all kinds of online sites - "if not Cusco, how 'bout X?" (Ditto for Dubrovnik.)
I suspect that the latter would be an easier piece to write, and that's one of the soft spots in his article. At some level, he is "right" to put down bucket-list traveling, BUT how DOES one make the "RIGHT" choice as to whether a visit to Venice is a "must" or a "well, sure, if you're only a train ride away?" ... Really, what is easy to dismiss as "oh, you're an '8 wonders of the world traveler,' " can easily be flipped to -
OH, so you know that time and money will limit the amount of time you spend out of the country. WHY NOT see what many/most would agree are "the most spectacular?" Of course, that's why they are over-touristed, and I'm aware that seasonality warps things still further.
But mostly, I caution the author to recognize the oh so wide gulf between HIS profession and his options vis a vis 99% of his readers. Yes, we can both use AirBNB - and be as selective as he suggests. But that "Realistically, I can probably spend 10 days in a year" vs. his - all 365 are basically available ... changes everything! (Alternate - He's done ? 500 cities overnight as a tourist! My guess for the avg. reader of this column - 10 if in their 20's -> 50 if in their 50's.)
2
Sorry—this is the first year I’ve really embraced vacation and the opportunity to unwind/de-stress. Work is hard, life is short. Instead of self-flagellating take on the Kochs of the world.
2
How guilty?
Not at all.
4
From the 2017 article by David Wallace-Wells, "The Uninhabitable Earth", now a best-selling book by the same name.
Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think.
It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html
3
No offense but what is the point of living on this planet if we can’t travel and enjoy life .
4
This article displays a total absence of any number measuring CO2 emissions associated with air travel, yet says: "It is true that your round-trip flight is probably the biggest single contributor to your carbon footprint this year....". A bigger "single contributor" would be if you chose to telecommute to a job rather than drive to it as a single driver....or switch from a gas guzzling car to a more efficient one an EV.
Not engaging with emissions numbers skirts the big issues and feeds into anti-science attitudes that are at the very core of this issue.
2
This column is so white privilege I don’t know where to start. The majority of people around the world - read black and brown -can hardly afford to feed their kids, much less suffer from rich man’s remorse around leisure air travel. With limited resources for meaningful reporting these days, it’s a shame to waste the space on ways to alleviate Manhattanite guilt.
3
“So I recommend setting a high bar for your travel, making sure any trip maximizes your connection with the place you’re visiting, whether that be through volunteer activity, seeking out a particularly responsible tour operator or traveling where you have friends who can help you live truly local.”
Enough... I’m not going to let a travel writer — or anyone else — influence where I choose to spend my hard earned dollars on a vacation.
This is just ridiculous.
2
In the world we live in today, should we discourage extended air travel to other parts of the world?
As a social studies teacher, I travel during my summers to bring back experiences/lessons to share with my students.
Should I stop traveling in the name of climate change?
If I'm going to contribute to climate change, at least I can live with myself knowing that it will give my students a new perspective on what they learn from me. And then maybe they will find a more sustainable way of doing things when better technology comes about from my stories of seeing trash-strewned Rome, sinking Venice, abnormally hot London, inferno hot Paris, slowly drying up Dead Sea - Israel, searingly hot 100+ degree Madrid, 100+ degree Florence, etc.
In this world all indications are we use too much of our resources to maintain this lifestyle indefinitely. Constantly speeding up life to “live” it is messing with our genome. We honestly need a miracle in our thinking and wholesale change in the way we operate around the world as animals. The real enemy is our egos and the big egos around the world who don’t know when enough is enough.
2
Aw...don’t fly here and don’t drive there. Not all that helpful. But cows produce 14.5% of the world’s greenhouse gases...so why don’t we all just shoot them all and become vegetarians or vegans!
It would be kinda tough on those livestock breeds and we’d all be pouring soy milk over our cornflakes every morning, and the hotdogs and hamburgers on the backyard barbecue would be just a memory...but..slashing greenhouse gases by 14.5% will make a big dent in the global warming problem.
1
Dont get me wrong..... childless bike riding vegans are living a virtuous lifestyle that I'm sure is better for the environment. But to truly change people's behavior in an immediate and dramatic way (which is what's really needed here), the price for using fossil fuels must be increased. Increase the gas tax, tax air travel, and use the funds to pay for improvements to public transportation and development of alternative energy sources. And for God's sake, stop subsidizing the fossil fuel industry!!! 20 BILLION a year to help them continue extracting oil and coal from the ground is INSANITY!!
6
This entire mindset is laughable. The .1% flying into Davos on their private jets (with showers, think about that) telling the rest of the world to turn down their heat and just cover yourself in blankets all winter could care less about regular Americans.
You want a hero? Elon Musk. At least he’s trying. He realizes that change needs to be incremental and scaffolded: if we get to good electric cars, we can then work on the infrastructure of energy that runs them. If other billionaires were like him, we’d get somewhere.
5
We would land fuel cell cruise ships on the docks of California, to start. Tourism entertainment.
This is crazy talk, how often to people vacation? 2-3 times per year? Leave us alone.
1
I'm alive, ergo I am impacting the planet and I am feeling really bad about myself. Guilty enough?
1
@Fighting Sioux — try breathing a little less. It’ll reduce the guilt.
How guilty? if you live in a one-bedroom apartment, generate one bag of garbage a week, don't own a car, and fly four times a year, not guilty at all.
1
If you feel guilty about doing something, don't brag about feeling guilty. Either stop doing it or see a shrink. End of discussion.
3
Vacation locally. Problem solved.
The thing that always irks me is that if/when I make these choices, I might not get to see places and do these things while every yahoo with no moral conscience just traipses around the world instagramming their very staged ‘intrepid traveller’ shots. Sigh.
1
All this talk about saving the planet is really about saving ourselves. The planet will carry on long after us humans have drowned, burned, starved, and suffocated ourselves to death.
6
"So, O.K. How bad should we really feel?"
I don't feel bad at all. I did my vacation carbon cutting 10 years ago. Remember the "day-cation" and "stay-cation". As I recall, we all did a lot of carbon cutting 10 years ago.
Zero guilt. None, whatsoever. Sorry, not happening here.
3
Not everyone can sell their car and bike to work. Most of the areas in the US require owning a car. Full scale feasible public transportation simply doesn’t exist in most areas. Cars were the priority for this country, not public transportation. Provide ample of the latter and I’ll participate, but don’t try and shame me because that’s not an option where I live and it’s not feasible to move.
4
Rich countries have large emissions footprints. Poor ones have small footprints. Economies use energy to create wealth. No American or European is ever going to have the carbon footprint of someone in the poorest countries of Africa, two of which have an average emissions rate of 0 tons per person.
The answer - you should feel plenty guilty about your vacation, be it air, land or sea.
The whole tone of this article typifies the hypocrisy of the left, lead by the NYT's, when it comes to climate change.
Too many are looking for magical, global solutions to carbon emissions. Massive taxes or surcharges are the preferred solution, all to be managed by unaccountable bureaucrats in DC, Brussels or the UN. This is the 'easy' answer for the elite, except when it drives all but them in to penury and a forced deterioration of quality of life.
We should be adapting the 3 R's of waste management to life in general - reduce, reuse, recycle.
This would also include staying as close to home as possible in all matters - working, traveling and source the most basic needs for life, including clothes and food.
It is not just global travel, but our massive global supply chain in the quest for ever cheaper consumer and food goods that is destroying the planet.
And, most of all, let's be mindful of the biggest contributor of all to climate changed - unchecked population growth with all those billions of people aspiring to 1st world lifestyles.
Unless we check the world population down to a sustainable level (3 billion? 2 billion? Even as low as 1 billion?) all we are doing will be for naught.
1
I feel no guilt. None.
4
Greta Thunberg is taking a solar sailboat - surely us grown-ups can be even MORE responsible than she is..There is NO business meeting that cannot be done by video conference..Caltrans employees regularly fly up to Sacramento - that is just garbage..And speaking of garbage, that is another area you can excert your individual responsibliity..So as far as I am concerned this half-commitment this columnist recommends to fight climate change is just not getting it..The crisis is now, your actions count, every one of them..If you have kids, I can't see how you can fly for business or pleasure anymore..I think the Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg has it right - since Gore lost the presidential election there has been no significant' action, and the Koch Bros have been winning at killing the earth..We need to stop this NOW. The dark forces of capitalism are way harder to change than we can expect, so you might as well start with controlling your own life.
2
Oh for heaven's sake, stop obsessing about everything. Buy a smaller car, plant a tree, and travel.
3
Vacation? What’s that? I haven’t been able to afford a real vacation in over two decades.
1
As a conscious consumer and thus a conscious traveler the way you travel is more important than burning jet fuel.
Start with key concepts from “Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.” In this insightful book edited by Paul Hawken, he has a top 15 list of solutions. Eliminating flights is not even in that top 15. At the top: Refrigeration (1), a.ka. Air Conditioning. Fly to some place hot and then sequester yourself inside a refrigerated room = carbon criminal #1.
Next in the list is alternative energy: Wind Turbines (2), Solar Farms (8), Rooftop Solar (10). How that A/C and the rest of your vacation is powered is more important than your flight. Rounding out the top 15 include items specific to your food choices: Reduction in Food Waste (3), Plant-Rich Diet (4), Silvopasture (9), Regenerative Agriculture (11). The food lifecycle from how it is made and the amount of waste produced, to how far the food traveled and how many forests were destroyed to make it are just as important as how far you traveled.
Next come Tropical Forests (5), Education Girls (6), Family Planning (7), etc. related to conservation and social impact. If you can travel to locations where you can be part of promoting the education of girls and the empowerment of women, you can make more of an impact which will cumulatively offset your flight.
As conscious consumer, pick destinations, hotels and activities which take a more holistic & Regenerative approach.
2
Think globally.
Travel regionally.
2
@JustInsideBeltway - what if your relatives and friends are in another country?
2
Not at all and I am not in the mood to be scolded by a New York Times columnist for the two cross country flights I took in the last 20 years. Be reminded that the vast majority of us can afford to fly only rarely and cannot afford to pay more to offset the so called carbon footprint.
4
The column doesn't mention the ghastly food waste in the travel industry - especially the cruise ship industry.
1
No need for concern: shake off the guilt.
3
Hard to believe that the average NYT reader really flies that often. Angkor Wat. The Maldives. Venice. Really?
Most Americans I know fly home to Ohio at Thanksgiving and that's it.
If I meet Americans who have travelled outside the US it's usually a once in a lifetime trip to Europe years ago. This writer seems to spend a lot of time with the 1% of the 1%, and flight shaming them isn't going to make any difference to anything.
3
I'm not sure what you talking about, I haven't afforded to take a vacation since 2007 so I don't feel guilty AT ALL.
1
My play, "Sea Level Rise: A Dystopian Comedy" shows what life will be like in South Florida in the future. It isn't pretty.
You can see the trailer for the performance recording here:
https://youtu.be/G_vOwUk_kwU
Ride a bike near home for vacation.
And seriously, stay off cruise ships.
I’m sorry. This is just not something I’m going to feel guilty about.
3
If I were to rely on everything I read in the New York Times the end of the world doesn’t look like such a bad alternative.
5
What nonsense, it's not up to the wealthy to sacrifice. Curtail air travel? If the world is to be saved it's to be saved by the have nots. They wealthy know what it is to have. Depriving them will be traumatic to them. Don't they suffer enough not having everything? The poor of the can only know what it's like to have nothing. Give them less they will hardly notice.
I got a kick out of a lesser known actress / comedian saying she paid 10,000 for electric bills. Being a nobody must really pay to afford that. She traveled all around the world mostly I think to alert the world of the damage done by fossil fuels. Like Leo DiCaprio but he flies around in private jets. We all must sacrifice they say.
Those swedes are really scare me those that could afford to fly yet refuse to do so. Why deprive themselves? They are a small country what possible effect they have on the climate. It's countries like the Congo, Nigeria, and Kenya have to tighten their belts. They're wanting better will surely end up as disaster for us. How many of them fly you ask? Not many. And let's keep it that way.
I can’t imagine voluntarily boarding a commercial aircraft. It’s the part of work I hate the most. From shucking your apparel for the blue suites goons at security, through the cattle call boarding process and into a seat that forces anyone but the smallest child into a stress position, it is one of the worst things short of jail that the world has to offer. I can’t imagine going through this for fun.
2
This OpEd manufactures a problem to address when your readers have much more urgent things on their minds:
1. Fires in Brazil
2. A deranged executive
3. A trade war
4. The resurgence of isis
5. Foreign interference in elections
6. A looming recession
7. Deregulation of environmental protections
8. North Korean nuclear programs
9. Iranian nuclear programs
10. Russian nuclear programs
You want to focus on vacation?
2
When you get off that big plane buy some trees for that city and let’s plant them all over the world. Elect officials who really care about our environment.
1
Ah, Guilt!!! It's all talk - want to "enrage" a good lefty in NYC? Tell them you only commute by bicycle - and listen to a litany of complaints how cyclists ignore laws and endanger everyone around them - ignoring, of course, the complete lack of data to back that up and the roll call of dead cyclists and pedestrians injured or killed by cars. Watch eyes roll if you describe a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, or practice any healthy way of living. I also wonder who travels so much the should feel shame or - get this, volunteer when on vacay!!! Note to Author: the working class are lucky to get on vacation a year - and if they travel, and it's not by car, please let them enjoy SOMETHING in these relatively dark times. I get it: you're enlightened and can see the darkness underlying the travel industry. Good for you: now let the unwashed go lie on a foreign beach or explore a distant capital without being made to feel like a villain.
2
Really want to cut down your travel footprint? How about filling empty seats in autos already going your way. Support National ID-Based Hitchhiking.
2
No, we need shame now. Children in cages, the Amazon is burning, and there are mass shootings almost every day. It is time for people to feel shame.
1
Well, i'm 83 and have been to Dubrovnik, Venice, Cuzco, and Angkor Wat so not going there, but I'm not taking busses to DC. Next 4 trips likely to Vancouver (to start a NYTimes cruise), Fla, Dom Rep and maybe Charleston. Just put solar panels on my house so my guilt about plane trips will be limited and i do my best to stop the bartender from putting plastic straws in my vodka.
1
I went to Catholic school. Travel was the ONLY thing they didn’t try to make you feel guilty about! But thanks to the law of equal and opposite reactions, I soon became immune to all this guilting and shaming of pleasure. So I can return to Venice anytime I want with a clear conscience. And to those morally superior childlessness vegetarians whom this outrages, I say you can go and... whoops, I can’t really say that. Sister Mary Ignatius might be listening...
4
Don't like hotel desk clerks, Seth? Maybe you've been staying at the wrong hotels. As Dr. Johnson put it, "There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."
1
Aw, shucks honey, he sounds just like Al Gore. Another child of privilege who's done it all telling the rest of us why we shouldn't, out of self-righteousness. Earth is already doomed and Nature is plotting her revenge against our species in various unstoppable ways, regardless of where we go or don't go, simply because the human animal has reproduced beyond its natural bounds.
5
I gave up my car 40 years ago after moving to Manhattan. I could never understand anyone living in Manhattan owning a car unless they were reverse commuters. However, the western world as well as the American west was intentionally built to require gasoline and a car by oil companies and auto makers. They knowingly placed the population in an impossible position for profit as much as did cigarette companies. Industrial tourism is also to blame and just as irresponsibly profit driven. The hedonism of the western world has caused an ever widening sphere of destruction. There has been an intentional and fundamental promotion of a distorted sense of what an acceptable and enjoyable quality of life means to maximize consumerism and profit. This was understood by some as long ago as 60 years. Most of the establishment and population, felt this to be nieve. I guess they now find themselves in the perennial pickle, to be kind. Good luck.
1
I have friends who run run run, rarely ever at home. What's all this running around really about anyway? Are they happy? I'm not so sure. This old man will never regret his rich and happy life at home. Edna St. Vincent Millay had it right.
The Unexplorer
There was a road ran past our house
Too lovely to explore.
I asked my mother once–she said
That if you followed where it led
It brought you to the milk-man's door.
(That's why I have not traveled more.)
Of course, the biggest voices of raising alarms about climate change and carbon footprint are celebrities and limousine liberals, all of whom travel more in a month then I do in 5 years, have houses 10 times the size of mine, and many of whom drive around with entourages consisting of 3-5 large SUV’s.
But little ole me has to feel guilty about I or 2 trips a year?
Give me a break. It’s articles like this that make folks shake their head in disbelief, and realize how far loony left, and hypocritical, liberalism has gone.
4
Try Zen meditation. Travel to exotic places in your mind you never knew existed. As a bonus, your carbon footprint will be limited to your own exhalations and, with practice and devotion, you will see more deeply into your interconnectedness with all beings.
They were such a promising species. However, through their hubris, myopia and self-absorption, they insisted on killing themselves off by making their Only Home unlivable for themselves. Ah well…
I’m gonna party like it’s 1999!
1
Maybe someone can enlighten me but - perhaps it would be more productive if the planet's bazillionaires put a tiny fraction of their money towards alternative fuels for aircraft. Instead, they and their hedge-fund pals are funding needless efforts to develop cars and trucks that put drivers out of business, along with ego-inflating efforts to shoot their bazillionaire buddies on joy-rides to Mars.
With income inequality, most Americans will, at best, realize one trip abroad in their lives, usually to visit a country of family origin. Others will be required by their employers to travel for business. Most of the people I know are lucky to spend a weekend camping at a nearby lake (which will be my own vacation this year). Whoever the overtourists are, they aren't the late great American middle class.
The bazillionaires control our Congress, our court systems, and the capital propping up fossil fuel production and use. They could change it all if they wanted to.
2
A similar op-ed was published earlier in summer. I tend to agree with commenters both here and there that while individual action is important, the most important thing in this particular discussion would be to think about limiting business travel and excessive, multi-yearly international trips taken by the very wealthy. It seems unrealistic and somewhat missing the bigger point to pin this on individuals refusing to take their one vacation a year or travel to see family (not just cousins and extended family, in this economy many of us live far from our parents and siblings as well). I also think there's a bigger point missed here: for some individuals, one or even several plane trips a year are cancelled out by other actions they may take day to day. I live in New York, own no car, take entirely public transportation, buy and eat organic and local, use beeswax wraps instead of ziploc bags... is it enough to stop the climate crisis? No... but I'm also unconvinced any individual action is, unless enforced and taken as a whole. For now, my one vacation and handful of trips to see my parents remain justified and I think on whole, my carbon footprint remains much lower than many who drive to work every day.
2
I mostly travel for work, having "working vacations," which I prefer. I have also cut down my travel and choose carefully when I am going on these work-related trips. Several of my friends are retired and travel without even thinking about their carbon footprint, but I don't think shaming them is the answer. They are adults and make their own decisions. What this article does not address are the multiple messages aimed at travelers to encourage them to travel, coming from the airlines, tourist boards,and media, including the Times. There are all kinds of ways we can cut down on our carbon footprint, including the manner in which we conduct our lifestyles and choices, having energy efficient homes, and voting for political candidates who embrace addressing global climate change in a proactive way.
"United Nations climate change conferences have grown exponentially in size over the past two decades—from small working sessions into the largest annual conferences currently held under the auspices of the United Nations—and are now among the largest international meetings in the world."
Santiago Climate Change Conference - December 2019
Bonn Climate Change Conference - June 2019
Katowice Climate Change Conference – December 2018
Bangkok Climate Change Conference - September 2018
2
Does not bother me one teensy tiny bit.
3
And don't forget to thank the radical America right-wing for historically starving, demonizing and decapitating train infrastructure, mass transit and train travel in the United States and making a car a necessity instead of the option it is in Europe, Japan and civilized countries.
Jet travel, of course, is necessary if you want to go far.
Airlplanes using pure biofuel shrinks emissions 60%, and using a biofuel blend can cut fuel emissions by 18%.
In the future, there will be electric-fuel airplanes, at least for for short haul flights
https://phys.org/news/2018-04-global-aviation-aims-green.html
We all need to support alternative energy technologies, ideas and political candidates.
...and remember to send the Gas Oil Petroleum candidates to retirement in a fossil fuel museum.
5
How many air miles are the Dem. candidates racking up, flying from one Primary state to another?
3
The only moral way to take a vacation is to take a walk every day for about 3 hours during your week off.. Ideally barefoot because leather shoes require animal sacrifice. Drink as little water as possible because global warming causes water shortages.It is ok to collect rainwater to fill your water bottle if you must drink. Sleep out doors in a tent with the A/C turned off in your house to save electricity. Eat very little food. Food causes your weight to go up and the bigger you are the greater is your metabolic rate which causes your lungs to exhale more CO2 .Enjoy!
3
Guilt. Very guilty. In fact, the guiltier you feel, the better you are.
...but what if guilt isn't a good motivator? The left has adopted this pseudo-religious mindset across a number of issues seemingly without bothering to ask if public piety and private guilt actually amount to anything.
2
The one thing tying the problems mentioned together is overpopulation
1
A silly article the real way to make a difference is to have less or no children. Global warming is the symptom, overpopulation is the real problem. If you have more than two children then that is a lot bigger problem than your vacations.
3
If you want to really reduce your carbon footprint, don’t reproduce, or have only one child. What happened to 0 population growth?
1
p.s. Good Lord, so many of the comments here are so petty and rude and also seem to miss the point of the article. I think we are all going crazy in this country.
1
And be sure to read articles by the most privileged among us as you go. Good grief.
People feel guilty when they know they shouldn't be doing something. Mass travel is something we can live without, the bonus is that destinations like Venice that are drowning in tourists can get some relief. I am going to do my best to never fly again, it's the least I can do or maybe not, I suppose the least I could do is keep on doing what I know I shouldn't and just make excuses for it.
This is a joke right? The Times seriously thinks it's readers are so racked with guilt about their "privilege" that they are questioning their vacations? Americans need to travel MORE. They need to get out there and see the world beyond Peoria or Biloxi or Manhattan for that manner. Much of the world does things better than we do. Cruise ship foolishness is one thing, but travel, the kind that expands horizons and exposes the traveler to new experiences is anything but something one should feel guilty about.
4
Contrary to what seems to be popular belief, there's a lot of research going on to find better, more sustainable ways of powering transport, including aviation. CNBC has a series called Sustainable Energy. In July 2018 the aired an episode about research being carried out by Rolls Royce to improve jet engines. It can be seen https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/05/the-innovative-engines-changing-transport-three.html. Other shows look at cars, boats, and other aspects of energy use.
1
Zero guilt. However, it would be great if cruise ships were banned. They are disgusting.
1
According to Francis Bacon "travel is the best form of education." I have taken this to heart since first reading that in high school in the 60's. I have been travelling ever since then. I have no intention of stopping. I agree that this may be selfish on my part but their is still so much I want to see before I depart this planet.
1
Been to 60 plus countries on five continents and zero guilt
4
air travel is a significant contributer to global warming and pollution. You don't need to do it..So just don't.
https://www.dw.com/en/to-fly-or-not-to-fly-the-environmental-cost-of-air-travel/a-42090155
1
Everything was so much better in the Dark Ages - no evil electricity, no climate destroying cars, no rain forest ravaging refrigeration. Bring back the plague! Bring back ignorance! Bring back misery! Bring back infant mortality, stench, and torture! End science, technology, progress, health, medicine, joy, and civilization now!!!!
1
The jist of this article seems to be: Be good as long as it isn’t hard. That’s a pretty weak statement. So, you don’t like hotel clerks? Well, by all means, remove that discomfort by contributing to AirBnB and it’s displacement of the locals. Sigh. That’s exactly the problem — being good, especially in travel, can mean stepping outside of our comfort zones. And the reporter has failed at that.
2
Beyond parody.
You take one? Lucky you!
Thou hast traveled far whilst staying entire at home, restless scribe
Before you all get out the cat-o-nine tails & flagellate your selves a little too much. Doesn't anyone think just possibly, the round-the clock fleet of planes spraying the sky makes any contribution to this global mess ? Not even one teeny weeny bit? What exactly, did you or I have to do with that ?
And before you tell me to grab my Tinfoil hat, and get out, just lift your eyes up from your tiny little screen for even a couple minutes every day. You might just notice that some weeks it is rampant & almost non-stop. I have lived & worked all over the country. It is over cities. It is over the desert -miles from any landing patterns as you will claim. It was in Europe. You can see it in movies & on TV. And even if you didn't care about the impact on our lives - just ask yourself - Who is paying for all this? It has to be an astronomical sum to be carried out at the rate it is. And no one ever asks.
Hasn't anyone noticed how may beautiful blue sky mornings are turned into murky gray soup by lunchtime? (When the radar map says it is clear as a bell ?) You're telling me none of that impacts a thing ? So don't whip yourself quite so hard. Before you do - just look up once in a while & observe. Its not ALL you.
Hmmm...don’t take a vacation at all. Keep working. Methinks this article is either a joke, or planted by “the boss”.
I guess if you really need to take that time off just use your monthly MTA pass and take the subway to Coney Island, the Rockaways, etc for 14 straight days. You’ll be the talk of the office.
Who needs the Greek Isles? Or Southern France? Or Cinque Terre? Do your part to save the world.
1
Don't feel guilty you'll get over it.
1
Very guilty since the world is facing its greatest existential treats from Trump and the Republicans since the brown shirts of the 1930’s there is something rotten in America and it’s not Denmark
I'll think about it when:
- the left and the press stop holding up on a pedestal major league hypocrites like DeCaprio, Gore, etc who chew through carbon like there's no tomorrow. Huge houses, huge SUVs, private jets!
- the NYT+NY Politicians do something about atrocious travel to/from airports. I was just in sweden...boarded a bus at airport, paid ~10usd got off 40 minutes later in the city-smooth ride with AC and free wifi
- politicians start being concerned in their lives, no HUGE SUV's, no frivolous travel, etc.
While it's nice the Swedish girl went by sailboat - it turns out quite a lot of carbon is involved in that boat...and a crew has to fly over to fetch it back to Sweden. But at least the press got a good story.
Thought this article title was a joke.... and realized it’s not — shocked!
I’m an American living in Amsterdam and have come to believe that the benefits you negotiate in a job position are your due!
The article title really should be — “If you feel guilty about taking a vacation stop right now, that’s just silly.”
2
I wonder if 20 years from now a candidates frequent flier miles history might be used against him like an old photo in Black face at a fraternity party. “Jane had Silver Elite status” might be the equivalent to saying “Jane attended a Klan rally.”
3
The only way to save the planet is to become lemmings and find the right Pied Piper.
I hereby pledge to lever my eyelid open with (renewable bamboo) matchsticks so that I can be as woke as the author of this article.
1
Hear Greenland is beautiful this time of year...
And that by tomorrow – early next week at the latest – the Big Guy is going to assert that he has the authority to make good on his threat to force all American vacationers to book Greenland for their downtime…
By Labor Day, going to be impossible to reserve a room…
Especially ocean-front – because no one’s quite sure where that is up there one month to the next…
PS
Now that they’re going to start celebrating Thanksgiving, that week’s going to be tough, too…
PPS
Moi???
Going to book a real middle seat on a parked 737 Max, and take a simulated flight to the Amazon basin…
A guilt-free zero-carbon-footprint journey…
And – if stratospheric smoke delays my simulated flight, understand that their module simulating sitting out on tarmac for a dozen hours with no restrooms or AC...
Makes Fortnite look like a VHS tape of an old Twilight Zone episode…
I live in Kansas and you can drive for three hours in any direction and still be in the middle of no where. Therefore I have to fly most places. Trains are obviously not an option.
Travel is my biggest luxury. And I will continue to do so, though I prefer places off the beaten path. I will console myself then the next time I am crammed into the cattle car, airlines call economy class. I will remind myself that all of us poor schmucks jammed in here together are at least reducing our carbon footprint by sitting on top of each other so airlines can load more people onto one plane.
I don't understand the shaming happening in the responses here.
Instead of the environmentally conscious pointing fingers at each other, we should be embracing the potential bipartisan solutions: making compromises between our need or desire to travel and our environmental concerns will require massive infrastructure investment. That means local jobs: renewal of rail lines, high-tech roads that double as solar panels, ramping up solar and wind farms. Jobs galore. And environmentally conscious alternatives to boot.
These are solutions that require political action, not shaming each other for not being self-sacrificing enough.
2
The ‘Flight Shaming’ movement is just another example of the ways in which large corporations use advertising and lobbying to force the public to foot the bill for the damage they do to the planet. It’s the reason Coke tells us to recycle, and it’s the reason Exxon and Con-Edison instruct us on how to be more energy efficient. They’re not trying to solve the problem, because ultimately that would lose their shareholders money. Instead, they want us to pay for their indulgences.
3
Why would you ever feel guilty about your vacation?
2
You shouldn't feel guilty about a vacation. You probably work like an ant, have a hard as life, and your family hates you. You deserve a vacation. Enjoy!
2
Vacation is an inherent right of any working person.
Down with all those who make the vacationers guilty -- the leftist radical Democrats, militant vegans, and well-meaning, yet scientifically and economically ignorant, crying mourners of Earth's climate.
4
Don't worry in the future you won't be allowed to travel but instead you will have chip in your head and you will be programmed to see how your vacation would be without leaving your residence. Talk about guilt. the guilt of a future existence where artificial intelligence takes over. Just go and enjoy yourself and stop whining.
1
Guilt-ridden Dems and so-called ‘progressives’ would do well to take a road trip across this magnificent land. I’ve been in all 50 and each one has amazing people and so much to see!
Get off the interstates and visit a rectangle state or two. Maybe even — quel horreur! — someplace like Mississippi or Alabama. You might actually learn a thing or two about this great nation.
Just be sure to get a tetanus shot in case, you know, you end up actually meeting one of your deplorable fellow citizens.
4
Read a book instead. Nobody, anywhere in the world, wants to see a vile American tourist.
3
Finally!
2
Ya na not feeling guilty whatsoever
2
I am not going to feel guilty about flying for a scant vacation when employers insist on consultants fly each week to be on site when internet and working remote is available and more productive.
4
One way to stop people from flying between many destinations within Canada and the US, would be for our governments to invest in high-speed rail infrastructure.
6
Dave McKibben gave a speech which I attended a week ago. One of the takeaways was that while a minority of us are making efforts in our everyday lives to combat climate change, it is minuscule at best and does little to decrease worldwide carbon emissions. As one commentator here expressed, “ The planes are still going to fly whether I’m on them or not...and they’re always full.”
Mr. McKibben is unsure whether we can stop the trajectory we are on without a concerted world-wide effort to alleviate our dependence on fossil fuels. Many countries are making an effort.
Ours is still propping up the coal industry, denying climate change and is still planing on drilling on public lands. Our politicians are supported by the fossil fuel industry. Our president thinks weather is climate.
So until we immediately begin to band together in concert and enact and implement bold climate policies, whether a few off us take auto, train or plane is moot.
What we do as a nation and a world to avoid the 12 year tipping point should be our main goal. And that requires voting, activism and money. The question is whether we are all willing to make the commitment. All of us.
6
How guilty? About as guilty as any other carbon gluttonous activity you undertake.
Oh, I get it, you write about it therefore you are virtuous, or make a donation to the Sierra Club.
Not.
You're ruining the planet. Stop.
I’m SOOOOO glad this article was published. It’s great to have someone tell you how to think and feel. What did people do without this great journalism?? How about a piece on how to tie your shoelaces without also getting your thumb tied to your ankle??
5
People saying they don't travel because they are so worried about carbon emissions need to seek therapy. Really. Your little transconintenal flight means nothing. NOTHING. Read beyond yahoo news and CNN and get over yourself. You are an ant, a nothing, in the big picutre. And what you choose to do or not do means nothing and contributes or detracts nothing. Read up on what is happening in China and open your eyes.
3
Americans need to travel MORE by air in order to be less ignorant, as we are separated by vast distances from other countries. You are giving the exact opposite advice - shame on you. Go worry about cow farts - people deserve a hard earned vacation where they want, and I hope they do fly and leave the US.
2
As the numerous Hollywood, leftist and globalist elite take private jets to Davos to discuss the bogus “man made global warming” hoax.
You can all go to Hades.
4
Guilty about having a vacation? What utter twaddle. I guess this is why American workers have always been screwed and always will be - they beat themselves up over having a break from work.
And what a first world problem anyway. Give me strength.
4
Thoreau wrote in Walden “I have traveled a good deal in Concord” and although he meant that figuratively his thought might be useful in the present context. My friends in New York rarely take time to explore their city. Almost none have cruises on the Circle Line it visited Ellis Island or had lunch in the delegates dining room at the UN or viewed the city from Top of the Rock or visited Kykuit in the Hudson Valley (for which I see there’s an ad in today’s print edition of the New York Times). These things are often considered, by too-busy metropolitans, as too touristy for a local to do or they’re “someday” to-do items. Same thing in LA and Boston. So yes, I’m suggesting more, not staycations, but more locacations.
To get people out of their personal cars and out of airplanes when they are traveling in this country we need comprehensive train service. Over the decades we have let our passenger service go by the wayside. When I was a child in the 1950s there were so many places to go by train. That's no longer true. People yammer about having high-speed trains, and that's all well and good. However, before we put our money and energy into high-speed trains let's get more trains.
There is an important thing the airlines can do in terms of saving energy and being more convenient for the traveler. Stop all the plane changing and go back to more direct flights. A pilot told me years ago that most of the fuel is used in takeoffs and landings. I live on the Mississippi Coast, and a couple of years ago I took a trip to Sacramento to see my grandson in a show. I took off from Gulfport, MS and was flown to Atlanta, where I changed planes for Sacramento. When I flew to Miami for my niece's wedding I flew via Dallas-Fort Worth. Both were ridiculous flights going way out of the way.
Let's bring back more passenger trains and demand that the airlines start having more direct flights. When they can't do that for some destinations at least fly in the right direction to start with.
2
Another reason not to fly. The skies might be friendly, but the airlines, airports are not so much in the short-term--just consider being packed in a plane stuck on the tarmac for hours. In the long-term, we have the impacts of the carbon footprint.
Perhaps we should reflect on why we travel and focus on that end. Perhaps people can focus on a slower pace that allows for experiencing a destination instead of just visiting it.
1
[Most of this will make travel more expensive — and that may mean traveling even less.]
My wife and I (retired) have been doing what Mr. Kugel now suggests for many years. We have found it to be LESS expensive and, therefore, spend more time traveling.
Well, at last we have an issue which has clear choices----flying uses fossil fuels and creates emissions, and there is no way we can obfuscate around it and pretend it doesn't. And of course everyone finds a way to justify their own use "there is no efficient mass transit," or "I live in Montana so we have to have two cars and fly to go anywhere," etc. Unike the gross hypocrisy of people driving electric cars, pretending not to generate any bad stuff while they don't acknowledge that their electricity is made by burning coal.
Where we live in the NW, nearly all our electricity is hydroelectric. So, electric cars here are not contributing nearly as much as combustion engines to carbon emissions.
Guilty? Doesn't that presuppose conscience? And isn't the eradication of conscience the real American Dream? One can't feel guilt unless one chooses to and a democracy has no conscience therefore, no guilt! Vacation from what? The question isn't whether or not we create waste, such as carbon footprints, but whether we can clean it up as fast as we create it. That requires hard work, a lot of energy, and bejeez, I need a vacation. Truth is very toilsome.
3
Shaming people for flying is the wrong approach; we should be shaming the companies who continue using fossil fuels to run their engines. I have a hard time believing that burning jet fuel is the only way to make airplanes fly. The logic is simple. If airplanes didn't burn jet fuel, if cars didn't burn gas, if power plants were clean, all of which are quite possible, we wouldn't be having this conversation about people feeling ashamed for living their lives. We're just buying the products available to us. If we shouldn't be buying them, stop selling them or come up with a better alternative.
2
Some 30 plus years living in San Francisco using little heat and no air conditioning. Driving something between zero and 3000 miles a year combined for two people. Not having children who will use energy not to mention their consumption of well, everything.
I think my wife and I have made our contribution to tackling the problem. When we retire in a few years, I for one will take a few flights around the world for travel and not feel one ounce of guilt.
3
Scandinavians proclaiming some type of virtue by not flying is hilarious when you consider how much fuel they use to fuel and light homes during their frigid winters. San Franciscans can teach the Swedes a lot about ecology and energy efficiency. Not flying saves some energy, but what about firing up a million saunas.
Some American cities would collapse without tourists, including New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, Orlando, Miami and Las Vegas. In many cities, the airport is the largest employer and a very large source of tax revenue. Without foreigners and out of staters coming to New York, Broadway would go dark and the restaurant industry would converge on dollar slices. More than 60 million tourists come to New York every year. Without them, we would pay higher taxes, have fewer jobs, and lose many entertainment venues that make New York great. If Newark, LaGuardia and JFK were curtailed and our only visitors came by bus or train from Long Island, Westchester and New Jersey, we wouldn’t be a world city, a world class city, or even a livable city.
5
My friend, capitalism is the biggest driver of climate crisis and that crisis will cause its collapse.
1
Interesting that we can demand the end of the use of fossil fuels & forget the impact that that would have on employment but worry about the impact that decreased travel would have on employment!
Read Leroy’s comment!
I agree with Seth. I’m retired & watch my upper middle class neighbors travel constantly while ranting about climate change. I haven’t raised the contradiction because I know it will not be well received but 6 or more cross country trips per year for purely pleasure seems excessive to me. I was very surprised to see a dear friend who supports women’s rights & climate solutions decide to vacation in Abu Dhabi...yet people refuse to connect the dotes.
Spend your time & money locally & watch documentaries & read nonfiction if you really want to be educated about the world. Beyond the Beautiful Forevers gave me a much deeper insight into the conditions of the poor in India than any week long trip!
I think I might change my online identity to “Just shaking my head”!
2
This is a very tricky question. I was a research analyst for a public tourist agency for several years. My reports were used to sell tourism to domestic and foreign travelers as well as politicians. Tourism is a competitive industry. Tourist destinations market aggressively.
“In total, Travel and Tourism generated US$7.6 trillion (10.2 per cent of global GDP) and 292 million jobs in 2016, equivalent to 1 in 10 jobs in the global economy. The sector accounted for 6.6 per cent of total global exports and almost 30 per cent of total global service exports,”
This quote is from Jamaica but it's the same work everywhere. That's what I was doing. Finding the facts that encourage people to travel and describe how tourism is a good thing for everyone. Even the locals.
And this is true. Tourism is often a good thing. Making economic arguments like these help convince reluctant politicians to support and fund conservation. No one wants to kill the golden goose. I helped polish that goose to an almost blinding shine.
However, there is a price to success. You can almost do your job too well. The destruction isn't limited to planes either. If I see one more international tourist bus roll up in a National Park, I'm going to scream. Rent-An-RV companies are next on my list. The whole industry is destructive in nature. We're loving our destinations to death.
At the end of the day, the cost-benefit didn't balance out for me. I had to get out. I sleep better at night as a result.
2
@Andy
Yes, the more one thinks - or the harder! - the more complicated things get.
I was recently in Venice, Italy. We were on board a "small" boat - 150 passengers our week. Yes, when a ship the size of a beefy NYC apartment building tootled by, we gasped ... and felt that something was "amiss."
Apart from the "look who's talking" rejoinder, it DOES seem to boil down to 2 knotty things. Is the answer to limit entry? a "lottery" sounds fair, but Shakespeare-in-the-Park in NYC suggests that (esp. in a country and industry where "money talks") it would quickly devolve to "Who's willing to pay the most to get in?"
Even worse, without being or sounding TOO radical, capitalism prizes growth and profitability - generally, to the exclusion of all [certainly most] else.
I think we can agree that "too little" "trickles down" to "the man in the street." ... At least our guide "got real" with us, saying that OUT-MIGRATION (of "locals") from Venice has been reality for 30 years. The damage all our feet do to floors is minor; what we do to LIFESTYLE - whether it's Africa or Venice - is anything but. (Things like barber shops being replaced by shops selling made-in-the-far-East hazerai!)
"...the biggest impact a person can have comes from pressuring governments to address travel-related problems on a large scale."
umm... have you met republicans?
The better advice is below: pressure the corporations.
Also, I hear this argument all the time and it's not a good one. The impact of an individual vote or phone call to congress is arguably just as (if not more) negligible than say, abstaining from flying. That being said, I do agree that shaming people to change their behavior is a losing strategy.
I am dismayed that few (I have not read all the comments) have mentioned the considerable benefits of travel in understanding other cultures and becoming a partner - not an opponent like our President - in this global world. In the U.S., we are facing a crisis in "us versus them;" just today, a Times article tells us about a Michigan municipal government candidate whose platform is "no foreigners." (I bet she has not traveled much.) There is ample evidence that exposure to the "them" - other races, ethnicities, religions, customs, beliefs - dampens hatred and discrimination.
I agree, air travel is one of the causes of climate change and environmental destruction that we must solve. When we do fly, all of us should consider travel with a purpose greater than shopping and mindless entertainment- staying and dining with locals, helping build a water pipeline, teaching orphans to read. But sometimes it is an eye-opener, and good for the soul, just to witness the rest of the world. So we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater!
1
But wouldn’t a better solution to the problem you raise be to interact with immigrants in our own country? Rather than taking an international trip?
A simple thing often not mentioned is that flying coach and eschewing upgrades like premium economy and business is also much better for the impact of your flight.
Airplanes are arranged to hold fewer seats to meet demand for the sparser, pricier cabins.
Essentially, your share of the carbon footprint of the plane is proportional to the cost of the cabin you are flying in.
4
The number one thing, by far, that everyone can do to minimize their carbon footprints, but never discussed, is to not have kids.
I'm tired of reading about how everyone should feel guilty about eating meat or having vacations or the latest thing we all ought to do to save the planet. If you want to feel guilty about something, feel guilty about having children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and on and on.
3
I'm poor, have no money to travel and therefore do my part for the environment by default. I am also a vegetarian by default. I can't afford meat. I haven't flown anywhere in over a decade. Being poor absolves one from much of the guilt that people with money seem to suffer, just because we can't do the things and buy the stuff that rich people do that are environmentally unfriendly. But, I'm not going to lie. None of this is my choice. If I had money, I would want to see the world and eat good food and wear beautiful clothes and live well, and wouldn't think for a minute about tomorrow.
5
I agree with Seth and look forward to joining a wagon train the next time I go to NYC. Amazon should not have a problem using the New Pony Express, and a great way to solve world wide unemployment will be rowing galleys.
1
We keep tying ourselves in knots trying to figure out a way to have our cake and eat it too. Just admit it, we care more about our personal luxury lifestyles than the lives of our children.
11
Ok, Leroy! You are sooo on point!
Most people I know go on cruises and other western (fancy) hotels, resorts (even eco ones) and theme park type places. What I experience is the equivalent of name-dropping, but it is place-dropping.
Rarely are people engaging in life-seeing-tourism and getting to know locals and learning about them. More often, it is a curated experience customized for a curated life, expressed on curated facebook and instagram pages. It would be less harmful and quite possibly more authentic, to just use photoshop for bragging rights, because you would have done far less damage. Anyone can experience a Marriott hotel right at home.
So yes, when engaging in this deleterious activity, one should feel guilty. And rightly so.
9
@Almighty Dollar What's missing from these mass-market, curated "experiences" is the joy of discovery.
Cruises are for the intellectually lazy and incurious.
My husband and I have always been independent travelers who want an immersive experience in cities we visit by learning the public transit system and avoiding touristy areas, but we just returned from a European river cruise, something we decided to do after years of seeing those gauzy sponsorship spots on PBS.
We were herded around like cattle, rushed from port to port, fed institutional food and bussed off to each destination's greatest hits along with thousands of other tourists, all following guides holding lollipops.
We wasted more than a week, contributed to the overtourism and environmental degradation of the Danube and could have, honestly, seen more from the couch watching Rick Steves.
I didn't realize what a responsible traveler I'd been all those years before this most regrettable trip.
15
@Randy: that's quite interesting. I've seen the ads too, and they present a LUXURY cruise on the rivers of Europe -- slow paced, fabulous food and intimate guided tours to all sorts of cultural treasures and secret hidden gems.
You failed to mention they are crazy expensive -- like $5K to $10K PER PERSON -- and pitched at the very affluent.
It's kinda funny that they turn out to be cattle cars herding people around to boring sights, and feeding them institutional-grade food! what a rip off.
1
In my opinion, we can view our lives and others' lives in this age of climate crisis through the lenses of the many stages of grief: shock and disbelief, guilt, denial, anger, bargaining, depression/reflection, working through and acceptance.
If we look at the climate crisis through the lens of grief, we can have more compassion for those who are in denial (Republicans) and those who are angry (lashing out at Greta Thunberg) and those who bargain (flying yet paying carbon offsets).
4
"Sacrifices" will have to be made. Although, leaving the planet alone should never be considered a sacrifice. Like quitting any bad habit, it is not a mater of deprivation--you will be doing something good for yourselves AND our beloved earth. People, who are still doing this should feel guilty, of course. Every small effort, by each of us, will make the difference. Worldwide commitment is required.
2
Best to try your best, given your own particular circumstances, to live your life in such a way that having to "get away" isn't an absolute requirement. The ability to relax and enjoy yourself isn't only a talent some people have, it is also a skill that can be learned. And our politics should help us in these efforts. For instance, universal health care would help many, so could also in that sense be good for the environment.
8
I am bored by the writers who blame the lack of affordable housing on those who use Airbnb (an other platforms) to rent to tourists at rates that earn them a good income. It is not the responsibility of individuals to forego supplementing their incomes because governments (citizens working collectively) fail to do so.
6
@David Currier
"at least seek out a home that an actual local lives in most of the year — you know, what Airbnb used to be. Such vestiges still remain on the site, if you look hard enough.
The article took pains to differentiate between these individuals, and the now more common businesses running large numbers of these no-longer "homes".
All human activity is bad for the environment. I feel that if people are buying less stuff but using their money to travel more, then that can be a net positive. If we are living cleaner daily lives, then the environmental cost of travel is offset. But that is a big if. We must all look for ways and vote in ways that benefit the environment. Travel can open one's eyes to different ways of life and culture that impact us for the rest of our lives. That is far more important than buying more consumer goods which have a limited impact on our lives but a permanent impact on the earth.
4
I remember sometime during my 16 years of Roman Catholic education, reading that during the Middle Ages, wealthy individuals would pay the Church to be granted forgiveness for sin. I think it was called an indulgence. I believe this was a motivation for Martin Luther to present his 95 Theses.
I'm not saying that carbon offsets are a bad thing and they're better than nothing, but they do remind me of the practice of indulgences.
18
Yes, we should all be conscious of the effects of airplane travel. But more importantly, we should all be outraged by the incredible waste of energy and fossil fuels being used to produce, transport, and dispose of the massive amount of junk, much of it plastic, which we buy and throw away on a daily basis.
Instead of shopping for what we need, consuming has become a form of entertainment. Electronics, clothing, toys, and even cars last a year or two before we toss them aside for something more trendy.
Factory farms also waste huge amounts of energy producing food to be processed, packaged, and shipped far from its source. We have been tricked into thinking that we can have any food we want at any time of year, and that it costs only the price we pay at the check-out. The cost to the environment is never calculated for us to see.
So rather than giving up travel, which is a great way to learn about the world and the many ways of living in it, we should be thinking about the choices we make on a daily basis, how they impact the environment, and how to push for real changes in our culture of endless consumption.
13
Travel is a major impact that you can control. Of course we need to pressure industries to become green, but we also need to travel a lot less.
I feel very odd to read many of the comments here. So many excuses. It's almost like....when people have a serious near-terminal cancer, they try to avoid hard and painful treatments for their cancer but instead only want to eat cakes and buy a pretty new dress, etc. The ultimate outcome is death from cancer. Our planet is in such a situation and we are facing the extinction of all animal species on the earth. We need a drastic change of our mindset. We need a great leader who can guide us to treat this cancer.
11
I'm disappointed by how sensitive and self-important many of the comments are. The author isn't asking anyone to cancel their travel plans (which according to you are so richly deserved) but rather consider how you could make your travels better for the environment and your destination.
Is it judging or just being reasonable to suggest that staying at someone's home has a more positive impact on the community than staying at a global chain of hotels? Would anyone here consider it shaming to suggest that having lunch at a farmer's market has a more positive impact than going to McDonalds? Obviously with travel it's not a class issue because we are talking about leisure expenses.
I appreciate the author's efforts to get us to challenge ourselves to travel better and more sustainably and I think many of you need to ask yourselves why you're so put off by this article.
10
I am retired and I take two vacations a year. I'm not going to feel guilty about that. There were many years when I was young when I took no real vacation.
There are lots of business people who take tons of flights and I wonder how much of that is really necessary. Journalists, entertainers, politicians and government officials, the wealthy hob nobbing, etc. all take many more flights than my two/year.
And, of course, there are many, many countries who desperately rely on tourism as an essential part of their economy. I like to take trips to those places as well.
There's a lot to consider when being socially and environmentally aware.
10
Cost: that's the only way to control or curb. People are incorrect to think train = good ... plane=bad. The gallon per person/mile to fly across the USA is less than taking a train. How much is that cheap toaster from China really costing .. in fuel.
Equate that cheap plane ticket into gallons -- driving out east two round trips can consume the same in a big SUV ....
Inexpensive fuel combined with operating efficiencies = cheap transportation. My NYC friends all feel superior, thinking city life is so more efficient ... but it depends on massive amounts of transportation to make it function .. all powered by fuel.
4
For most of my life I lacked the vacation days and money to travel much and now I have time and money and am traveling without a care in the world.
You save the planet. I will see it before it is gone.
6
This article has been a great conversation starter for my family and friends about making the choices that result in an overall lower carbon footprint. I found myself researching how many metric tons of CO2 I contribute during my flights and how to purchase carbon credits. At the end, I think we all have to think in terms of making choices that result in a staying under a budgeted amount of carbon emissions (amount?) in a timeframe (a lifetime, a decade, a year, a month?) and make trade offs. For example, maybe someone who flies 25 times per year, say, but has a solar powered home and/or is vegan and/or does not own a car and/or buys only locally grown food and/or buys refurbished furniture/clothes instead of new would produce a lower carbon footprint than if he/she lived a “conventional” lifestyle. I don’t know how the math works but this article helped me start thinking about trade offs.
4
The key point you make is to find the correct mathematical calculations of a person’s environmental impact, however the mathematical formulae must include the entire “Life cycle” of an activity or product to include the end of life impacts downstream, as well as the up stream processes, meaning what processes and energy it took to produce a product or participate in an activity.
Tech companies employing AI technology such as IBM with their super computer Watson can process these types of calculations on the various scenarios, however the information programmed in must be as extensive as possible to include a very extensive set of variables and processes to capture the entire life cycle of a product or activity.
3
@Cosmo Brown
25 trans Atlantic round trip flights could easily be equivalent to more than a dozen single driver's ANNUAL gas-guzzling long commutes by car to work. This article would have been more helpful if it included some CO2 emissions numbers.
3
Agree Peter. This was just a hypothetical.
This is a good opportunity, now that we have had so many increases in productivity and robots replacing people, to go back to the idea of longer vacations: we can turn reversing climate change to advantage instead of a misery by encouraging people to turn off the air-conditioning and taking long, truly restful low carbon footprint beach or mountain or go abroad vacations, even hanging our own wash as we travel! We can afford it (billionaires might have to give up a few pennies) and it would be good for human mental health and the planet.
Traveling by train in Italy was wonderful--the train seats and aisles were sized to actual adult human beings--I was actually angry flying home at how we were crammed in with nary an inch of spare space. Work again can start accommodating to climate change with more vacation time: for example, you can take a ship to Europe but you have to add an extra eight days to your trip
. One of my long held bug-a-boos is the "Earth care witness" and "care-for-the-poor" liberal pastors who feel they have to fly all over the world to spread the message: it is pure self indulgence! If you really care about the planet and the poor, stay at home and give webinars!
2
There is one aspect of many social issues that is the common factor amongst these issues:
How people are diagnosing and rationalizing the issues in order to conclude to a rational, feasible and optimal outcome for a discussion on how to minimize impacts of a resolution of an issue.
Exposure to “Risk analysis” should be taught at least at the high school level and a prerequisite in college and vocational schools since understanding these principles applies to most aspects of business decisions and every day life.
Granted this is not a silver bullet that will magically solve all social issues, however if the general public applies some of these principles, statistically more informative decisions would be made that would improve daily life.
If a young person in their teens was taught to assess that selling or using illicit drugs has a greater risk with a greater negative impact on their life with barely any upside, just think of how many hundreds of thousands of lives might be different today.
Most of the people I know who can afford to travel go to Europe once or twice over a life time. Their more frequent travel is to expensive beach resorts all over the world - from Bermuda and Hawaii to St Lucia or Costa Rico. Seems to me there are plenty of lovely beaches in the US if they want to curtail airplane travel.
One other thought kids should stop with the expensive destination wedding that involve jet travel, often by people who don’t really want to go in the first place.
11
@Nancy
A PS to my comment about travel to exotic beach locales - most of the people at those resorts spend the majority of their time in the swimming pools (with or without floating bars and umbrella drinks.)
3
Part of the problem is both where we live and worked, there is no public transportation. None. Most times when we travel, we mix business and pleasure working as volunteers for non profits. Rather than stay at a hotel, we stay with friends. When we travel, we use public transport wherever possible.
5
I'd be happy to take a racing yacht from anywhere to anywhere if I had the time and the money.
8
I have to wonder if people living in other countries feel as guilty as we do here...is my counterpart in India mulling over buying something in plastic vs glass?
Feeling guilty about fretting over flying, driving, biking, walking is something people who have a choice can do. Feeling guilty is a luxury few people on this planet actually have as they are just working to survive.
2
It’s true that when we do something that is harmful, feeling guilty is a sign that we have a conscience. So congratulations I guess.
But guilt, while useful, is ultimately selfish. To deal with our climate crisis, listen to the scientists - if we don’t reduce GHGs now, we may not survive. And I do mean NOW.
1
A lot of defenders of the air travel hobby defend it by saying "it's only 3% of global emissions" or "I'm just one person. I don't count," but the difference between emissions from air travel and emissions from most human activities is that air travel for a a vacation, by definition, is unnecessary whereas all the other major sources of carbon emissions (like the Haber process, cement production, electricity generation, and ground transportation) are essential.
So air travel shouldn't be seen as 2-3% of carbon production, it should be seen as ~10%-20% of _discretionary_ carbon production.
To say "it's only 3%!" is like saying someone who needs to save money and makes $50,000 a year should just keep on spending $5 a day on coffee because that extra spending only 3% of someone's income.
Also, giving up or reducing air travel doesn't mean you don't _vacation_. It just means you take a vacation in a 1,000 mile radius of where you live.
6
Considering many developing nations with median per capita incomes rely on tourism to support their economies, jet travel is essential to their fiscal wellbeing. Think - Argentina, Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Bali, Indonesia. The money spent on the ground by North Americans and Europeans in these destinations would dry up considerably if carbon conscious travellers were to cut back. On the other hand in the same vein, even US and Europe reap amazing gobs of cash from Chinese tourists who would never reach the sights, hotels, shops and restaurants without flying out of the mega cities in China. Then there are the nations, while wealthy, are separated by water such as Iceland and Australia who must rely on this sort of communication.
4
@Suburban Cowboy
The decline of discretionary tourism would be negative economically for many places, but the whole point is that global warming is DISASTROUS for many places. When you assess the economic damage from Costa Rica losing tourism versus the damage other countries would experience from prolonged droughts alternating with more severe storms and floods plus sea level rise, the harm from less tourism is not as bad.
The most vulnerable countries are low-lying ones like Bangadesh, Myanmar, the Maldives etc will lose huge portions of their land area. Other hot countries will lose their fresh water. Already hot countries will lose their agricultural productivity.
So global warming includes economic damage and will be much worse than economic damage to tourism-reliant countries.
1
So much for our freedoms...
Democracy as defined by the new social media politics and politicians will dictate and limit the freedoms that defines the United States..,,
Yet people who voted and who were supporters of Hillary still cannot figure out why President Trump legally became POTUS, despite his obvious flaws...
1
So much virtue signaling in evidence. 20 years ago I would observe the N Y and D C pundits scolding the rest of us about driving our cars. And I would think : " Aren't you living a life which puts you on airplanes 50-70 times a year ?" I'm pretty certain that is/was the case. I don't want to think that it is too late. But I do think so. Even well informed individual decisions, taken in individual ways, are not likely to help enough now. It's wonderful if you can say : " But I chose not to have a child. I choose to never eat meat. I'm 27 and ride my bike everywhere regardless of the weather ." You probably also chose to buy laptops, tablets, phones that use a lot of toxic constituents. You have to work somewhere (generally) and it is probably climate controlled. I don't see that awareness that our clothing and furnishings are made in overseas sweatshops has done much to shut them down. Recycling is widely understood to be a conscience salving fiction. It's all worse than ever. These fixes are going to have to happen at the public policy level with incentives and punishments if they are going to work. It has to happen globally which there is not a prayer of happening. Meanwhile humanity swarms the planet. Desperate people are gathering at many borders. We are not going to fix this. But Mother Nature is already rising up implacably. The great poets and writers come to mind : fiddling while Rome burns ", " the center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world... ".
11
I once read the recommendations of an environmentalist who posited that we should not live more than one mile from where we work (walkable), not more than 50 miles from where our possessions are made (effects of transportation) and not more than 100 miles from where our food is sourced (end to factory farming).
2
Is this math correct ?
A car which consumes 1 gallon of gas in 25 miles will consume 120 gallons of gas driving 3000 miles from New York City to San Francisco. Total fuel costs one way approximate $300. A 737 jet which flies the same 3000 miles will consume according to my research will consume 2.4 metric tons of fuel per hour. It will fly six hours. That sums to 14.4 metric tons. There are 327 gallons of jet fuel to a metric ton. The product is: 14.4 x 327 = 4709 gallons of jet fuel consumed. Total fuel cost $9418. If we assume there are 200 passengers on the flight, the average consumption per passenger is 23.5 gallons if I have not miscalculated. Also, the average cost of a gallon of jet fuel is $2.00 whereas the average cost of gallon of unleaded $2.50. Not even considering the time, hotels, tires, fatigue etc. I totally advocate virtually all forms of carbon emission reduction, clean water, air and land. But I don’t see the air travel argument as it is presented elsewhere as valid versus other reductions.
3
No your math is not correct. There are numerous reputable sites that calculate CO2 emissions from flying. UC Berkeley has one, there’s also Shameplane.
One transatlantic flight dumps as much CO2 per passenger as it take to heat an average house for a year. One flight.
2
Ok, my emission math is perhaps incorrect. However, the study of consumption and economics holds fast. My research and arithmetic was true on that.
2
@Suburban Cowboy: I think you are off there somehow. For one thing...it matters if you DRIVE ALONE or with others. You correctly assessed that the plane holds 200 passengers -- but your figures on the CAR assume one person driving ALONE.
I've driven across country alone, but that's a LONG lonely drive by yourself. Most vacations are not one person alone -- they are a couple or a family. A family of five on that cross country trip cuts the fuel costs per person dramatically.
I've also flown on planes that were far less than half full -- returning presumably to their "hub" -- on one memorable flight home from DC (MANY years ago), I was literally the only passenger.
vacationers shouldn't feel guilty about air travel. the average per isn't flying for vacation that often. businesses travelers are the ones racking up the miles. with so many great conference services now I have been able to drastically reduce my traveling. more should ask themselves and their employers is it really needed?
11
I could describe my first Caribbean vacation. Nice time in the sun. Some details not suitable for mixed company.
Easy to assume it was a tacky experience & not something a properly woke person would pursue.
The truth is, it saved me from falling into a deep depression at that point and I'm still grateful for the experience.
7
While I do still feel some guilt every time I drive, or travel by air, I know with certainty that my decision not to have children more than offsets those choices.
Sure, I could forgo air travel, and perhaps I "should". But I will never be responsible for literally thousands of diapers in landfills, hundreds of pounds of discarded textiles, most likely another need for another car to be on the road etc.
It's true, my child[ren] will never cure cancer, or take care of me in my adult life, but that is okay.
The only way to truly combat the disastrous effects human beings have had on this planet is to make fewer human beings. We are the problem and the solution, and our numbers and "needs" are not sustainable.
19
@For the Love of Trees I agree. Nothing is ever said about limiting children to one or two in any of these articles. Even the author has four children.
@For the Love of Trees I agree. Nothing is ever said about limiting children to one or two.
This discussion has devolved into and either/or argument when there is a third possibility. A number of deep decabonisation policy proposals include carbon fuel synthesis, usually as a way to mitigate the terribly intermittent nature of renewables. Under these models, the excess generating capacity can be stored as carbon fuels for reuse in a small number applications (such as air travel) that require dense fuels. The feed stocks for synthesis can come initially from carbon capture and storage (CCS) and eventually from air capture and storage (ACS). So the real issue issue is just power generation and feedstock capture.
There are also a number of aviation startups working on electric planes for short haul flights. Again, the only bottleneck here is power generation.
This doesn't mean that you can just sit around and wait for someone else to solve the problem. Unless you are advocating for the replacement of our energy generation systems on the required time scales, you are still part of the problem. The only proposal I have seen from a presidential candidate that has the needed scale is the recent one from Senator Sanders, but the proposal and scale is the important part.
The technology you share is not ready for prime time. And the scientists say we need to reduce GHGs now to avoid truly cataclysmic effects of climate change. We don’t have time.
1
@Paul
Time for what? We need everything now. Saying that “technology X is not ready for prime time” can be applied to just about anything.
You want Lion batteries? How much cobalt from child miners in the Congo will that take? And how long? Not to mention the Lithium?
Solar panels? Where does the sand come from (sand mining is surprisingly dirty). And how do we replace the panels (which fail after 25 years) at scale?
There is this assumption among a lot of greens “that we already have the technology we need” but the problem is scale. All this stuff requires research to truly be ready for prime time, not just carbon fuel synthesis. But CFS is just chemistry and we know how to scale that.
1
I once took a train to New Orleans. It was less than half full, so I wonder if I was responsible for more gallons per mile than I would have been on a fully booked 737.
I wish someone would create a webpage where you can find out how many gallons of fuel per mile is used by each model of commercial jet, bus and train. Then, on the same webpage, post the average number of travelers on various routes, divide that into the number of gallons used. Then we would have an honest estimate of which mode of transportation uses the fewest gallons of fuel per mile, per passenger
3
You have a great suggestion and are on the most practical track to determine what is the best means to determine a person’s “net” impact on the basis of travel alternatives.
Perhaps more people need to think like you to determine the much larger impact.
Pleasure travel is no different from business travel or commuting. We should keep in mind that every time we fill up or fly, we're supporting petro states in North America and abroad.
3
Petrostates in North America? You mean your fellow citizens who live in California, Texas, Oklahoma, etc? Yes, they are so corrupt and immoral. Let’s boycott them....talk about fantasyland.
2
Bingo. A business waste until further notice, eh?
...and our own comfort and convenience.
Right now I’m staying in a room above a pub in West Cork (an Airbnb). I’ve made new friends through music at this and other pubs and am having the time of my life listening to women and men — sometimes into their 80s and 90s — sing ballads or tell funny stories in between listening to or playing with local (and some world-famous) trad musicians. As much as Americans try to recreate these kinds of local traditions and interactions, it can’t be done; I came here and I’m very glad I did.
I’m aware I’ve increased my carbon footprint by flying here for a 6-week trip, so I use public transportation and eat vegan. I think if I were having a lousy time i’d feel more guilty than I do, but my spirit is so refreshed by laughing, listening, and seeing beauty, the good feelings are crowding out the bad.
Selfish? Certainly. But I’ll make up for it somehow (donation, volunteering) to balance the scales.
3
Great! Just when I get over my fear of flying I find out it’s an environment disaster. By the way my first trip to Europe at age 70 a few months ago was to Barcelona and stayed at an Airbnb. I’m doing everything wrong. P.S. Park Guell was magnificent.
6
Barcelona is fabulous! Glad you had a great time.
1
Keep going—you’re making up for a lifetime of fear and I bet you had a wonderful time. Unless you plan to travel like this every week, you are not the problem.
1
Enjoy yourself! Do not feel guilty. YOUR vacations won't amount to a hill of beans (in carbon).
1
I'm shocked. Mr Kugel appears to suggest that the answer to the detrimental, and irreversible, impact of aviation and travel on the fragile ecosystem of the planet upon which we all depend, is... to keep doing it but without the guilt. I feel ashamed after reading this. The science is clear - if we do not stop using fossil fuels within as little as twelve years then large swathes of the planet will become uninhabitable, and people, animals, and plants will die. We have already caused significant amount climate warming - the serious heatwaves in Paris and Western Europe attest to this. But who's looking at the science when flights are so cheap and there's air conditioning and good food and drink on arrival. And I'm ashamed at both Mr Kugel and some of the commentators below who have made sneery remarks about the brave, principled and intelligent campaigner Greta Thunberg. To imply that she is travelling in some kind of luxury - two weeks on a sailboat with no engine, toilet, kitchen, beds etc - is completely disingenuous. Ms Thunberg, as well as the young campaigners in the worldwide movements such as Extinction Rebellion and Sunrise Movement, clearly have a far greater grasp of the science and urgent actions needed than any of the older generations. The future is uncertain and worrying, but there is still time to act. The change needs to be political but our personal choices have a significant impact.
170
@Jamie Kelly
Of course if this racing yacht is like the others, it’s made of large amounts of either fiberglass, steel, aluminum or some combination of those ingredients. All of those REQUIRE large amounts of heat, generated by HUGE fossil fuel fired furnaces to produce!! Much of the gear aboard a large sailboat, including personal sailing gear, are made of synthetics, often oil based synthetics.
I’ve been a sailor for 40 years. If Ms. Thunberg wants to make an environmental statement by using a sailboat, she should have blown the dust off of Kon-Tiki and sailed across on a raft like that rather than a hi tech racing yacht (made possible by modern hi tech air polluting industry!)
22
@Jamie Kelly Yes. The lack of sophistication in these arguments put forth by so many here and in the article is really such a profoundly and mind-numbingly massive problem. First of all, we use code words like "flying" or "travelling" to hide behind in industrial nightmare we have brought on the planet so we really don't think about the vast array of issues created by our fossil fuel fantasy of "flying" and its impact on the human and more-than-human world. All the bean counting about carbon is just another industrial trick to not see, feel or have any real connection to the absurd devastation we have on the living world.
When people start saying that they don't experience any guilt around these choices this is when I start thinking along the lines of sociopaths on the way to ecocide. Time's up people. The old foundational fantasy is done and it's time to come home to the actual world we live in.
12
It’s the unfortunate truth that no one wants to here. All these fancy low impact, feel good, environmentally friendly items have a large carbon footprint the day they go up for sale.
8
I was born into this energy-consuming culture, and there is almost nothing I can do about large-scale environmental damage and stil have a reasonably enjoyable life. I live in Montana and absolutely have to have a car. My wife needs one as well. So we drive fuel efficient smaller cars. Winters are long and cold, so we use natural gas for heat. Getting to someplace other than the northern Rockies requires flying, so we fly. I don't feel guilty at all because none of this was started by me. Corporate America and the government it controls are the real culprits. Put in efficient public transportation, and I'll use it. Establish a bicycle trail system so I can bike wherever I want to go in town. Create a nationwide, efficient train system and I'll use it. But in the meantime, I'm just living my life in a society in which I've had no say. I have a friend who actually restricts his travel because he doesn't want to contribute to environmental degradation. His life is fairly dull as a result and he has had no impact on the environment. Things keep getting worse while he sits at home; I have a life to live. I'm as conservative as I can be in energy consumption, but I need to live a life that is satisfying for me. The answer is not cutting back on energy use as an individual. That will not work unless everyone does it. Make energy conservation mandatory and it will work. But that will never happen in a country where the almighty dollar reigns supreme.
320
@Jack I didn't start slavery in the US. That doesn't mean I'm not obligated to do what I can to mitigate its consequences.
68
@Morgan
I fly to as many conferences and teach-ins I can that discuss mitigating the consequences of slavery. Such tradeoffs are unavoidable.
6
@Jack - I get your point, but just out of curiosity, why have you chosen to live in a place that requires you to have two cars and to fly to get out of the area? And what are you doing to help create that bike trail system? Have you considered electric heat powered by solar panels or a few of the smaller wind turbines? I'm really not trying to criticize you, just wondering.
50
Well, this is a bit awkward to address.
I am very environmentally conscious and do my part to be responsible in daily activities and in those for whom I vote.
So with no wish to be flippant or offensive, when I *finally!* take a vacation next month which will, yes, entail air travel, I am not going to feel guilty at all. Likewise, I am not going to feel guilty about the money I will spend, or the work I won’t be addressing. It’s a rare vacation, maybe once in a lifetime, and I am going to enjoy it! After a few days, it will be back to normalcy, and my memories are not going to be ruined by self-incrimination.
182
@NM I I think if you only vacation once a year there's no reason to feel guilty. I refuse to--perhaps because I'm a non-driving childless vegan.
18
@Ana
Me too (have not been behind the wheel of a car since 1995), plus I buy all my clothes vintage.
Check out "Die Garage" in Berlin, Ahornstraße 2, 10787 Berlin, Nollendorfplatz subway.
4
@Ana Non-driving and childless is impressive. Don't forget though, that the normal means of growing vegetables is to kill and prevent any future growth of any other life form that would have grown in the same location, except the soil microbes that are compatible with vegetable (or grain, or whatever) farming. Look at aerial photos of the planet. In most cases, wild lands are limited to places where crops don't grow well.
6
Unfortunately, the only curb on all this will be a major economic slump. As we hear everyday, it may be on the horizon, but they don’t last forever. The emergence of a world-wide middle class, increased leisure time and aging demographics will probably continue to fuel (pun intended) global travel and consumption. Current efficiencies only nibble on the margins.
Perhaps all the wonders of the world will lose their appeal when they have been sullied into mediocrity, but I don’t think the masses will mind anymore than they mind the faux reality of a theme park.
Oh, and if you haven’t noticed, in a world where most engines of local economies have vanished, tourism is all they have left. It’s
a sad state.
4
I haven’t flown anywhere in over three years, mostly because I worry about carbon emissions. But lately I’ve gotten more into biking and taking the train. I find there are always a ton of interesting things to do near home and I can never get to them all.
I’ve lived in South America and Europe, so I’m well traveled and trilingual. I don’t understand the appeal of short vacations to exotic places - it seems like a big waste of time and energy and doesn’t enhance anyone’s life.
So even if some of the commenters are correct that stopping flying doesn’t have a huge impact, I’ll still do what I’m doing because flying just isn’t necessary for me. And getting to know the small towns and people around me makes me less sociopathic. If I want to talk to someone in Europe or South America, we can FaceTime.
I’m not dull for wanting to fully experience my own region of the planet.
102
@Mel you say, I don’t understand the appeal of short vacations to exotic places - it seems like a big waste of time and energy and doesn’t enhance anyone’s life.
Wow...travel DOES indeed enhance my life and everyone else I know who travels. Amount of vacation time dictates length of the vacations. Americans don’t have as much as our European friends.
11
@someone over 50
Such a significant comment.... Americans are forced into workaholic habits by employers who expect more constant fealty than businesses elsewhere.
In addition, it's a joy to travel in places where a walk through town means feeling seen and appreciated instead of being ignored by a parade of Americans on cellphones.
3
@Mel You've lived in South America and Europe -- which means you've already had experiences that many Americans could never have due to money and time constraints. And I'm glad you're able to find wonders in your own corner of the world - I am, too, every day. But why would you begrudge the rest of us our tiny taste of the rest of the world? It wasn't a waste of time and energy for my husband and me to spend two weeks on our "bucket list" trip to Salzburg and Vienna this past Spring. It enhanced our lives immeasurably, so much so that we still talk about it, and I even still dream about it (most recently last night). If we could have stayed there for months, we would have. But we couldn't. And I honestly don't think that our forgoing that once-in-a-lifetime trip would have saved the planet.
7
The article is about overtourism, not just the environmental impact of travel. Overtourism is multifaceted and the article talks about how we can make more ethical decisions in several different aspects of our travel. These suggestions are a helpful start to an important conversation. Those obsessing about the environmental impact question are really missing the point - many European cities and other famous destinations around the world are literally drowning in tourists.
49
@Mathew. The only truly ethical decision that matters is how, and for whom, you vote. Everything else is window dressing. Only politics can save the planet.
2
Yes, vacations may cause climate problems. But the biggest problem about vacations is that it does not rest and restore the vacationers, it makes them even more harried and troubled. Stay at home, away from work, and you will rest best.
4
@n1789
For you maybe. I return home reinvigorated by new experiences, including those I enjoyed during trips to Savannah (your stated locale.)
Your suggestion to take the train versus the plane in Europe flies in the face of frugality for the most part. Intercity trains can run from $50-200 easily while flying Ryanair is $25-50. Overall the jet is faster however when factoring in the time to the airport, check-in, security, boarding, arrivals, baggage and travel from airport to city center it is not a quick as one suppose. And the taxis or transport to the airport can be pricey. So, yes, use the train, enjoy the view, the food and the company. But if there is a mission to reduce air travel carbon emissions, the economics need to converge.
4
I totally disagree that the best we can do is pressure governments for better regulations. I mean really, we elected Trump, even though he lost the popular vote. Pressuring governments is clearly a losing strategy if we can't even put a president in place by popular demand.
No, the best we can do is to live as ethically as we can. That's true in any event, regardless of politics. As regards climate change, I personally take that to mean:
few or no children (I have none)
little or no meat (vegetarian for 30 years)
walk a lot more (kind of failing at that and my waistline shows it)
set the thermostat for 68 in winter and 78 in summer (hot flashes override my ethics in the summer)
travel by air only if necessary (once a year, tops, to take my turn to care for ailing parents)
vacation in the U.S., travel by hybrid car
Not perfect, but I live by my ethics. I challenge all to do the same. If you feel kind of guilty about something, stop doing it.
165
@Jane Thank you for posting this. (I'm also a no air travel person and vegetarian.)
I'll add that making ethical consumer choices and voting for pro-environmental candidates isn't an either/or scenario. Ethical consumerism and political engagement are independent and one ought to do both.
The world is full of injustice and political systems (especially the American political system) cannot address all of those injustices. Each one of us has very little influence over the political system so we must exercise moral judgment where we do have control, which is our own consumer choices.
8
@Jane
To suggest how many children someone should have is absurd. If having no kids works for you, great, but please don’t tell anyone else how many kids they should have. It reeks of self righteousness.
7
@Jane
I don't feel guilty about anything.
1
A vacation should be more than the destination. It’s about purging one’s self of the day to day annoyances, minutia, and frustrations of life. It is also about far more than how one gets to their vacation spot.
Air travel totally wipes out anything “green” you may do all year long. Get over it. Air travel won’t become environmentally friendly in the next 20 years. If you want to be greener, pick places you can drive to. Our vacation is at our second home, a 13 hour drive in a car that gets 24 mpg. It’s not as “cool” as jetting off to Molokai as a colleague just did, or flying to New Zealand, but it works fine. And we decompress without ever being tied to a plane schedule, lodging fees, unexpected costs. Two tanks of gas and we’re there.
3
Our daily, individual and collective sacrifice of the planet will be self correcting. The freedoms and guilt, fossil made, replaced by the tyranny and coercion of carbon.
Sell your car. Buy a bicycle to commute to work. Or work at home.
Sell your single family house and move to a city.
Don’t use clothes dryers.
Change as many of your light fixtures as possible to low voltage.
I’ve been doing all these things for decades.
There are plenty of ways to reduce your carbon footprint.
Pick what works best for you.
Shaming is negative and counterproductive.
95
Maybe if there was actual affordable housing somewhere in the vicinity of the jobs, this might be a real option for people. Too many people can’t afford to live near where they work.
47
Do you really think that people can bike to work during the winter months in most areas of the US?
Think again please because most people may not have the same luxuries that you may have...
29
@Mr.Reeee
I would love to bike to work, but it’s impossible in a sprawling city where the summer temperatures are the high 90s.
6
The problem with this is that my choosing not to fly on a particular flight will not reduce the carbon expenditure of that flight at all. If I choose not to drive from Portland OR to San Francisco, the fuel that trip would burn stays unburnt. But if I choose not to fly, the plane goes anyway, and the fuel is burned. Every flight I've been on in the last ten years or so has been full, and often overbooked. Thus, I simply don't buy that flying is "the largest part of MY carbon footprint."
If someone calls for a genuine, organized, international boycott of air travel -- sort analogous to the grape boycott in the early 70s (?) that brought the California growers to the negotiating table -- then those of us who live far away from our families will have very painful choices to make. But right now, when I know the plane will fly, and fly full, whether I'm on it or not, it just makes no sense to me to think that if I don't take that flight I'm somehow lessening the climate crisis. I'm not, not in any way whatsoever.
258
@me - Those who *choose* a particular flight *because* it has a lesser carbon footprint does not lessen the climate crisis. It does, though, however, drive a market that points to change rather than simply accepting that the status quo cannot be changed. It doesn't need to be a boycott to change the market.
43
@Vanessa Hall--Sorry, my wording was ambiguous--by "a particular flight" I meant "choose not to fly that day at all" rather than "choosing between two different flights." For most of us in most parts of the country, there's no chance to choose between Flight A and Flight B based on the aircraft's carbon footprint. I agree with you that in cases where one DOES have a choice between two different flights to the same destination, it makes sense to choose the one with the lower carbon footprint.
11
@me
But you're not the only person. As more and more people boycott the environmental disaster that is air travel, there will be fewer and fewer flights.
131
Why is it that people simply cannot face up to the fact that some of the things we do are harmful?
That week in Italy DOES produce a HUGE amount of CO2 - one roundtrip flight from California to Europe is the equivalen of EACH PASSENGER on the plane driving a car for a YEAR! So, don’t feel guilty if you don’t want to, and by all means do other, additional things to try to help the environment. But please do not delude yourself that your trip isn’t extremely polluting!
We used to think we could do whatever we wanted. Now we know we can’t. The implication is that, at some point, we will have to give up things we like.
140
The statement about one air trip equals a year of driving is false. It is a lot less.
One round trip flight from California to Europe burns perhaps a bit over 200 gallons of fuel per passenger. In a car that would be one 10-gallon fill-up every two and a half weeks. The average car owner burns a lot more gas than that.
13
@bo.li We can quibble about the exact amount (and also about the carbon emissions from jet fuel vs. gasoline, etc.), but the fact remains that a flight uses a LOT of fuel (I'm pretty sure I don't use 200 gallons in a year driving, and I live in a rural state!). To me, we will never get anywhere if we don't first just admit what we are doing, and that it is often bad. It isn't about shame or lecturing - it is about honesty!
15
Here are figures from a Times article of a few years ago (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/sunday-review/the-biggest-carbon-sin-air-travel.html): A roundtrip flight from the east coast to Europe generates about 3 tons of carbon output. Flying from/to California will obviously be more, although, using a "great circle" route, not twice as much. So, let's say 4 tons. Which is about the same amount as driving a car that gets 25 mpg for a year (see here, which gives figures for a 22 mpg car: https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle). So, I stand by my original statement. Can you give a source for your claim that it is less than a year's worth of driving?
17
This article raises an important point. Climate activists want to curtail everyone’s activity: Don’t ravel my plane, don’t travel by car, don’t eat meat, don’t turn on the air conditioner, only eat locally grown foods
The climate would be much better if we all stayed home in our hot apartments eating whatever grows on the nearest tree.
I’ll start taking my racing yacht to my organic farmer tomorrow.
4
It is possible to ravel from New York to Paris without flying, The Queen Mary 2 still offers oceanliners that take a week to Southampton, and then the electrified Eurostar to Paris. Unfortunately, cruise ships burn alot of heavy oil that is dirtier than jet fuel. In Europe and many other places, public transportation is frequent, goes everywhere, and trains are electrified. The United States refuses to improve transit, slowly electrify Caltrain or design cities to be transit friendly. Even in the Bay Area, transit options decline quickly once you leave the BART system. Travel beyond BART still requires using fossil fuel burning vehicles.
4
I am so grateful that the teachers and parents of Alabama are taking school kids on trips. Compared to when I grew up, lots of kids have gotten to see Broadway shows in NYC, visit museums in Chicago, dance near the Eiffel Tower, perform in the Rose Parade, sing in a choir in London, and so on.
One of the best things they can learn is how well-designed infrastructure works. Other places have public transportation and comfortable trains. Other people are able to walk to get to work. Other places have windmills and solar panels. Other places have better and less corrupted leadership.
3
People become aware of a problem slowly, and then they do immediate things as corrective actions. All this is good, but the available corrective actions almost always have little effect. Kind of like wearing a hair shirt to pay for recent sins. Much better to address the larger issues, i.e. if people paid attention to the over four trillion dollars wasted on the Bush-Cheney wars and destruction in the middle east, and if they realized that, had we spent that four trillion on solar, other renewables, electric vehicles, and the supporting grid infrastructure, we would have reduced our carbon emissions by a factor of ten, and the problem in the US would be solved. But the populace continues to listen to venal politicians who are paid off by special interests, foreign and domestic. Yet another wake up call sadly ignored.
4
The “Shame Flight” movement is basically just a ploy for name recognition by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in an attempt to offset her air travel abuse by shaming others to limit their air travel.
The reality of air travel by the majority of the population on a weekly basis is limited since many people do not just casually take air flight randomly every week, like taking a Sunday drive.
Understandingly air travel has increased over the past few decades, however there appears to be a mindless, follow the followers type mindset that people are feeling guilty of their air travel for sometimes blind reasonings.
For example if a 737 jet uses approximately 36,000 gallons for a 10 hour flight and can carry 200 passengers, traveling from NY to California by air takes 5 hours and 18,000 gallons. A lot of fuel, which equates to 90 gallons per passenger.
But air travel would have less of an environmental impact than if I drove my vehicle that averages 20 mpg across country because I would use 120 gallons of fuel.
A simply analogy that does not take into account many other factors to determine the true “net” impact, but sadly many pundits and advocates such as AOC barely speak of the net impact since it may not always support their rhetoric.
3
The crime against the environment is not my occasional car trip to New England or plane flight down to Charleston or to see my 100-year-old aunt in Florida.
It's that back in the 1970s when we were crippled by the Arab oil embargo, our government did not put its then-considerable scientific community and vast monetary resources towards harnessing and storing and dispersing solar energy.
Except for the above trips, my carbon footprint is small. Deliberately so. Sorry, no guilt.
8
Thank you so much for this important and thoughtful article and for making so nicely the point that this is a collective problem requiring collective, large-scale solutions. The one thing I would add is the matter of dollars and whether we should be spending so many of them on travel and tourism. We routinely, and not incidentally, forget that they are fungible. Instead of spending them on travel (including even more of them to make it more ethical) we could simply put (some of) the money from (some of) our travel to other, often better uses. We could put them towards the pushing for the institutional (collective) solutions you rightly mention. Or towards helping the good people our government is holding in cages. Or simply give it to someone we know who needs it more than we do. Notice also that in this way, we can make a clear difference as individuals; the scale problem is solved. Today, I would say that we could put them towards helping to protect the Amazon (and we could and should) but that also raises another matter that we conveniently forget, that it is to a great extent our own consumption of meat that is driving deforestation and burning. And so it goes. But again, thank you for an excellent and much needed article.
3
@Daniel Smith do ,you forgo vacations and contribute that money to charity?
Sir,
Your article is thought provoking but misses the mark entirely. As many have already said here, I work hard in my everyday life to be environmentally conscious. I come from a farm background in the North Country of New York where I was raised to not waste anything. That includes time and opportunity to expand myself as a person. For 20 years I have traveled worldwide due to my husband's job. I am a school administrator and he is a VP. Any time we get off is precious.
Mark Twain said it best- "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
8
@Suzanne Conklin: if you travel worldwide on your husband's expense account...you are not environmentally conscious...PERIOD.
You are wealthy and indulgent. If your spouse is a VP, he has the power and influence to ask his corporation to cut back severely on foreign travel and unnecessary flying, for environment and financial reasons. But he doesn't. Because you guys like the fun of travel and the "cache" of being "world travelers" and all on the company dime.
Being rich and privileged enough to travel does not make you morally superior to other people who cannot afford to travel.
@Suzanne Conklin Are you sure? He seemed to me to hit his mark pretty well, and actually to include the essence of your point. I think he just considered something more than your personal view--which also was the point.
Considering what is going on in this country and the world, guilt is hardly a factor when considering any type of vacation. Whether I get to my vacation by air or take a step into my backyard any opportunity to take a break is a blessing. I am fortunate to have vacation time and the means to do so. But honestly does it really matter from an environmental perspective if we fly? Aren’t we already sunk? This year I stayed in the PNW and soaked up the beauty of my corner of the world. The best trip was a camp out to a remote part of Oregon where I had no phone service or access to the internet or NEWs. The worst trip was after spending a day on a long and hot sweet bike ride, on a rail to trail path in Washington was getting to the hotel only to learn about the horror in El Paso. So no, no guilt just gratitude for a respite from
our collective insanity.
8
Buy some lands and plant some trees. One family can have a zero CO2 balance by growing something from 3 to 7 hectares (7.5 to 17 acres) of forest (according to size of the family and comsumption). The price of land to reforest (meaning not for hurban development or agriculture) is small and if one can afford travelling by plane he/she can afford to buy some land and grow trees (all trees are CO2 fixing). It can be a very nice life investment and occasion for nice holydays too.
8
“How guilty ... .” Short answer: if international: some. If domestic: VERY. Some years ago, our Sustainable Energy Use NGO took a 2-4 day trip to attend a conference in So Africa. Conflict. Same as the ‘philanthropy’ conference 4-5 days held in San Francisco some years back, at a 5+ star hotel - $2-3k airfare, $200-250 per-night hotel, about 500 attendees > about $2-3M that could have been much better used for actual work!!
5
How about CEOs who fly from meeting to meeting. They fly more than I - let’s start there.
11
First, I really don't care what a 16-year-old thinks. Nor do I have a yacht at my disposal.
"If you can’t resist Airbnb..." Maybe you can't, but I can. Airbnb is a scourge on residential neighborhoods everywhere. It walks like a hotel and talks like a hotel. It's a hotel, a business, and should be subject to the same rules as any other hotel.
Last, I don't feel guilty about my vacations at all. I go to interesting places, and I try to behave like a guest.
23
My annual (and well deserved, IMO) vacation pales into comparison with flying air force one fully loaded with bomb proof Cadillacs and golf clubs every few days. I plan to continue my annual pilgrimage to the Mediterranean as long as my wife and I can manage the journey. I am already supposed to feel guilty about not working for almost 2 weeks, now I am supposed to feel bad about the greenhouse gas emissions as well. I get the point - there is some basis for it I know. Today I used whole milk instead of the usual oat milk that I use at home. Another reason to feel bad. Off to the beach!
19
Ever been inside an operating room in a hospital and seen the amount of non biodegradable waste produced by a single surgery? Ever been to a restaurant or a large institution cafeteria and seen the waste of food? Ever gone to a kids birthday party and seen the plastic waste generated? In other words don’t fall sick, don’t celebrate and don’t live life.
Much as I admire and respect the sentiments of this article I feel that the global warming genie is large, all encompassing and sadly...out of the bottle!
9
Except it’s not - Americans just don’t want to change their habits. This article is disingenuous given that the average American lives in a home larger than what they need, blasts the A/C to keep it cool, drives everywhere, the reasons you mentioned, the list goes on. Feeling guilty about a vacation is a drop in the bucket compared to everyday waste, consumption, and environmental wreckage performed by Americans. Their carbon footprint is massive compared to most of the rest of the world. It’s grossly irresponsible and selfish.
53
When I go to America to visit my family there,I am reminded how large is the average American house. And I always take a sweater when going to a restaurant or movie there in the summer because the AC is always too high. Middle class people in Europe live comfortable lives but consume less energy than Americans.
2
@M Simon. But climate change has made living without air conditioning downright miserable!
We did most of our traveling when we were younger and fewer people were congesting the airlines and tourist destinations.
Now with retirement as expat Americans living in Provence we do no traveling to avoid the mess of tourism.
Just enjoying the beauty of the south of France is more fulfilling than joining the mobs at the airports.
11
A bit of rational thought can go a long way. Especially when it comes to taking racing yachts across the Atlantic as "eco-friendly", but also on aviation generally.
Yacht prices vary, but picking $10M to work with, much of that is labor costs, so say 100 (wo)man-years of work. That's a hundred years of somebody driving to and from work, emitting all the way, Say 50K gallons, 200 tons, of fuel. This for a yacht that will make the journey a few times, carrying a passenger or two on some of them, and then be scrapped. It would be more fuel efficient to take a heavily used private jet as the sole passenger, and far more efficient to hop onto a regularly scheduled airline.
Aviation is a tiny consumer of global fuel. Industry, heating, and ground transport are the big consumers, and can more easily use zero emission energy sources, solar, wind, or in some future world with private-sector-insurable nuclear reactors, nuclear. Aviation is a convenient whipping boy for the untouchable automobile.
Fly, guilt free, the further the better. Cut down the car use. Enjoy this world, and bonding with the other occupants of this planet. More human connections means less war, an added eco-bonus of aviation.
13
@Carl R Can you back any of this up with actual science?
I am very concerned about global warming, but this obsession about air travel is like focusing on a leaking faucet when you are on a sinking ship.
CO2 emissions from airplanes amount to about 3% of the world total. This is nothing in the big scheme of things. Even if we were to ban air travel outright, we will not solve any problems at all. Which is why I find the easy scapegoating of air travel, as exemplified by the "holier than thou" attitude of the Swedish activist Greta (who, by the way, will be heading to the USA for her address to the United Nations on the fancy multi-million sailboat of the prince of Monaco - sure, why don't we all do that, it's the way to go for mass travel) , as a convenient expedient for celebrity showboating but little else.
Also a little known fact, in terms of equivalent "CO2 per passenger", a modern jetliner is by far the most efficient and economical way to travel. Sure, the jet itself uses a lot of fuel, but it is less than all those on board would use if they hypothetically traveled by car to their destination. We are talking about over 50mpg equivalent per passenger, and most airlines also offer CO2 offset programs that one can buy into.
So don't feel guilty about your flight, modern airplanes are marvels of modern technology and efficiency. There are bigger problems out there, like stopping the Bolsonaros and the Trumps of this world. Air travel is the least of our concerns.
18
@Andy Journey:
That's not scientifically accurate. We do now air travel is the fastest contributor to global warming, that is scientifically proven.
We also know that traveling by air from London to Paris has a cost (and travel time) of about 244 Kg/CO2 (3.5 hours), compared to going between the same places on train with costs of 22 Kg/CO2 (2.75 hours). Going by train costs the environment about 91% less, and in this certain case is faster.
Going London to Tangier carries a cost of 435 Kg/CO2 while traveling by air, compared to 63 Kg/CO2 going by train and ferry, a minor difference of about 85% less.
This is actual scientific facts. Your comment on the other hand is full of lies and misguided.
11
@Daniel - I don't know where you are getting your numbers from (sources?) but you are seriously misguided. Air travel only accounts for 3% of global emissions. Three!! It may be "fast growing" but it is a tiny, tiny part of the problem. All you need is a Bolsonaro burning a piece of rain forest somewhere, and you've already done more damage than 100 years of air travel combined.
Also you look at the amount of CO2 per km of the airplane itself, not at the individual passengers. I have all the numbers available, and the calculation is really easy. If you have a full Airbus 380, each passenger's emissions are very small. similar to those of a sub-compact car like a Mini or so.
2
@Andy
"... a modern jetliner is by far the most efficient and economical way to travel...?"
Absolutely false.
High speed trains are a far more efficient and economical means of traveling...as an example, look at the TGV high speed trains in France, which can carry over 500 passengers and reach speeds over 200 mph, which admittedly is about half the speed of a modern jetliner, but has virtually no CO2 emissions, as the electricity used to power these trains is almost totally derived from nuclear energy! The technology to increase train speed is steadily advancing, with versions in China now approaching speeds of 300 mph.
The main engineering problem is trans-oceanic travel, but with international cooperation ( I know- haha) who knows what marvels await our descendants?
4
I used to love flying--until the seats shrank, 9/11 happened, surly TSA guys started taking our water and liquids, long check in times, etc. And the traffic hassles at LA Airport don't help. There are so many countries I'd like to visit but air travel seems like so much work. Nowadays, a road trip in the US is more appealing. Throw my stuff in the car and roll.
28
Great to see this commentary and agree with most points. However, I don't agree with the point credited to the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason. We do need to challenge existing norms. Moreover, our own behaviour matters. The author is correct to say that our own personal flight emissions are a drop in the ocean. Any individual action is self flagellation unless it is communicated to our tribe/community, then it can have action. communication is only partly about language. A critical part of communication for behaviorial change is to practice what we preach.
4
@Owen - ALL flight emissions are a drop in the ocean. 3% of all drops, to be precise. Even you you banned flight you wouldn't solve anything. Deforestation, industrial emissions, power generation, energy waste from household heating - these are the things we need to focus on, if we seriously want to address global warming. Airline travel is a convenient scapegoat for "celebrity activists", which sadly Greta Thunberg has become one of.
4
I am in two minds about about this column. I would posit it’s the duty of any real climate warrior to travel to countries where climate change is a real problem as opposed to a theoretical one like at home. Here in Namibia, some parts of the country have not had rain since 2012. Come here and see what real climate change is - where even wild animals are succumbing - and then go back to your country and make a real difference. And just my editorial here to the 16 year old activist, try to avoid talk fests like the United Nations. It has no real power to do anything but name and shame. I would have sailed to Greenland or Antartica with Greenpeace.
7
A lot of people talking about taking the train/bus versus flying, but driving a car also has a smaller carbon footprint than flying to the equivalent location. In the 1970s, when I was a child growing up in Melbourne, Australia, my family used to go for winter to far warmer Queensland for holidays (2200 kms, 1400 miles). It would have have been unthinkable even for my well-off family fly there. We all bundled into the car, my mother made sandwiches, and we did a two-day road-trip to the beach. This was not not a hardship. I was really privileged to be able to do this with the family.
7
@Patrick - What you say is incorrect. A modern jetliner has a CO2 footprint per passenger that is smaller than a car. Of course, airplanes are more efficient the longer distances they fly. Which is why we don't use them to go to the grocery shop. High speed electric trains are the most efficient, but seldom go beyond 600-700 miles for the longest trips. But for trips thousands of miles long, airplanes are the most ecological way to go.
2
@Andy Actually, if you look online—despite earlier reports to the contrary—there is a lot of information showing that cars, buses and trains are all lower emitters of CO2 than planes. Have a look, for instance, at this blog post by the International Council for Clean Transportation: https://theicct.org/blogs/staff/planes-trains-and-automobiles-counting-carbon. Any Google search for carbon cost of car versus plane travel will bring up similar analyses. These numbers depend on part how many people are traveling in the car, how efficient the car is etc. Also while trains often don't travel more than say 700 miles it's always possible to switch trains. But in the end long distance bus travel is definitely the best way to go.
If "no travel" takes on together with attacks on an ever growing list of industries, we can look forward to more and deeper recessions.
5
@Sydney Kaye
It’s absolutely true that we will have to live with less if we want to save the planet for human habitation. Less guns too. We might actually be happier.
10
@Sydney Kaye Yup. This is a flaw of both economics and the capitalist system. where immediate growth does not take into account future non-growth - basically because the way profits are tallied to not take into account future costs. Frankly, I'd prefer to have some perpetual negative growth (recession) than the end of civilization. How about you?
1
I love flying, I love traveling, I love learning new languages. I honestly don’t care about carbon emissions my flying may produce. I stay away from overcrowded tourist destinations and travel off season. It’s incredible that so many commenters on here “haven’t flown for years” in order to reduce their carbon footprint, meanwhile the number of air travelers within China and India has grown exponentially over the past 10 years. Yeah stay home and miss out on the world, that’ll make a difference.
13
@N Yeah, it's you're really missing out if you can't sit in a cafe on the other side of the world and sent out Instagram pics. Ever hear of National Geographic and Youtube to learn about the other parts of the world. Yes, travel is seductive, in part because of the Travel-industrial-complex (including the travel section of the NYT). Perhaps, though, eventually the air travelers in India/China that you cite will also realize that the droughts, water shortages, food shortages, and general mayhem are connected to their fear of missing out.
9
I love travel for all the reasons that people do. The culture, sight-seeing, languages, music, art, etc.
That said I’ve always felt that people who are incessant travelers who make such a big point about their many trips are just advertising the emptiness they feel at home.
Rather than searching for something to fill whatever void it is we might think we have - find fulfillment at home. It can’t be found by looking outward.
1
@N you live in NYC. How are you possibly missing out on anything? In your own city you can speak every language, eat every food, meet someone from every country/race/religion/class.
Until the 1960's, few flew regularly and fewer of them flew by "jet ", which, until after Howard Huges left, TWA was still using prop planes out of his personal preference.
The unfortunate interstate highway system made auto travel easy and the low compression motors of the times meant car travel was less polluting-in an era which knew nought of pollution. But even Kerouac traveled before the damnable cement snake nest was built.
It was still easy to take the train from either or any of a number of stations in Greater NYC to go to LI, Connecticut or New Jersey and Penna. or Maine. The idea of a European vacation-a place still filled with unexploded mines and bombs & bad plubling had not taken hold in the USA, yet. The Jet is such a posionous abuser of volatile hydrocarbons that tons of "extra" fuel is dumped into the atmosphere from planes, before landing-to prevent deadly fires if a spark ignited the fuel. Buying "carbon credits" to paste over ones guilty spots, have never been shown to work-just increase jet travel. People could easily use trains, as I did,or buses or boats. An even better solution is the reintroduction of lighter then air dirigible craft-which are still safer than 500 mph speeding bullets.(Powered & lifted by cheap H2 gas.)
I read about undergrads at Harvard rowing-yes!-in whalers or similar craft-home from Boston harbor to Maine. After that I would be ashamed to admit ever having taken the "red eye", even when it was a turbo-prop.
5
@meloop My family in the 1970s, drove two days (1400 miles) each year to get to our beach destination in Australia. The idea of flying was unthinkable.
1
That’s how most Canadian families do it. 2-3 day drive to Florida. Driving is more hassle but always cheaper
3
@Rob In Germany
Yup, Florida seems like a fascinating destination as compared to, let's say, Paris or Sydney.
The main thing is to vote out Trump and the Republicans. Sanders is offering a compelling climate plan. Personally, I haven't owned a car in twenty years and I take the bus to work. But the whole idea of "shaming" people is wrong. It's really narcississistic - it's a way of feeling "better than".
The best thing is to support global policies that promote change on a macro level. But it doesn't hurt to wear a sweater inside.
21
We can blame travelers, or we can band together and pressure governments to mandate the use of biofuels or other forms of alternative energy; we've got the knowhow to do it. It's costly, but it's the future of the planet we're talking about.
14
@DinDinWithGod
AS a STEM student-I must point out that so called "bio-fuels" merely redirect hydrogen and carbon atoms from materials other than oil, making the excct same explosive fuels that burn and emit CO2 and waste oils into the air, as does using pure J4.
I am ashamed that "educated" Americans are unaware that all jets not powered by pure hydrogen, pollute. That sny such fuel is carboniferous-whether from oil or home brewed alcohol, all polluting equally .
Only trains were truly efficient mass transit systems, even outdoing horse and buggies when it came to fuel efficiency-that's why they ran even during the great and world wars.
7
@meloop Thank you very much for the educational information. It's appreciated. You are specializing in STEM, hence your detailed knowledge of biofuels and hydrogen and pollution with regards to aviation. No need to be "ashamed" of the rest of (likely non-STEM-educated Americans) for needing a little further education on the matter. I am a student of the arts and letters. No one knows everything about everything, after all, even the most learned among us. Good luck with your studies.
Aviation only accounts for 2 percent of all carbon emissions...so stop feeling guilty and tell your congressmen so support aviation biofuels. They will make flying cleaner and your next ticket cheaper.
It's not like an irreversibly warming world is decades away. It’s here already. The only question is how much warmer it's going to get.
In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that global carbon emissions need to fall 50 percent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 to keep global temperatures from increasing by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.
CO2 emissions from commercial aviation account for about 2% of global carbon emissions now and are on pace to triple by 2050 which is a problem for getting to net zero.
Flight shaming is not cool. Ignoring the consequences of our consumption is not cool either.
7
A lot of people build their identity around traveling. It’s an easy way to make yourself seem interesting.
35
@L
People who travel ARE more interesting... they've expanded their horizons in terms of geography, culture and human connection.
12
@L - Do you actually believe that people travel out of a desire to make themselves seem interesting? I suppose some people might do that, but I think most people travel because they enjoy seeing other places, meeting new people, or for other reasons having to do with what can be found at their destination that cannot be found at home. At least that's why I love to travel--I can't say I ever once thought of it as making me more interesting. And interesting to whom in any case?
10
@Annie - within driving distance of Pittsburg, there is a diversity of scenery, people, and culture that could occupy someone for a lifetime. I don’t think you need to go to an entirely different country or even state to see new things and meet new people. I think there is something else behind the need to travel internationally. I also find travel immensely enjoyable, fascinating, and refreshing. But I challenge myself about whether I need to travel internationally when there’s so much I haven’t seen and so so many people here at home.
I think a lot of people do travel to seem interesting to others. It impresses people that you went somewhere exotic, even if all you did was eat and shop (which is what most travelers do, whether they did it in Rwanda or Las Vegas).
Then, I think a lot of other people travel to seem interesting to themselves. I think international travel is often an easier way to check novelty and human connection boxes than exploring at home. Somehow, the fairly shallow interactions we have with people while traveling feel much more like “human connection” than getting to know people in our home city/state/country.
3
Wow, I'm suddenly feeling pretty virtuous about my no kids/ no money lifestyle. Also I hate -- HATE -- flying. Not really interested in going anywhere I can't drive to. I've resigned myself to being the only person I know who's never been to Europe (oh well, Europe will just have to get along without me).
30
not one bit. my wife and I know we are fortunate beyond the pale. she gets 6 weeks PTO per year and I am self employed.
we take at least 5 trips each. we earned it and we take it.
hard work and dedication deserves rewards.
I wish everyone had the same opportunity we have.
18
@me and if everyone acted like you, food shortages and social collapse would happen even sooner.
@me Enjoy while it lasts. Think about it your attitude when food shortages and disease start affecting your PTO.
I do to. My wife a I worked hard all our lives, and continue to do so, and own two businesses. We take vacations and short trips and will continue to do so because we want to and we won’t be shamed by some fake, holier than thou, greenies.
1
Travelers, with the exception of the one percent with their private jets and first class seats and endless world travel experiences for their offspring, are not the problem.
Business people who lead bi-coastal and dual city lives and travel 4-5 times a month by plane and whose companies just eat up the costs of tickets and upgrades so that these businessmen can fly endlessly in the name of making more money for themselves, are the problem. They also put all the prices out of whack for the rest of us.
If you take 2-3 plane trips per year, don't sweat it. You're not the one ruining the planet. Look to the way we excuse any measure in the name of expanding business.
43
I find this article interesting and helpful. Why are so many people finding it “shaming”? Has it come to this? Any information provided by someone else that may impact our life is considered “shaming?” As the author notes, shaming doesn’t work. But we all can be better travelers, parents, patients, spouses, etc. and if we’re not defensive about it, there’s no shame in becoming more knowledgeable.
I wonder if the next time I talk to one of my patients about diabetes, they will feel it’s sugar shaming?
24
Buying things is not going to save the planet. Carbon offsets and "fly responsibly" programs are essentially just marketing and PR campaigns to convince the public ultimately to fly more, not less. The only fuel that is capable of making air transport economical is fossil fuels, no matter how much biofuel they say they mix in there. There is also the fact that all the fossil fuels you aren't responsible for burning with your changed habits will simply be sold to some other end user in the global economy. With demand from one sector the area of the economy, the price will go down, making it cheaper, which means more will be sold overall, also known as Jevons Paradox.
12
Being in a tin can 10,000 feet in the sky breathing recycled air is not my idea of fun. Add to that the terrible carbon footprint - I do not fly.
No car, only public transportation. I recycle and compost, live in a green community.
No guilt, will contribute to politicians who endorse stopping climate change. Guilt is not productive, but taking responsibility for the planet is.
9
@Sam Kanter
Well, it's hardly virtuous that you live in NYC and don't have a car and take public transportation. I wonder if you would do the same if you lived in El Paso, Tucson, Laramie, Debuque, Sarasota, Silver City, or Dodge City, just to mention seven.
@Sam Kanter
I love flying and then mingling with people of various cultures. It's all a great joy for me.
1
Guilty about my vacation? Might as well be guilty about living. My daughters and I flew to California from Massachusetts. Rented a car and drove to Yosemite... where...
We stayed in a tent cabin and hiked 20 miles to the top of Half Dome and back.
Guilt?
Not one bit.
40
@Mad Moderate I'd like to throw trash everywhere, and not have to seek out a bin. That would be nice.
You already live near some of the best hiking in the country. And Acadia is a beautiful national park not far from you.
I'm not feeling guilty at all about traveling. Matter of fact I plan on doing as much traveling as I can over the next few years (retired as of 18 months ago) until health prevents me from doing so.
27
@Steve Right on. Party like it's 1999 dude. We're all screwed, so who cares. Maybe get a Hummer to fetch groceries, burn your trash and pour your used oil down the drain. You've earned it.
1
@Steve
Yes. You are old enough to both collect on Social Security (that the rest of us will never get) AND avoid the ravages of climate change.
So please do whatever you want -- you won't have to pay for it or live with it.
Guilt is one of the most ridiculous and negative human emotions and an article built around this emotion is inane.
I spent my last two holidays in poor countries, one being Cuba the other being a neat place in Europe I won't name (because I don't want it 'discovered.'
In both places we studiously avoided resort hotels. We stayed with local people who were marvelous hosts.
My father's definition of a tourist is "someone who leave their manners home." As travelers, we are not interested in meeting tourists, we are not interested in crowds. But we are interested in profound encounters with the ordinary, intellectual, and artistic communities of the places we visit. I'm supposed to feel guilty about that?
By the way, the vast majority of air travel is not related to tourism, it is for business purposes an family affairs
22
"in the end, the moment we leave home for pleasure, we're all tourists – it's just that the travellers haven't yet realised it."
- Anthony Peregrine
Why the snobbery towards hotels? Since ancient times, the inn, the caravanserai, the hotel, have been part of great cities. What would NY have been without the Plaza, the Algonquin, the Chelsea? Or Paris, London or any other place without their hotels, some of them landmark and expensive, many of them humble and affordable? Lisbon wouldn't have been nearly so wonderful for me if I hadn't stayed at the Avenida Palace, nor Madrid so beguiling without a few nights at the Atlantico. Or Rome without the very affordable Hotel Abruzzi in Rome (no I don't work for a booking agency!). And because the staff are locals they know the best places to hear music, get a drink, meet people. The waiters at the Excelsior in Naples love to talk about where the food comes from and how their mothers make the pastries and in Positano our waiter told us all about his little farm in the hills where he raises goats and grows tomatoes. Forget Airbnb, support the locals and find the right hotel for yourself and make it your home.
81
@Michael--In Girona, Catalunya, there are banners over several streets saying:
Dear Visitors, Be Aware: Every Tourist Apartment Is A Home Taken Away From the Local People.
Amsterdam is limiting the number of AirBnBs that can operate in the city centre, as are many other cities. AirBnB and VRBOs are NOT good choices for the local culture and for local neighborhoods. You're absolutely right that if you want to support the locals, you'll stay in a hotel.
29
I thought the same thing reading the article. My parents own an hotel in the alps so maybe I’m biased :) but they employ multiple people and it is there from 1936. we are lucky that in my little village Airbnb is not a big problem yet, but when I was living in Florence last year It was so difficult to find an apartment and in my street most of the houses where Airbnb, and Florence without florentines would be so sad
23
Even if all air travel stopped tomorrow, the total reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be about 2% of the global total. Why? Most people on this planet do not fly.
Please focus attention on real solutions. For example, wind, solar, electric cars, and white roofs. Without collective action along several dimensions, one less vacation is not going to accomplish anything.
25
@JP Agreed that we need to focus on other more achievable solutions. But the 2% figure is outdated. First according to estimates, aviations CO2 emissions could be 5% to 15% percent of the total contribution by 2050 if action is not taken to tackle these emissions. Second, it's all hands on deck right now. And unnecessary flying seems like low-hanging fruit. Like beef. Just cutback. Life satisfaction is exactly the same with 50% less.
4
The sacrifices we can impose on ourselves now—well, they will be very small compared to the sacrifices nature will impose on us if we do nothing. To use a nice sounding, old word, it will be sanguinary if we live for today and think nothing we individually do matters.
As King Lear said, "Nothing comes of nothing."
13
I could virtue signal about my avoidance of industrial meat, processed food, etc, my walking everywhere (almost never driving) or my reusing every bag or plastic bottle, etc, etc. But what really works for me not to feel guilty flying is that I don't and never will have offspring. Human overpopulation is the core cause of all ecological and political problems. Incentivize one child families, especially in poor cultures and stop illegal immigration. Than we can ALL enjoy flying, clean air and travel.
21
@natan agree with you except for the the offhand remark about "poor cultures." I'm all for zero population growth but really those of us in the West consume way more per capita than those in the third world.
8
@natan please read Hans Rosling's "Factfulness." The average number of births per woman, worldwide, has already dropped dramatically. Children per woman is directly correlated with poverty. If you're so worried about population control, do something against poverty. Today. That's the incentive that works, and since you're not having children is in part a result of living in a rich country, you can afford to give back.
1
@Ana That's why unsustainable illegal immigration is such a problem. It removes the negative feedback from the population growth in poor countries (in fact it incentivizes it). Western consumption and lifestyle wouldn't be an issue at all if the average number of offspring were below two. The whole world could live in peace and prosperity. Just stop making so many children.
1
By the time retire and can afford to travel overseas etc, it will be so shame inducing my only option will be to virtue signal by staying home and riding my bike.
9
Citizens of Sweden and other continental European nations have more transit options for traveling on the continent, such as rail service and buses. Regretfully we in the US have fewer such options.
I do not see the point of flight shaming beyond giving the shamers a sense of self righteousness.
17
@sanderling1, I think the point is to exert some negative pressure. Telling one’s friends about exotic vacation destinations has always been glossed with glamour. Maybe if it isn’t people will change habits.
11
@sanderling1
I think the point is also that Americans should demand more transit options. Yes it will cost some tax dollars and take some business away from the auto industry and airline industry. Sometimes it's necessary to have long term goals.
14
@Kirianne Yes I don't see it being about shame at all. It's just about being aware of the actual effects of what we are doing. Then, gradually or quickly, as we can, we can start to find less damaging ways to do them - and we can help each other by pointing out such ways.
11
You will read lots of people's comments justifying their behavior. That is all it is. Justification.
You do not need to travel that far on vacation. If you live in NYC vacation in Upstate New York or take the train to Miami, FL in the winter. If you live in Boston go to Maine or New Hampshire (not Vermont please we have plenty of tourists already).
You do not need to go overseas period. If you do so then stay for a really long time and take the train while you are there. Then don't go back.
Some comment mentioned that air travel is less than 3% of global emissions. What was not mentioned is that for the average person a really long flight - Like L.A. to Europe or NY to Hawaii - can increase a households carbon output by 50% or more. A single round trip on an airplane can cause more damage than an entire year of commuting.
So please do what I have done. Stop flying.
Or you can keep traveling and eating beef and everything else if you do just one thing: don't have kids.
37
@Brother Shuyun I'm not gonna stop traveling just because much of the rest of the world can't stop making more than 2 kids per couple. I chose your final suggestion: zero offspring and I'll keep it that way. Also, advocating for nuclear power I contribute more to the climate and environment than any self-righteous vegan who also doesn't fly.
13
@Brother Shuyun
I don't think many Americans actually do travel overseas, but I wish they would. Then, their minds might broaden and they might actually realize that the world is not just America.
73
@George Haig Brewster Yes!
No, it is NOT true that that trip to Paris will require air travel!
We are about to cross the Atlantic on a container ship, where our incremental CO2 production will be close to unmeasurable.
Other options are out there - we just have to take the issue seriously enough to look for them, and stop insisting on the convenience we got used to in the oblivious, do-whatever-you-want era.
11
And how are you getting home?
That’s a great plan except for those of us who actually have to be at work to earn money to do things like take European vacations.
25
@Wesley Clark, MD, MPH
What do you mean by your "incremental CO2 production will be close to unmeasurable" ? From my reading limited I admit), shipping, whether cruise or container, is one of the least green ways to travel, both for its CO2 emissions and other forms of water pollution.
While it is true that your passage on the ship will not measurably add to emissions and the ship was sailing anyway, the same could be said for any one individual taking a flight instead.
I realize that on an emissions per ton basis, shipping may be more "efficient" than air transport, but is shipping vast quantities of cars, machinery, clothing or whatever around the world any more defensible than people choosing to travel?
7
@Wesley Clark, MD, MPH
What do you mean by your "incremental CO2 production will be close to unmeasurable" ? From my reading limited I admit), shipping, whether cruise or container, is one of the least green ways to travel, both for its CO2 emissions and other forms of water pollution.
While it is true that your passage on the ship will not measurably add to emissions and the ship was sailing anyway, the same could be said for any one individual taking a flight instead.
I realize that on an emissions per ton basis, shipping may be more "efficient" than air transport, but is shipping vast quantities of cars, machinery, clothing or whatever around the world any more defensible than people choosing to travel?
Seth,
I feel like you HAD to write this article. Okay, we can all be more responsible travelers. But I wish you would write more about thin places. One of my favorite pieces ever.
m
2
MUCH more important not to eat beef, to make sure refrigeration isn't leaking, and to have fewer children later in life. Travel-shaming is easy but trivial. Especially since most vacationers are cheap-riding on what would be empty seats in a plane whose high fares are paid by business travelers. Without vacationers the total carbon emitted by planes would go down some but not as much as you'd think.
18
@Jeoffrey
Businesses are switching more and more to tele meetings and the like. Business travel will drop over time too, especially if costs to travel go up.
6
@Kj
True but not that relevant. If business travel declines so will vacation travel as many vacationers find they can't afford it anymore. The demand side of air travel (measured in what they're willing to pay) isn't and won't come from vacationers.
5
@Jeoffrey But the fact remains - that airplane would not be going anywhere without passengers. So if you are a passenger on it, you are part of the reason it is going somewhere, and burning a huge amount of fuel in the process. To imply that coach passengers aren't causing a large amount of fuel to be burned just seems like a dodge, to me.
5
Aviation produces 2%-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. It is one of the smaller contributers. And for most airplane trips there aren't good substitutes. Avoiding air travel is among the least cost-effective and least convenient ways to reduce your carbon footprint.
Car transportation and heating of structures contribute far more. There are less carbon intensive substitutes for a furnace, for example, which do not impact your quality of life. Replacing electricity generation with renewables will have a much bigger impact toward stabilizing greenhouse gasses, at far less cost and inconvenience to society.
Greta Thunberg, admirable as she may, is most emphatically not modeling good behavior. To avoid a half-day airplane flight, she is taking an expensive specially made yacht on a two week trip across the ocean. Seriously? That's not modeling behavior, nobody has the time or the resources to do what she is doing.
17
@bo.li I believe that is not the most useful way to look at it. Even if air travel as a whole only contributes 2-3% of global greenhouse gasses (is that really true?), only a small minority of the world's people fly in any given year. Thus, for each PERSON WHO FLIES, the flight contributes a HUGE amount of carbon. Flying round trip from CA to Europe produces as much carbon, PER PASSENGER, as driving a car for a year. How is that not a major part of the carbon that I, as an individual, have control over emitting? If I don't fly, I reduce my carbon output by HALF (even more, if I don't drive). I still fly sometimes; I'm not trying to pull some holier-than-thou thing.. But I don't see that we get anywhere by pretending that our behavior is less damaging than it is. (And for the record, you can cross the Atlantic on container ships, not just specially made yachts, and that IS modeling good behavior, in my book.)
7
@Wesley Clark, MD, MPH Your equivalence between a year of car diving and airplane trip from CA to Europe is simply factually wrong.
And air traffic indeed is only 2%-3% of GHG emissions (the higher 3% number comes from ignoring passive production from things like land use changes.)
If you have the time and inclination to travel by container ship, more power to you. For most of us avoiding air travel would be a notable reduction in quality of life.
8
@bo.li Okay, I think I see your point. But I disagree that my statement is factually wrong! See the citations I give in my response to your response, a little further up on this thread. Can you give sources for why you think the CA-Europe flight uses less than a year's worth of gas?
As for not flying being a notable reduction in quality of life - yes, I agree completely. But might we not be required to reduce our quality of life? Isn't it possible that keeping the planet healthy will require us to give some things up that we don't want to give up?
1
I just have to quibble with the suggestion that you combine tourist with volunteering. "Voluntourism" is generally a scam that does essentially nothing for local people providing tourists with photo ops. If you want to support charities, it is MUCH more useful to simply donate money.
68
Well maybe some of us are afraid to take a real vacation for fear that no matter how talented we are in our professions we night come back to a pink slip.
21
@Tony
I think I saw this on an episode of Corporate.
The average American takes less in the way of vacations than people almost anywhere else in the industrialized world. No wonder so many jump onto the vacation scold bandwagon judging by the comments here. We cultural descendants of the Puritans are happy to flail ourselves. We are especially happy to place personal responsibility on those who have the nerve to travel. At the same time, we continually elect politicians who refuse to improve public transportation. One advantage of traveling abroad is that we get to see what it's like to live in a world where public transportation works. Now if we would only put that knowledge to work by electing people who are willing to make our country more energy efficient.
134
@Ceilidth Absolutely! I'm on a train from Amsterdam to a Dutch beach right now. We could have something like this from Boulder to Denver or the mountains, and in many other places in the US, if the political will existed.
6
@Ceilidth the average Boulderite is on a vacation most of the year and has the carbon footprint of a small developing city, but it's our voting that's the cause. Hmmm....
@Ceilidth "we continually elect politicians who refuse to improve public transportation."
EXACTLY. I am constantly reminded of how irrational American voters are. 40% of our fellow Americans strongly support Trump and a political party that denies truth about so many things I
1
My preference when traveling is for walkable cities with good public transportation. I don't do beach resorts as I have easy access to the Jersey shore. I also decided to cut down on meat consumption when traveling to help offset my carbon footprint. I derive too much pleasure from traveling to give up my every 2-3 years trips. But I can make mindful choices when I do it.
14
@RJ
"I derive too much pleasure from traveling to give up my every 2-3 years trips." I assume this is the answer you'll give to your grandchildren when they ask you why we failed to mitigate climate change when we still had a chance.
Traveling is environmentally more damaging to the places we visit, case in point: Venice. Global warming will see more drastic effects if we cut on meat, more specifically on beef.
10
The biggest portion of a person’s carbon footprint is the energy we use to keep our houses/business/public places at room temperature, and the energy used to ship food into cities.
7
Not traveling by air doesn't imply not traveling. Even in the United States, there are scores of interesting, scenic places to visit that the average cosmopolitan overlooks in favor of "exotic" destinations in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America.
Where I live in northeastern NJ, the average person barely knows Philadelphia (aside from the Liberty Bell), and the Midwest might as well be another country. Canada literally IS another country.
In the age of American political division, maybe more interregional travel is more socially beneficial than some trip amongst cultural strangers on another continent.
26
@In NJ
Agreed! I'm in the beautiful northwest and can take the train or drive my (electric) car to scores of beautiful places. Yet people jet off to other countries (and I don't mean Canada). See the beauty nearby. Once you have spent a few years doing that, ask yourself if you need to fly.
3
@In NJ - Perhaps spending time among "cultural strangers" is actually one of the appealing factors about traveling for some people.
4
@Annie I realize that travel to a different state or region of the United States isn't the same as travel to another country. The language is the same, the architecture is the same, and the food is 95% the same etc, but that brings us face-to-face with the fact that air travel is immensely bad environmentally whereas a non-flight trip isn't as bad.
Also, not all travel leads to any kind of cross cultural experience either. A lot of Americans fly for ski vacations or the beach and they visit tourist traps (like Venice) where cross-cultural encounters aren't going to happen.
So yeah, maybe visiting the Venice or the Netherlands is uplifting in a way that a Midwestern road trip or trip to nearby mountains aren't, but by flying to Venice, a tourist is helping to put Venice and the Netherlands under water, whereas your local trip isn't. Maybe your local beach isn't as scenic as a beach in Morocco, but at least you aren't contributing to the desertification of the whole MENA region.
The math is brutal. As a species we generate 5 tons CO2 per person per year, and we need absolutely to get down to more like 2 tons. The average American generates 17 tons. Take one trip to Europe or cross-country, and you've used up your entire 2-ton allotment for the year just on the plane ride. The simple fact is, whatever else we do to address climate change, we need to travel less, and not a little bit less, a lot less.
18
Traveling and scuba diving was the bright light of our lives for many years. Poor health no longer permits, but how I miss it. Don't let the guilt-scolds take it from you just to make a symbolic difference.
45
@mike
The difference is far from symbolic. And you couldn't scuba dive in California or Oregon or Washington?
@mike
The difference is not symbolic at all.
The solution of from a developed world travel writer to an action for which brings him pleasure, but knowingly contributes the greatest threat to all this planet's living creatures ever is to do it anyway and throw a little money into causes that makes him feel a little less guilty? Well, at least it's better than the rest of the developed world's inhabitants that he admits to feeling somewhat guilty.
How about giving half of that travel money to people in undeveloped world so that they can sustainably develop and using the other half for entertainment at home instead? Someday, many of us in the developed world will look back at a permanently damaged world wished we could take back all of the needless trips flying and in our cars. The creatures that become extinct and the rain forests that burn down can't be brought back.
8
I am not in a financial position to fly, but if you are, is it because of Trump and Bush tax cuts? That extra money you are getting belongs to the poor, not people who have a giant carbon footprint.
Biofuels may be worse than oil based fuel, as they use up corn and other crops, which then take up more land which could be forested.
This same newspaper advocated spending $5 a day for Starbucks coffee. This is more than I get in foodstamps, which are NOT supplemental.
12
@dr. c.c.
My tax money doesn't belong to the poor. I worked for it and it's mine.
14
@James Milton Friedman said that capitalism cannot deal with societal problems like poverty. The government must do this.
If you are are in the group I am referring to, please explain to me why your work is worth sp much more than that of the bottom 80%. Are you sure you are not just lucky?
11
@dr. c.c.
Actually, he has no obligation to explain it to you.
The biggest myth is that travel is expensive. Tourism, the only form of travel promoted by the industry, can indeed be pricey. There is an old truism, that there is an inverse relationship between time and money. The shorter your trip the more you spend, and vice versa. If you go to a low cost destination like most of SE Asia for a few months, and lodge, eat and move about like a local, you can certainly love comfortably on less than you would have spent staying at home. And that includes your airfare. And living that way also cuts way down on your carbon footprint, excluding the flight.
8
I don't think this needs to be too complicated. People's assessment of costs and environmental impact are mostly poorly informed, and they are constantly changing.
If various energy inputs are priced to include not just their cost of production, storage, and transport, but also the environmental AND security costs per BTU (yeah, a good part of our military's job is to secure energy resources).
Done properly, each individual can decide how much of their personal resources they want to spend traveling. That doesn't relieve travelers of their responsibilities once they arrive. Humans still have to behave properly and avoid the wrong places or the wrong times.
Obviously, the big obstacle is pricing energy (and re-pricing as necessary). But it has to be done without causing governments to fall or sending responsible politicians to the unemployment line. So far, it seems we're collectively a long way from personal sacrifice, but that's been leavened with substantial global warming denialism.
Meanwhile, we can forget the tremendous contributing problem of overpopulation, the deficits in women's rights and education, rampant militarism, and the latest scourge of right wing, know-nothing nationalism.
Well, maybe it is a little complicated...
3
Man, talk about rich-people problems. Try to convince me flying is required for more than 1% of the trips people make. As in I must have my European vacation to complete my cultural refinement. Or sailing in the islands is the only thing that makes it possible to martyr myself at my banking job. Plus the rest of you are driving to work every day and using gas in the mowers you plebes use to cut your own lawns, what about that? Sheesh.
17
The answer to to your question is "very." We should feel very bad about it.
6
The main driver of climate change isn't the use of fossil fuels. The main driver is, instead, overpopulation.
While people are reproducing at astronomical amounts on our planet I'll be darned if I'm going to waste my time on this earth dealing with train travel.
17
@Travelers
I like you attitude.
Agree - it's not fossil fuel per se driving climate change.
Agree - climate change is being immensely impacted by overpopulation and all the commensurate resources that requires, especially as more and more people strive for 1st world life styles, including travel, cars, excessive heating and cooling costs, etc.
Until China, India and other 3rd world nations start contributing their share (or have massive decreases in populations via plague or whatever), any thing we in the 1st world do is not making any difference.
7
@Common Sense
So who's going to help fund the ability of developing nations to sidestep the combustion of fossil fuels entirely?
The U.S and Europe have reaped the most benefit from burning fossil fuels; they also bear the most responsibility for the climate crisis. Why should poorer countries be required to pay to solve a problem that already existed before their economies modernized? Especially if the U.S is doing absolutely nothing to wean itself off fossil fuels?!
Unless the west foots the bill for global decarbonization of the economy, nothing will get done.
6
I’m positive the average carbon footprint of someone in India (or rural China) is WAY smaller than americans’. But I agree that overpopulation is a problem - I just don’t think it’s good to say that what we do doesn’t matter until they stop having so many babies.
4
If we respect the IPCC data, we will all make significant changes in our carbon footprints or less the planet sizzle until that takes care of the issue...i.e., far less humans. There's no doubt that transportation, in all of its forms, burns about a third of the fuel we consume. The sad part being that we dump 2/3rd of the original energy into the environment as heat, CO2 and H20. In my case, back in the 70's thru the 90's my carbon footprint was probably 60 Tons/year, about 2/3 rds from air travel for work. After retiring, my carbon footprint runs about 8 Tons/yr... a third from gasoline/diesel, a third from natural gas and the remainder from food, electricity, etc. The big effect from air travel, about the same as driving a 40 mpg car alone, is not so much the emissions/passenger-mile of 0.5 lb of CO2 per passenger mile but it is the distance... In an airplane you can travel 500-600 miles in an hour (dumping 250-300 lbs for each passenger) but in a vehicle, you cover about 50 miles, maybe dumping about 40 lbs total. If there are two people in the vehicle, it's 20 lbs per person...so much the better. Strangely enough, two people in a 10 mpg RV dump about the same as the two people flying but the distances covered are less than a tenth as much.
Do whatever you want, your children and grand-kids will pay the price. I don't have any children and yet I'm deeply concerned about the planet. Strangely, our friends with children and grand-kids, seem to care far less.
5
We had an exhibit st a local museum that had over 100 artifacts from Pompeii. It was a great experience for us (two retired teachers who will never go to there) and our granddaughter. Our friends who have actually traveled to Pompeii were impressed because we saw more individual artifacts than they had seen.
Of course it is not the same, but most people in the world cannot afford luxury vacations. There are many things to enjoy that don’t involve jetting around the world.
15
It would be helpful if individuals had incentives to determine how to best reduce their own carbon footprint. It may look different for each person, but most likely there would be some common methods. Benchmarks would also serve a purpose so that we don't fool ourselves about our own footprints or methods of reduction.
6
These comments are depressing. It’s clear nothing will happen without regulation. Perhaps gradually requiring net zero emissions for air travel to encourage bio fuels adoption.
14
I liked the suggestion about using an AirBnb that locals actually live in most of the year. I dislike hotels and generally think they are hugely overpriced, so always either camp or use VRBO. But I have felt guilty at times for staying in rentals because I know using a house exclusively as a vacation rental just increases the affordability problem in many areas.
8
My son is a chemistry major and he came home and told me that his professor said to go do what you want because it is already too late. Nature seeks a balance and the enormous amount of carbon we have released is causing the acidification of the ocean is destroying the shells of all the sea life and the oceans will die. Very soon. Digest that as you rationalize your love of flying.
24
@Carolyn Darlington
It's not clear where your son's professor is getting his data from, but 350.org doesn't (yet) display that kind of pessimism. No doubt the fate of our planet hangs in the balance but activism, not cynicism, is the way to go.
Encourage your son to get involved with campus groups
that offer social and political outlets for his youthful energy. Oh yes, invite that professor over for a vegetarian dinner and gently inquire as to what he's doing to help...
11
@Carolyn Darlington
Your son's chemistry professor is right. Unless some chemist figures out a cost effective way to scrub CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, we are already past the tipping point. No one likes to mention it because it would cause panic, but it is true.
5
@Carolyn Darlington
Your son's prof is only partially correct, with an overly fatalistic simplistic point of view. Yes, the oceans have already acidified enough that some ocean life is having trouble building shells, but we are quite a way from having the shells of all sea life destroyed, and farther from having the oceans die. If we work hard to stop GHG emissions, we can still save much marine life.
We still have the power to select our future, and the future of life on Earth.
1
As my boss once pointed out, if you live your life traveling the world or you never ventured outside the neighborhood you were born in, as you take your last breath, it’s all the same outcome. Any memories or experiences you had or did not have end with your life. His view is that he shouldn’t have to pay (via your wages) for your wanderlust. It’s a valid point. As with all else in life, the cost of not only travel but time off should not be the responsibility of your employer.
1
@From Where I Sit
Are you speaking of paid vacations or are you speaking of the environmental cost of traveling? The environmental costs of traveling are addressed in these comments so I will touch on paid vacations. After training, employees bring more to a company than just their bodies and a blank slate to the workplace. They bring institutional knowledge that allows the employer to sustain, long term, the benefits of their investments. In most cases, the employer earns an exponentially larger amount than the employee, though they would not be able to without the skills, labor, and fealty of the employee who is literally the infrastructure on which the employer relies. Some people scoff at corporations having to pay more taxes. But corporations literally are born and function on all of the pre-existing systems society has in place, that are funded by everyone in the country, and that support them in their day today activities, employees being just one of these things.
When I take vacation from work, I might choose to travel or I might choose to stay home. However I revive myself, I do it for my mental well being and also so I can return a better worker: I am refreshing and taking care of employers institutional knowledge so I can make their business run efficiently and so they won’t have to invest in training someone new. So, even when I am off, I am wedded to my employer and they should be responsible to me, which means paying for my time off.
3
@From Where I Sit Of course, by your brilliant boss's logic, doing anything at all with life is worthless, because in the long run, as Keynes put it, we're all dead.
I wonder if this philosopher-king supervisor of yours applied the same logic to the question to whether it was worth the effort to do any work for him?
Funny, but I think I know the answer...
@Lulu
In certain professions, namely those that require a substantial investment in education to gain entry to a field, paid time off is appropriate as part of the ROI the employee seeks for their time and money. But the vast majority of jobs do not actually involve the skills taught in a college classroom. How do you justify vacations for a Walmart worker at the store level? Or the person doing oil changes at a car dealership? These are major business expenses for activities that aren’t needs. They are “wants” and employers shouldn’t be expected to dig into their pockets to placate my wants. Your mindset is absurdly prevalent among the minimum wage guards and warehouse workers I supervise. People who make more than me, I might add. It causes constant economic damage to my employer’s business due to the 300-400% turnover. It causes a loss of the institutional knowledge you referred to. I’d affects the quality of the service we provide to our customers. And it is all so unnecessary.
I don't feel guilty at all. MOST of the vacations I take are staycations. So, when I do travel, I don't feel guilty. I'm also fortunate in that sometimes I travel for my work and it's easy to extend the time away with a little vacation on either end of the business. Then, I get a travel vacation without separate flights.
8
This movement is fantastic. The "status" earned by telling your friends about the expensive trip..was in many cases the only reason to go somewhere.
It paralells the fantastic anti-consumerism movement by extinction rebellion, who, on a self made runway outside London fashion week who desperately needs to be edgy- provided their own fashion show made out of recyclables. Brilliant. And creative to boot!
We must all fly much much less. Virtual travel is good enough.
12
I quit my job and I went to India in January. I took two months, and I rented a motorcycle and rode across Rajasthan. I saw the taj majal, checked out Mumbai and Bollywood and Goa.
Then I went to Thailand and scuba dived the most amazing reefs.
Then I went back to India for Holi, traveled some more, and then went back to Denver via Tokyo.
I did it, because it’s my life.
33
@Jack Lee
Jack, you get my vote.
I don't feel guilty about my vacation at all. Of course, I haven't traveled by air in more than three years.
2
This is one high class problem. Not to worry, none of my employers (three) provide any vacation days for staff. No sick time or personal time, either.
I literally haven't had a single minute of paid time off in over twenty years. So no, I haven't had a vacation in decades. Does that make me an involuntary environmentalist?
I bet my employers would love to spin it that way!
69
I hear you I get two days of paid time off a year. Any vacation I take not only do I have to pay for the trip but I have to have the money to make up for two weeks of lost wages. So that pretty much means no vacation. Turning 50 this year hoping I can swing a camping trip next summer to celebrate. After twenty years I think I deserve two weeks in the woods.
13
Someone has already pointed out useless guilt is, and I couldn’t agree more. Travel responsibly and respect your destination’s people and their culture. But I’m not about to remain place-bound when there’s so much to explore and learn out there in this amazing world.
42
As a nation, there are far better ways to reduce our overall footprint. For example, a few years ago, one scientist estimated that if we made all our roofs white instead of dark colors, the reduction in air conditioning usage would be as effective as removing half the cars from the road!
Power companies in sunny states have BITTERLY fought roof-top solar panels and gotten (some) stage legislatures to allow them to charge SUCH high fees for NOT using their electricity that they disincentivize installing panels--so they can build more diesel generators! Florida P&L was one of them--I don't know if they succeeded.
The President argues against wind generators claiming they kill "billions of birds" when, in fact they are fourth largest trailing 'WAY behind the leading killer--house cats. Yup Fluffy, Tigger, and Whiskers do far more damage than wind generators.
NYC wanted all tall buildings to have Natural Gas generators, which , while they pollute, pollute far less than Con Ed's ancient diesels. But the Con had so much influence, they couldn't implement it.
Exploring the world is not a sin, it's an education. And I refuse to feel guilty for not sitting home and holding a bound collection of dead trees! (At least you could buy your books on Kindle and save a tree, if you're going to judge ME!)
Besides, more fuel efficient air liners are not just good ecology, they're good for cutting operating costs, too!
45
Habitat loss is more likely the biggest killer of birds. Window strikes also kill a lot of them.
@Dadof2
A new white roof was installed on the garage annex at my apartment building. The main garage has a black roof. When you walk from the main garage into the annex, the temperature and humidity drop dramatically
2
I have been wondering where to go that might be still enjoyable. Heat waves in Alaska and Europe. Sargassum weed taking over beaches. Wildfires destroying places that used to be good road trip places. Overcrowding from so many tourists. Tidal floods on the east coast and the Hawaiian Islands.
At the moment, my covered patio looks pretty good.
26
@David Bible
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
- Yogi Berra
'Cattle Ranching' is not the same as 'Feed Lot' meat production.
Cattle on open rangeland eat natural grass that only an ungulate can digest.
If you are concerned about eating a natural food product organic rangeland cattle should not be confused with most feedlot and antibiotic fed cattle production.
16
@sidecross Those cattle grown on grass on ranches get sent to a feed lot (either at the home ranch, or elsewhere). Very few cattle grown on ranches avoid time being fed climate change and pesticide, and Roundup treated grains. The dichotomy you suggest is mostly a fantasy except for certified grass fed beef, which is very expensive, and often does not taste that great to most people.
4
@nutritarian
What I described is the only for meat production without a high carbon footprint.
Once a population moves from an open rangeland you have become the problem of urban population and all the needs for transporting most everything consumed and used.
Civilization has a cost and the debt is still being tallied.
"Consider an educational exchange program in Vietnam compared to a week at a resort in the Maldives."
Mr Kugel, I did both last year. While I am incredibly conflicted and apt to feel guiltier than most, I am almost 70 and have owned only a four-cylinder car all my life, and I gladly take public transit whenever I can. So I consider that some kind of offset. As for cuisine, what's the point of visiting a foreign country and eating at McDonald's? That said, you would not believe the line of locals outside the Beijing KFC! My wife and I went to a nearby local spot which said "Dumpling House" on the marque. Unfortunately, that was the only written or spoken English in the place. My wife and I don't speak Chinese, but eventually a college student rescued us and we had an incredible meal for less than $10, including beers. We still treasure and retell that story. I'm pretty sure KFC would not have been as memorable. Anyway, thanks for the insight. I'll try to do better.
16
This is why it would be nice to be a Trump conservative. It would be nice to be unable to distinguish perceived self interest from truth and good policy. Sadly, one of the things that I love to do is travel. And being a working person, I don't have unlimited time and money. Maybe when I'm retired there will be affordable sail powered transportation and I will have time to use it. For now, I guess I better look into carbon credits.
6
The reality is that some countries survive upon tourist income, Namibia for one. If you suffer from travel-guilt, consider spending your money in places whose economies most rely upon that income.
26
In Europe I travel exclusively by train. It is a shame that the US does not offer viable long distance train travel. My short AMTRAK train hops to DC and New Hampshire have been pleasant, stress free, and relatively cheap. There are probably financially motivated political reasons for why the US doesn't have a viable train system. Maybe we should be demanding one rather than lamenting the lack of.
41
This is the biggest issue with cutting down on flights. The rail system in the US stinks. Albany to DC, six hours by train, by air 1:20 on a slow flight. Barcelona to Madrid (roughly the same distance) by rail, 3 hours. Yeah longer, but I’ll take a train any day over a flight if I can.
14
@Linda
the writer said in paragraph trains are too expensive -
@dlutz
Route trip Amtrak to DC from NJ cost me just under $100. Looks like airfare from EWR to DC cannot match this price. Amtrak offers senior fares while airlines I fly do not. Amtrak with issue a partial refund if there is a lower fare offered before you take your trip. Amtrak tickets can be changed at no charge if you do it within their very reasonable time window. Finally, Amtrak very often offers 2 for 1 fares as well as 50% off the ticket cost. Maybe if more people learned the facts and started taking trains even for the short hauls, the need would increase as would the service options with new tracks/routes being added.
2
ViaRail here is Canada is a great way for us to see our own country. We have done this twice with our family.
Our favourite train ride is East to West as the Canadian Rockies on that route are particularly stunning.
17
Not gonna feel guilty about this one. I live overseas and have to fly to see my family. More importantly, I don’t own a car and never have in my five decades on the planet. I think my carbon footprint is pretty small compared to, say, most Americans.
13
Yeah it’s virtually impossible to do that almost anywhere in America. If you don’t have a car, you can forget having a job.
I have been trying to avoid or minimize my air travel unless absolutely necessary. It is NOT because of shame BUT because of more positive reasons. I want to contribute and feel better as much as I can even though such a contribution at the private level is so small.
I do not eat red meat since 5 years ago, minimize using a car or trying car pool, and use an air conditioning at higher settings, etc. I know these things are not significant but still make me feel good. Certainly, we need more drastic changes of our lifestyle, but let's begin with a positive attitude, not based on shame.
For a vacation, we do not need to go somewhere. I find it a lot of fun and refreshing to participate a local sport festival and practice for it in a nearby park (good for health, too). Hiking, camping, bike riding, etc. Anything is enjoyable by changing a pattern of everyday life. Let's be creative! We can save not only energy but also money with these activities for a vacation.
7
@old lady. Ma'am, thank you for what you do. It DOES matter and it DOES add up. Too many people don't think about what they do at all. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit for us to improve our carbon footprint even with our current inefficient systems. And, yes, you end up healthier. The typical American suburban lifestyle is truly a deathstyle.
4
A vacation for me is staying at home, reading a book, walking this dog, paying some bills, browsing the internet, going to doctor appointments, ordering carryout, looking for stuff I need to buy, checking on how the kids are doing and writing this comment.
I have been doing this now for about 20 years, ever since I retired, and hope to continue doing it long enough to see Trump retire.
71
@A. Stanton I would change your final statement to: long enough to see Trump voted out of office in 2020.
At any rate, I'm in complete agreement with your assessment of a vacation. Though I love to travel, I also love my home and city and enjoy playing "tourist" in my own area.
12
@A. Stanton
Please re think ordering take away; food delivery generates enormous amounts of waste in the form of single use plastic. This plastic chokes sea life and leads to microplastics in the guts of fish, in our water, etc.
Instead, have fun by eating at the bar of your local restaurant.
1
@A. Stanton - That's not a vacation, that's daily life. It's fine and enjoyable for many of us, but it doesn't make it a vacation.
10
Such an interesting conundrum. We've traveled quite a bit, exploring places around the world in a culturally-sensitive way (and often on local transit after the flight).
We've been HomeExchange participants for the last three years, exchanging our home with others, and hosting guests while we are in our place as well.
That said, we're traveling less than we used to, so have reduced our impact in that way, but totally believe in the value of experiencing the world.
It's important, especially for us Americans, I think, as we can be so isolated from experiencing the rest of the world.
23
Three years ago, I went on a Trans-Atlantic cruise from Florida to Italy. It was on a 85,000 ton ship with under 2000 paying passengers. A ocean crossing of the Atlantic is something that was always on my bucket list.
I was aware that ships, in international waters, burn the worst quality oil in their diesel engines. The exhaust smoke was visibly brown with sulfur, and sitting at the rear of the ship, saw it trailing behind us for a dozen miles or more. It gave me pause that my vacation was creating a brown cloud trailing behind us.
Once I got to Europe, I mostly traveled on a Eurail Pass, on electrified trains. No pollution seen, none thought of.
I guess what all this did was it made me worry less about burning a little gasoline on my more mundane road trip vacations.
4
I spend every winter away from MN. Last winter it was Buenos Aires, Argentina. The winter before, Taipei, Taiwan and so on for the past 10 years. Almost every year I fly around the globe at least once. So, yes, it's incredibly selfish and a thoughtless thing to do, but I weigh it against the fact that I wasn't born for 4.5 billion years and will be dead for another 5 billion years. This is the one flash of existence that I have against an eternity of nothingness. I'm going to take it. I'll happily buy carbon offsets but I doubt they do anything other than line the pockets of the airlines.
33
I am leaving for Dubai on Wednesday and I was in London in March. I have zero guilt as traveling is my passion and I am careful not to put too much of my carbon footprint forward the rest of the year. Many celebrities talk about conserving energy and yet fly around on private jets. They certainly do not practice what they preach.
I fly commercial and the planes I travel in are nearly full. I will not give up the one pleasure that I cherish and that is travel. For me it is my therapy and it does wonders for my psyche. There is nothing I enjoy more than an exciting trip.
40
Why does someone in NYC need to travel for excitement? You can experience culture, food, art, history, and millions of other interesting people right in your own city. Different scenery - mountains, beaches - are a short drive away.
I agree with you, so please don't feel the need to explain our excuse yourself.
The NYT should be talking about this - wealthier Americans are the biggest users of carbon and I would guess that demographic has a lot of overlap with NYT readers. Unfortunately I don’t think this article very seriously engages with this issue. Instead, it presents a bunch of good intentions that have no real impact on global warming (the Maldives versus Vietnam as one example).
We all know we need to do more on this issue and we should all be taking steps to limit our driving, flying, and meat eating (other stuff people mention in comments is great too). And while voting and political action are super important, so is the voting we perform as consumers. You can best believe that if planes start to empty because of a concerted effort by Americans to fly less, airlines will take notice and work to transform to more efficient engines/limit flights. This to me is a case where - fortunately or unfortunately - we can each do a lot and future generations are depending on our action to delay this crisis while we work on technological fixes.
18
Cruise ships are reportedly much worse than planes; I wouldn’t be caught dead on one anyway. That vie de quartier killer Airbnb? Absolutely not! If the train’s a viable option (Berlin, yes; Madrid, no), it’s the way to go, though as we grow older, wrestling with luggage is less and less fun; like Tolstoy, I’ll probably kick the bucket in some remote provincial station.
When traveling, staying in a single interesting city or place for a week or two assuages my conscience, as does walking and learning to use the public transport system (speaking of rubbing shoulders with the locals). If I ever have to take another long-haul flight, it’ll be too soon. But I don’t begrudge those who do. Après nous la déluge.
6
Brussels to Paris takes 1h24 by Thalys, the high speed train. There are no more flights between the two cities as it’s pointless.
And railroad companies don’t cram people into tiny spaces.
Acela is still a sorry excuse for high speed rail, which in Europe has only bridges and tunnels over the track and much higher speeds.
We need real high speed electrified rail, The whole East and West coast, Chicago-Detroit-... etc.
75
I'm sure it has never been calculated, but I would bet across the board Americans spend more money on various form of entertainment (vacations, movies, sports, etc.) than they pay in income tax. Spoiled ? I guess !
As long as they can run up the tab on their credit cards they don't care about the 1 Trillion dollars deficit next year or the 20+ trillion dollar National debt. Not unlike Trump, it's all about me myself and mine.
6
@USMC1954
I'm not cancelling my travel because conservatives cancelled the future. Conservatives voted the deficit into existence in the form of Republicans. The biggest polluters, corporations and the uber rich, now pay less taxes thanks to brain dead conservative voters. If a few more sensible citizens had voted for Hillary we wouldn't be in the mess were in. How does USMC1954 vote?
1
You could offset the CO2 of flying by driving an electric car (with solar on your house to power the car). The average commute in the U.S. is 15-16 miles, one way. According to the EPA, the average passenger vehicle emits about 404 grams of CO2 per mile or about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. I flew around the world this summer, for a carbon footprint of about 18 metric tons (Salon: Flying from San Francisco to Boston, for example, would generate some 1,300 kilograms of greenhouse gases per passenger each way, while driving would account for 930 kilograms per vehicle.) I just need to drive electric for 4 years (powered by solar panels) to offset my round-the-world extravagance. Others without that high bar to neutralize can conceivably drive to carbon neutrality.
1
@An Observer Driving anything does not off set what has already been spent. Limit your travel.
I am guilty too. I could make a case that paddling a canoe down a river for 10 weeks is about as carbon neutral as you can be. I breathe out CO2 and fart methane from the evening meals. But, I still had to drive myself and canoe to the river and then back home. To off set,, I think you must stay home and be content to work in your vegetable garden,,, AND run your lights and air conditioning on your solar panels.
1
I take “staycations.”
I haven’t gone on an actual vacation since 2009. And I haven’t been on a plane since 2007.
I don’t sleep well in a strange place. But if it reduces my carbon footprint, why not?
14
I feel zero guilt over my infrequent trips and vacations. The elites who pontificate about how we should curtail our lifestyle, if that's what you want to call it (cause I'm just living my life and getting by) don't seem to have cut back on trips, number of homes owned, or any other privilege. And if I can have another child, I will. The "uncontrolled breeding" decried in these comments goes on in the Third World, not in industrialized countries.
28
@Roberta-- Americans use far, far more resources per capita than citizens of most other nations. This means that adding one American has a disproportionatley damaging effect on the climate.
27
@me Um, no. If the problem is the total number of inhabitants on the planet, then it's the total number of people that counts, not how many of them are Americans. All people need food, water, healthcare, space, and all people consume resources.
5
Me is right. In America if you want to work, you pretty much have to drive. Buildings aren’t built to be liveable without AC. We eat more meat here than in the developing world. All that adds up to a bigger carbon footprint. Somebody who lives by farming or herding livestock who walks or rides a horse everywhere is not going to have near the carbon footprint of the average American.
9
blaming discrete individual choices - wrong emphasis. go after big industry that doesn't want emission standards, wants to drill in arctic preserves, wants to sell leaseholds in greenland. blame koch industries and the trump administration.
yes there is a lot of all-talk-no-action behaviors. leo di caprio makes nice movies about global warming and then travels to climate summits by private plane and parties on very big yachts. north face athletes like Protect Our Winters on facebook and take individual helicopter rides to get their movie shots. we get it.
meanwhile we read that seltzer is the new soda, meaning millions more aluminum cans in the garbage. a relative of mine goes OCD wasting water to wash recycling bottles and separates every single piece of plastic, and then we read that of everything each of us "recycles" in our homes, about 10% is actually recycled after collection. companies in the fuel industry made great commercials about cleaner fuel technology after the big oil spills, and then our president rolls back any and all climate related standards. bike soldiers car-shame people who can't load their family of four and groceries on the handlebars. comment boards say things like "you don't need luggage: pack less."
but who was stopping the koch brothers? it ain't your own vacation you should worry about.
46
@Aubrey
Yes, and keep in mind ALL of what big industry makes is consumed by discrete individuals. No one forces you to consume it but you do. YOU, meaning discrete individuals, could have stopped the Kochs by not buying their products. But we didn't.
At some point EVERYONE has to take responsibility, and trying to shift it off on to "big industry" is a cop out, to use the terminology of my youth. Back then we made the same arguments and it got us exactly nowhere. Discrete individuals need to stop doing incredibly irresponsible things such as plane travel.
5
Exactly. We hoi polloi, even in the U.S. and even when we act collectively, are a poor match for the immense power of concentrated global wealth and power.
As for me I’ll continue to travel extensively and respectfully. I rejoice at meeting the middle class from all over out there in the world’s museums and parks: we are all struggling to understand each other and find the beauty in each other’s cultures and countries.
2
If you want to be really green, don't have children. Being vegetarian wouldn't hurt, either.
59
@Mike S.
But without kids, who are you going to tell to eat the rest of the broccoli???
This year I've flown around the world once and to Europe another time and have an upcoming trip to the Middle East which involves multiple flights within the region as well as my flights to and from the US. I live in a solar home, grow a large percentage of my family's food and drive an electric car. We're re-nativing our land by planting heirloom trees and native oaks to replace those killed by Sudden Oak Death. I don't feel guilty about anything I do because I long ago decided guilt is a useless emotion. It doesn't do anything to help anyone - at all. Live like me - do your best to live fully and enjoy yourself and banish guilt from your life, permanently.
8
Hmm, No guilt here from a happy camper on a well earned mini-vacation in Telluride with family and our doggies; plus, we drive a Prius and walk a lot.
8
I would take the train to go anywhere in the US provided they are as convenient, fast, efficient and reliable as in Europe and even other parts of the world. Just recently I was thinking of taking a ride with Amtrak from New York to Cleveland. But what I found was that an average ride with Amtrak would about 12 to 14 hours duration. Contrast this with a plane ride of 2 hours and a car ride of 7-8 hours.
Also, we should not lose sight of the fact that airlines themselves are also serious about cutting their use of expensive jet fuel. They're operating newer planes with better engines, and taking every opportunity to get more miles out of their aircraft. Many are purchasing fuel-efficient twin-jets for use on international routes as opposed to gas-guzzling large aircraft.
8
@Gadflyparexcellence
The bus to Cleveland probably isn't bad. I used the bus NYC to Columbus because I arrived at 11 AM but did not have to get up at 5 AM to get to the airport. (Left at 11 PM).
Be sure to have a warm wrap -- buses are cold.
When I arrived in Columbus, I think took a bus to the airport - a new service to get a cheap rental!!! Just sayin"
Trains to Ohio have always been slow - via DC to Cincinnati - across the river; via Albany to Cleveland. Not even sure one can get to Columbus by train these days. (It was the Cleveland train in the 60's.). OTOH -- the landscape can be amazing... Stuff you never see when you are in your car.
1
The solution is simple as are most issues. People make them complicated. You already touched on it. In order to have any real impact solutions have to be on a grand scale. Carbon taxes will price the cost of the eco damage into travel, driving, etc. Fewer people will travel , like in the not so recent past before budget airlines. Who knows, maybe the extra funds will spurn research into new technologies.
6
One suggestion I can offer is for young parents; stay at home until your child is at least 5 years old. Go to the grandparents' house or use local attractions for a few years until your little angels can walk on their own, and actually appreciate and remember the places they're visiting.
22
@JP--You're assuming the grandparents live in the same city as the grandchildren. In my circle of acquaintances, that almost never happens. Most grandparents live a good many STATES away. If parents followed your advice, the children would reach school age without ever having even met their grandparents.
8
@JP
Amen. Recommend X 1000.
And when the grandparents are thousands of miles away?
2
If " your round-trip flight is probably the biggest single contributor to your carbon footprint this year" then you are definitely contributing to increasing global warming, which will, if it continues to increase at the present rate, damage our economy enough that leisure travel will become scarce except for the 0.1%.
This "don't worry, be happy" article is not very helpful. We all need to decrease our GHG emissions as much as possible, as soon as possible.
Write travel articles about travel by train or bus.
If you must fly, $20 carbon offsets are ridiculously low, especially because many of them may not accomplish much.
14
I once flew LAX to Singapore on United for a long weekend and earned triple miles for it.
I took the 50K miles I earned and turned it into a free ticket to Europe.
Great trips. Exactly zero guilt.
35
@EGD Ignorance is bliss.
1
@EGD good for you. Good for you...
@EGD — “Pecca fortiter!” As Luther said.
“the biggest impact a person can have comes from pressuring governments to address travel-related problems..Compared with that, your summer trip is small, if unorganic, potatoes.”
Comments like these are one of the main reasons we are in our current climate situation. Of course voting into office officials that support climate friendly policies are extremely important. However, until citizens show that climate is a priority through their personal actions and choices politicians will not make it a priority. Why would they if we don’t? It’s trendy to pretend to support the environment but most people won’t inconvenience themselves or actually make meaningful lifestyle changes to lessen their environmental impact. Until our society stops emphasizing material things, travel, or that perfect Instagram post on the beach to impress our followers we won’t make meaningful progress on saving what’s left of the planet we’ve pillaged. No one likes feeling guilty because it’s uncomfortable and so we look for ways to tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel that way. If we are to find a solution to our current problem however we need to recognize our guilt, and that we are the last chance to save our planet.
22
@Madeleine Jay Right on!
The lack of sophistication in these arguments put forth by so many of the NYT people here and in the article is really such a profoundly and mind-numbingly massive problem. First of all, we use code words like "flying" or "travelling" to hide behind in industrial nightmare we have brought on the planet so we really don't think about the vast array of issues created by our fossil fuel fantasy of "flying" and its impact on the human and more-than-human world. All the bean counting about carbon is just another industrial trick to not see, feel or have any real connection to the absurd devastation we have on the living world.
And unfortunately, so many of the the attitudes I hear about climate change here are uncomfortably close to the attitude of those Austrian villagers who lived near to, but refused to acknowledge the presence of, extermination camps such as Mauthausen during the Holocaust, despite the smell of burning flesh and the occasional wisps of human hair that floated on the wind. As one woman put it, ‘I am happy when I hear nothing and see nothing of it. As far as I am concerned, they aren’t interned. That’s it. Over. It does not interest me at all’.
I know, that's a big ouch. But at least in my mind that seems where we are. When people start saying that they don't experience any guilt around these choices this is when I start thinking along the lines of sociopaths on the way to ecocide. Time's up people whether you like it or not.
I don't feel guilty at all. I stay local and take the train when I can. I stay within NY State and haven't felt inclined to go to any airport. I earned every day of vacation I get which isn't a whole heck of a lot. And when I do plan one it's within NY State so much to see and do where a car isn't needed.
11
This assumes that one can even afford a vacation after paying the exorbitant price of health insurance/and or deductibles, even on a solid middle class income these days. I would be happy to be able just to afford some vacation guilt.
21
Greta Thunberg’s sailboat trip is a PR stunt. They will have to fly several crew over to sail the boat back.
She, of course, is closely scripted by her actor/singer father/mother, who have written a book on the environment and sustainability.
We earn our vacations; let us take them in peace without shaming and guilt.
154
@Mon Ray What's your evidence for that? The crew members who sailed over are going to need to sail the vessel back, presumably...
20
@Mon Ray
Indeed, as some day our sacrifices from Anthropogenic Global Heating will be involuntary. Take those voluntary vacations now!
And I second the request for evidence re: flying a crew to sail it back. If no evidence, it seems like a garden variety as hominem argument.
3
@Don Carleton
The crew and the yacht, which is a loaner from the first family of Monaco, will have to be flown back because the owners need it back and sailing would be time-consuming.
4
I can't figure out why people move hundreds or even thousands of away from friends and/or family and then fly back from whence they came several times a year.
7
@KS - for me it was a job offer, then I just fell in love with Chicago. As for my trips home, I balance that against my carless existence here, and buy offsets.
8
@KS--I can answer that question very easily: I needed the job.
13
@KS - Sometimes it's for a job. Sometimes it's because you and your spouse are from different places and at least one of you is going to have to move. Sometimes it's because you don't want to live in the place from "whence you came" but would prefer a different climate, a different type of lifestyle, or something else that your original location doesn't offer.
3
The idea that guilt-tripping people over things they enjoy doing, whether that includes eating meat or taking a vacation involving air travel, is a sure-fire way of inducing societal change is not borne out by science, at all. In fact the opposite usually occurs - people become more resistant and defiant and also more prone to lying in order to gain the rewards from appearing compliant, while secretly engaging in the behavior that draws public condemnation.
52
@Shane -- which is precisely why we're now facing human extinction. Yes, personal decisions do matter. We're each reponsible for our share of the pie; not for "changing the world". If we each did the right thing, the world would've lasted much longer.
7
@David Veale We are not "facing human extinction" anymore than we were in the 70s when people claimed immense famines were going to wipe humans off the planet by the year 2000.
3
I think Yogi Berra said it best: “Nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded.”
19
Shame is a terrible way to motivate people.
Awareness, and encouraging thoughtfulness
is much wiser.
If it's a team effort, by definition it will be more enjoyable. Not shameful.
12
There is a different and more important reason to feel guilty about expensive vacations. If the $4000/week we might spend on vacation was donated to poor people, less people would be starving in Africa etc. $4000 probably represents the total income of 4 families in many parts of the world.
4
@Michael
It is government's responsibility to take care of their people, not charitable donations or crowd-funding. Libertarians and Conservatives have lost sight of that.
4
@michael - In many places, tourism is the main source of income for much of the population. In other places, it's not the most important source of income, but it nevertheless provides jobs for a fair number of people.
2
@michael
Bravo! All the more reason why these people should live in your house rent free!
We did not take a vacation this year, too busy - hey it is not easy staying in the 1%. We did have the gardeners plant a new tree - and we don't eat meat on Fridays in Lent.
5
"Instead — whether it’s global climate change or local vacation rental laws — the biggest impact a person can have comes from pressuring governments to address travel-related problems on a large scale. "
I totally do not agree with this sentiment. It is, frankly, a cop-out. It says the problem is not the choices I make, the problem is the government for not telling us all what to do. In regards to climate change, we all know what we need to do, and that is change our fossil fuel guzzling ways. This is at its heart very much a consumer problem. It is us, the consumers, who are the ultimate users of fossil fuels, whether it is with our jet plane rides or our cars or our air conditioners. Saying we need to talk about it some more or blame the government is an excuse to guzzle more fossil fuel.
20
@Scott Werden -
"Saying we need to talk about it some more or blame the government is an excuse to guzzle more fossil fuel."
Not really. Uncoordinated efforts by a small percentage of the population, while worthwhile, can only go so far in tackling a problem as large as climate change. If we had gotten the government to get behind--or perhaps, better stated, take the lead on--combating human-linked climate change some 30 or 40-years ago we would not be in the disastrous situation we are in today. Unfortunately, powerful interests, such as the Koch brothers, that were threatened by efforts to make changes made sure that didn't happen.
For most Americans, flying is a rare indulgence. Shaming people over something they do once or twice a year is not just downright silly, but pointless. (And I won't even get into how toxic, infantile and counterproductive the "shaming" trend is to begin with, regardless of the behavior it is targeted towards.)
If we want to really make a difference in terms of climate change, the behaviors that need to be changed are much more fundamental to our way of life (which I suppose explains why we're dragging our feet):
1. Breeding. This planet is already past its prime carrying capacity by a few billion folks. People keep wringing their hands over the idea of robots taking our jobs while at the same time claiming that if we stop breeding uncontrollably, we won't have enough workers. If we were to just bring the slightest bit of focus and intent to what we're doing here, we would find that automation could replace more than enough workers to signficantly decrease the need for new bodies.
2. Driving. In many major cities, there's already very little justification for people to use personal transportation for day-to-day life. Investment in public transportation needs to be a major priority over the next several years while at the same time heavily restricting the use of personal vehicles for daily commutes and errands.
3. Agriculture and manufacturing. Re-localize (or at least re-regionalize) the production of food and goods to minimize transport distances.
92
@Kristin - since the developed nations generally have below-replacement level birthrates, and the rate of population growth peaked around 1960, what exactly do you suggest needs doing about "breeding"?
Since you find shaming to be toxic and infantile (and I don't disagree), what methods do you suggest to control other people's bodies and choices, especially if you're really talking about people elsewhere.
I also find it curious that you don't realize that the climate problem is based much more on consumption of fossil fuel than it is on population. For example, the US has about a quarter of India's population, yet our country emitted twice as much CO2 in 2018 than India did.
12
@Kristin
4. Meat. Stop or cut way down on meat consumption.
15
@Kristin you wouldn't believe air travel is unaffordable for most Americans if you visited an airport in the last 20 years. They're packed and planes are full.
4
I gave up flying vacations (except for family events that I really can't justify missing like funerals, bar/bat mitzvahs and weddings, lest I totally alienate my paternal and maternal families who all live more than 850 miles from me over at least one mountain pass and never come here because I can't put them up" and they are too busy visiting their children and grandchildren) over two decades ago. I drive everywhere I want to visit that is under 875 miles from me; other places--nope, no visit (exceptions above). This way I can take my dogs and we can enjoy the journey as much as the destination. I drive a plug-in hybrid that gets 50 mpg on gasoline alone but carry an extension cord and plug in whenever possible to take full advantage of out region's renewable electricity while minimizing my carbon footprint. I travel internationally on a very regular basis due to how close and convenient it is. I take ferries rather than drive the distance whenever possible.
Do I feel bad? Nope. My dogs make the trip even more enjoyable as the are canine ambassadors and have made me unlikely friends in both countries. I don't know if it's cheaper on four wheels than in the sky. Probably not, but I know my region better than people who have lived here their entire life. And there is SO much to see and do here too...
3
Perhaps instead of foregoing an annual vacation people should take more meaningful action in their everyday lives, such as driving an electric vehicle or installing solar panels.
6
@Brian: electric vehicles cost $60K to $75K plus you have to install a recharging station in your home, and then you are limited to as little as 60 miles per trip.
Solar panels would run $30K to $50K, PLUS installation, PLUS they don't work in cold, dark gray climates...so you need a back up system, meaning TWO costly heating systems.
So those are alternatives only for the wealthy.
2
@Brian
Yes, but then a lot of people would lose the luxury of shaming those who do travel.
2
Very good information. I have only one quibble : the most the great majority of Readers can do for the Planet is to reproduce less. Irregardless of Occupation or Travel Frequency, methods and mileage. It’s exponential, and usually permanent.
That said, we have significantly reduced our own personal travel, very significantly. We fly to Seattle only once a year now, in the past it’s been 2 or 3 trips. And instead of flying to visit my Parents in the Tampa area, we drive. Twice a year, in July and at Christmas. ROAD TRIP !!! 1300 hundred miles, one way. I do about 80 percent of the Driving, and the Engineer navigates. He has several “ devices “ cooking, and is constantly adjusting the Route and looking for trouble. And food. We really have a great time, which surprises must people. We stop for one night near Memphis, which is about halfway. Sure, it’s two days of hard Travel, but it’s worth it to avoid the nightmare of Airlines and Airports. I’m talking to you, United Airlines. Way too many unexplained cancellations and a thousand delays.
If going to Seattle try to take Alaska Airlines. I don’t work for them OR know anyone that does. But they are absolutely excellent, unfailingly friendly and welcoming. They get our business, otherwise we will drive.
Happy trails.
9
The only true answer to our technology created climate crisis lies with more technology. The scale is far too vast for one less trip to Hawaii or avoiding steak dinners to make the slightest difference. A government that accelerates funding for new technologies and deploys extensive financial incentives for their rapid adoption is the sole solution. Everything else is just feel good window dressing.
9
@AndyW - Yes, exactly. In addtion to those new technologies we need government support and leadership for nationwide implementation of already existing technologies (wind and solar energy, for example) and actions that can make a difference when carried out by enough people.
No more guilty than the millions of Americans who, to this day, still don’t recycle or compost. Even these relatively small measures, in the infantilized USA, with a toddler-in-chief to match, are baby-step incremental.
5
I'm not feeling shame or guilt. I make generally one trip to Europe a year, then I take trains, public transport (not taxis), and walk. At home, I take public transportation most of the time, drive a small car when I must, and walk. I have all my electronics (wi-fi, TV, microwave) on energy strips which are off when not in use. I seldom use the AC, don't eat meat, etc., etc.
What we need is balance both as individuals and as nations. Not all of us can take fancy yachts across the ocean (they use fuel, too, no?). Climate is very important, but so too is relations between peoples, cross-cultural understanding, and the sharing of ideas, experiences, and history.
13
@Anne-Marie Hislop
Enjoy summers in Chicago that get hotter and humid followed by colder winters!
Heat is by far the largest use of carbon in Chicago.
Gosh. I wonderful guilt trip by someone who has already seen so much of the world. Jet travel has been a wonderful boon to global business and understanding of other cultures. Find something else to worry about
31
I don't and won't feel guilty for enjoying my every three to five year European vacation. We didn't bring any kids into the world, so our contribution to climate change is far less than most. We bike to work, bought a small old house, and open our home to shelter pets that humans have discarded when they became inconvenient. We work hard and try to do the "right" thing. There's enough guilt to go around without feeling guilty about an earned holiday. Just my two cents.
65
My wife and I fly coach, and we try to make the most of our travel time overseas. In May we flew to Paris and took a river cruise on the Seine to Rouen, including a day at the D-Day beaches. We also practiced our French, meeting a musician friend in the Marais, the Jewish quarter of Paris, and making a new artist friend. Next year we will fly to Germany to take a Rhine River cruise, and also meet up with the families of two young men we hosted as exchange students. Essentially, this is a family trip with the cruise thrown in. Trips are a lot more meaningful when one has (or makes) these personal connections, not just confining oneself to the crowded attractions.
5
And dollars to donuts, just about every member of the flight shaming crowd also opposes nuclear energy. Focused on preventing a few gallons of jet fuel from being burned, but reject the only non-intermittent solution available. Joe Biden is the only candidate who has an energy plan without the irrational fear of nuclear energy.
24
I couldn’t agree more. Nuclear energy has to be part of the de-carbonisation process.
George Monbiot, of the Guardian, someone writes passionately about the dire environmental state we find ourselves in, wrote this surprising column after Fukushima.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjRoeOq1ZzkAhVRhxoKHScSD6EQzPwBegQIARAC&url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima&psig=AOvVaw1c6V2G_GllGZsp62gltt8p&ust=1566775937356019
6
@Will Parry
It is likely those of us who grew up with the "duck and cover" exercises at school that are (likely rightfully) concerned about nuclear power. It was the equivalent of the active-shooter exercises of today's school.
We are imprinted with the couple of decades after WW2 focus.
We are also familiar with the concern of safety. With the anti-regulation crowd and the reality of human error--
8
@rab
So apparently you have solved the tens-of-thousands of years problem of storing radioactive waste safely? Please do tell:
The problem with nukes is when they go bad, they go REALLY bad. And we can't afford really bad things happening to chunks of the planet that will result in their being off limits for TENS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS.
So YOU offer a guarantee, right here and right now that nukes are safe forever. Can you? With certainty? Because the stakes are really high.
11
And dollars to donuts, just about every member of the flight shaming crowd also opposes nuclear energy. Focused on preventing a few gallons of jet fuel from being burned, but reject the only non-intermittent solution available. Joe Biden is the only candidate who has an energy plan without the irrational fear of nuclear energy.
8
How guilty should we feel? Very. Until we in the US are able to live by emitting 2 tons of annual CO2 each (down from our current average of 16 tons per capita) - the amount needed to avoid climate catastrophe and societal collapse - we should strongly avoid air and gasoline car travel, whether for vacation or business. When I see people's social media travel photos, I don't feel envy or beauty, but sadness at their clueless contribution to ending ruining the environment.
28
@Avi Thank You
@Avi The irony of using electronic devices while judging people for continuing to live their lives in the face of global warming seems to be lost on you.
-NW
2
I find it very interesting that so much attention lately has been brought to the environmental effects of air travel. Unfortunately, very few (or none) of the articles point out that global air travel constitutes roughly 2% of all emissions. So what about the other 98% of activities that create emissions? Simple things like turning off lights and turning up your thermostat in summer and down in the winter, reducing and whenever possible eliminating the use of plastics, and dozens of other things can have the same effect as if you stopped flying. Here is a recent list of the of the biggest creators of emissions worldwide by category, which puts this argument in some context.
Road transport (10.5%)
Air transport (excluding additional warming impacts) (1.7% )
Other transport (2.5%)
Fuel and power for residential buildings (10.2%)
Fuel and power for commercial buildings (6.3%)
Unallocated fuel combustion (3.8%)
Iron and steel production (4%)
Chemicals production (4.1%)
Cement production (5.0%)
Deforestation (11.3%)
Agricultural soils (5.2%)
Livestock and manure (5.4%)
33
@Leviathan, these numbers only add up to about 67%. I’m curious; what makes up the other 33%?
1
@Leviathan convenient excluding the additional warming impacts of flying, which pushes pollution into the upper atmospheres where it does the most harm. Also half the people in the US don't fly at all, and of those who do, maybe ten percent of the people make up more than half the flights. Constant vacations and lots of face to face meetings for business. And of course those same people have big new houses (plural) using all that new concrete and shipping fresh organic vegetables from New Zealand, orchids from Thailand. A small percentage of people are carbon gluttons.
11
@Leviathan
Difference being vacation air travel is a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have. That's why it's in the cross-hairs: because we are very quickly approaching tough choices and the ones that get lopped off first are the non-essentials. These comments are going to read a lot differently in a mere decade from now when we're starting to battle about cutting out things that are not non-essential. That's going to be a lot more crazy. One thing we can do TODAY to mitigate those later scrambles is to STOP FLYING.
14
I love traveling by train, especially in Europe. The trains end up in the center of the cities most times and from there walking to great sites and lodging is easy. No dashing to the city outskirts.
It is much more leisurely overall and I can look out the windows and see so much of the world go by, while enjoying a meal or writing or reading or just enjoying the view.
Back to a simpler time.
21
@vaughan: Europe is much smaller and denser than the US, with high population cities relatively close to one another. That's why they have trains.
There are a few US cities along the East Coast that have Amtrak, but in general....the US is too vast and farflung to have nothing but train service.
I never feel guilty about vacations. I simply recall the cold, hard math for the self-employed: If you aren't making money, you are losing it. Then I make a choice.
4
@Jimmy Verner
Let me guess...you have kids, grandkids. They will end up paying the price for our selfish, destructive impact on the earth. They will have awful air quality, drastic weather patterns, depleted fish in the seas, and fewer choices of where to live that is sustainable. But hey at least you do ‘t feel guilty about your part in how travel affects the planet! Stay classy, Dallas.
Thursday I received notice from the airline I booked a trip with regarding a change to our November trip. Instead of flying from Portland, to Chicago, to Cincinnati, it had us flying Portland-Dallas-Chicago-Cincinnati. Three other options were available within a two hour window from our original departure time which made only one stop, and on a sensible west to east direction, not southeast-northwest-east. Fortunately, I was able to rebook to one of the more direct routes. Still, what is the sense in some of these multi-stop routes? If I want to drive to Seattle, I will do so without an unnecessary detour to Spokane before returning to my original route. Why do airlines haul passengers and baggage hundreds to thousands of miles extra and burn fuel unnecessarily?
19
@Cailin
great point. airline routes make less and less sense. once outside of the big coastal city airports (NY, LA), direct routes are fewer and harder to come by. yet they charge by the nose for everything that used to be "included" when you buy a ticket, even now including your seat, unless you pay extra to be sure you actually have one.
all that hullaballoo about baggage fees and weight limits too: a top comedian makes the point that when your bag is a few pounds overweight, they tell you to unpack and put the few pounds into some other bag like your carryon. total weight of your bags remains the same. but they'll either charge you an extra $50 or hold up 100 people waiting for check-in to make you move your stuff from one bag to another under so-called weight restrictions?
5
@Cailin
They do that because Reagan de-regulated them.
1
This is an extremely useful article, but little effect will be made on climate change by its reasonable suggestions. It won’t help much if affluent people to go to Vietnam instead of the Maldives, or people in general to cut back on travel. True, transportation accounts for approximately 29% of greenhouse gasses, but it’s only 29%. If no one flew anywhere next year, and all planes were grounded, very little effect would be made on the momentum of climate change.
What is needed is a new, clean energy technology. There are promising candidates in hydrogen, cold fusion, zero-point energy (see Nikola Tesla) and anti-gravitics (see T. Townsend Brown). There are witnesses who claim the DoD knows more about these matters than it admits. Some of these people are credible. Some are not. (See siriusdisclosure.com)
Without such technology, we are doomed.
5
@Mr. Little Transportation does not account for 29% of greenhouse gases; more like 15%. There are no promising candidates in cold-fusion or zero-point energy or anti-gravitics.
@Mr. Little Transportation does not account for 29% of greenhouse gases; more like 15%. There are no promising candidates in cold-fusion or zero-point energy or anti-gravitics.
@WZ
According to the EPA, transportation accounts for 29% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions
Agree with you about cold fusion, zero point energy, and anti-gravitics, though.
If you really feel a moral or spiritual compulsion to personally atone for the accumulated sins of many millions of travelers, you're free to give up travel entirely and spend your meager American vacation time at home watching the Travel Channel. But only after you've installed solar panels to power the TV set.
65
@Ted
Agree.
@Ted - an excellent suggestion, and one that should be taken more seriously than your sarcastic tone implies.
I suggest a biking vacation. I recently spent 11 weeks traveling through the west. (I am semi-retired.) Not only did I see more than I ever would have by car, but one van sufficed for 10-20 people. My carbon footprint was probably even lower than when I stay home.
9
carbonfootprint.com allows you to calculate what your flight costs in carbon, and donate to their carbon offset projects. A donation of $20 offsets the carbon for two overseas airline tickets. It's a bargain!
9
@Alice Outwater There's no such thing as a carbon offset, it's a guilt offset, the carbon still gets emitted, the guilt is offset by paying money to someone who claims they will do something to soak up that carbon, and likely as not the emit ever more carbon doing so.
9
The NYT has published a number of articles advocating the purchase of carbon offsets for air travel. But they don't say where to buy them or which ones! An article explaining how offsets work, naming offset providers, and recommending one or two would be very helpful.
67
@John Kilborn
Plant trees. I've planted lots of trees myself. I have two London Planes in the front yard, 30 years ago, that are enormous and would weigh out, branches, trunk, and roots, at many, many tons of carbon. I have a lot of others.
Recent publicized studies, reported in the NYTimes, have shown that planting trees in available lands, keeping all agricultural and residential lands as they are, could sink 3/4 of the human-increased carbon since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
8
I really thought this article was going to be about feeling guilty about taking a vacation at all, as in time off work at all. Since I rarely take time off at all or go anywhere far away, I can feel no guilt about the climate or over crowding. I suspect, many people are in the same situation at all meaning just the idea of a vacation is a luxury.
17
If you can spare the time, cargo ships cross the oceans every day and are not that much more expensive than flying. They also have the benefit of being a MUCH more enjoyable way to travel than the racket that is the airline industry! If you can’t get that kind of free time now, consider it if you get the luxury of retiring from work in the future.
11
@Jim
Ja. In my youth, ocean liners were cheaper and slower than planes... and then they went away.... Perhaps, they can come back. They are no constructed in the same way as cruise ships I believe. ;-(
So far as trains in Europe -- a brave new world.. fewer and more expensive than before.. and sometimes long waits between them... so drive, bus or fly... Here we go. One can rent a car at various train stations in Europe...
I visited Prague recently in a small hotel. The staff was extremely helpful, the breakfast good, I feel like I encouraged local business and employees slightly. Had contact with locals. It was classy.
Vrs bnb , no staff employed, no contact, somebody trying to make a few extra bucks, without neighborhood consideration.
The hotel was only a little more. Try it. It’s the newest thing in local tourism.
135
Notice the many posts along the lines: "I'm taking my cross-world jet vacation and by God I'm not going to feel guilty about it!" This common human propensity for excepting one's own irrefutable negative impact means that global climate change is an immovable force, we can just forget about even slowing it. Won't happen with human animals involved. We will have to adapt. It will only stop when every economically viable molecule of fossil fuel is extracted from the ground. Or when humans are gone from the planet.
36
@Steady State
Agreed, Steady. This entire article is a way of justifying this boomer idea of travel, to rub shoulders with those in different cultures. We all must realize that travel is a first world luxury that must be significantly reduced in order for our planet to remain hospitable to life. Much like the huge sacrifices Americans were asked to make during WWII, this is it, folks. No more Hawaiian get-aways. Suffer the winter without St. Barts. Make it happen by train/bus/bike/whatever, and be grateful when we see some progress in curbing those record breaking heat days.
11
@Steady State Yup, I feel the same way. We're pretty much doomed. I can't even imagine how bad it's going to be when the entire world starts living like the West.
6
@BostonGail
Agreed, Steady. And the unwritten article is the justification of this human idea to feed the mouths, provide the shelters, and wash the clothes - all of which require the expenditure of energy - of more and more people. We all must realize that population growth is a runaway train that must be significantly reduced in order for our planet to remain hospitable to life. Much like the huge sacrifices Americans were asked to make during WWII, this is it, folks. No more third, fourth and more children, and not just in America. Suffer your whole life with fewer relatives. Make it happen by proven methods, and be grateful when we see some progress in curbing those record breaking heat days.
Preaching to the choir. The average New York Times reader is far more socially conscious than non-Times readers and already engages in the sorts of travel habits suggested by the writer. Tourists who are heavy carbon emitters are not reading this article.
Besides, I heard on NPR recently that fully eleven percent of the world's population is employed in a job directly or indirectly reliant on tourism for their livelihood. Like it or not, travel expenditures provide for tens of millions of people's food, clothing, and shelter.
It's a good thing to encourage travel that contributes to the well-being of individuals most in need of tourism-related income. How to balance that, however, is tricky since many of the people who most rely on tourism for their subsistence are employed in carbon-intensive occupations.
11
@Metaphor
Good thing us troglodytes have those smart NYT readers to keep us in check.
Volunteer work with Earthwatch is a great way to see the world, yet offset your carbon footprint.
The working scientific expeditions funded by Earthwatch rely on volunteers doing a good portion of the research tasks. You get training in the field, offered by some great scientists. It is a great way to visit places, yet not be a tourist. And your teammates often are fascinating people.
Marine work, botany, biology, architecture and other projects take place around the globe. Go to the website, and be inspired!
4
I don't own a car. I don't have a lawn. I get as many locally grown, seasonal vegetables as I can. I eat less shrimp and beef than I used to. I fly to Europe (and sometimes Asia) several times a year, mostly to visit family.
I understand that cars and lawns are a part of the architecture of American life and individuals who live in suburbs and exurbs don't necessarily have good alternatives -- but that's what needs to change. Air travel is a minimal issue.
8
We all (in what has been called "developed" countries) need to live on about 1/6 of the resources we currently consume. If you fly, that means you, if you fly often, you need to cut out more than 1/6th. There will be lots of excuses and rationalizations made for the industry or government changing... Ignore them. When you actually start to live this way the industries and governments will take notice and so will your friends. That's it. Be the change, it starts with you and me. It's well past time, so now is a good time to start.
27
@Leslie S - Your math is way, way off. If we need to live on 1/6th resources we currently consume, that means we have to cut out 5/6ths of everything we do. That means we need to make do with roughly 16.5% of what we currently consume.
That means cutting out not "more than 1/6th" of our flying, but rather 5/6ths. It also means adjusting our diet so that the cumulative total of resources used to produce it is 84% less than it is now. It means cutting out 84% of what we buy for our homes and ourselves. Yes, you can try to move the numbers around to allow yourself more leeway in some categories than others but we're still talking about massive, drastic reductions in what and how much we consume in every aspect of our lives.
The chances that we our going to do this willingly are, quite frankly, not between slim and none, but actually zero. It's not going to happen. Nor is it going to happen that people in less developed countries stop wanting to have everything that we already do.
As for your prescription to "be the change," based on what you wrote above, I find it highly unlikely that you have actually adopted anything but minor changes that would have between minimal and no impact even if adopted by everyone on the planet.
6
@Kristin
That's correct. The figure of 1/6 of current consumption is well documented in mainstream climate science. That is how much more we, on average, have been over consuming!
Grow as much of your food as you can, trade with friends, walk, stay home, entertain each other... live and let live. It is a radical shift in lifestyle, and you will find company. This is now a choice, and it's better than the alternatives. It most likely will not work in the end, you are correct, and this is what really trying looks like. No one that really tries will be sorry they did.
It is highly unlikely many of us will be alive in the future if we do not all do this. And since we cannot control all people, my advice is to stop looking around, and start with yourself. The rest of it is excuses, denial.
There are only so many resources to go around and we have created demands that we all know cannot be met (being born in an over consuming country doesn't make your life more special- all life wants to survive). So, the choice is to start with yourself, as that is the only person you mostly likely have control over.
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@Leslie S
How do people living in large cities grow their own food? Rooftop gardens would be wonderful but limited.
Is the woman in Africa with seven children more responsible than the American woman with one? (In fact we feel sorry for her for not having our "advantage"s and she and her kids want them as well!)...
While everyone, as individuals and part of a global society, has an obligation to reduce the affect of civilization on the environment, I would make an exception for air travel. Greater damage is done by electricity generation, motor vehicles and agriculture. Air travel comes after, but more importantly we have good alternatives to those things now. Wind and solar power, grid scale batteries, electrical cars, reduced and artificial meat are all beginning to lower greenhouse gasses, and we should prioritize those solutions. Hydrogen and electric aircraft will come later, but for now let's pick the lowest hanging fruit. The other reason I would preserve air travel, even with its present sizeable contribution to AGW, is that getting people to see the other side of the world will help us all break out our parochial mindsets and establish a global conscience, which we'll need to tackle AGW in all its transnational aspects. If we get puerile about air travel we'll just be inviting a backlash.
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@Thollian People always like to say travel broadens your mind and makes you more open, but that's not exactly true. It all depends on how you do it. You can travel all over the world and never really engage on a local level. Travel on its own does not broaden your mind unless you make some kind of effort.
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@AliTrue enough, but many people do make that effort and it really helps.
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It is an accident of tech and economics that commercial airliners exist at all. Aircraft at high speed are up against the third power law - cost increases with the cube of speed. Fuel use at 600 mph is exorbitant. How did this nearly impossible technology work out?
o Airliners travel at 35,000 feet, higher than Mt Everest. Up there, drag is much lower.
o Jet engines have the power to reach that altitude
o High speeds allow an aircraft to make many flights, thus recoup capital cost.
o It’s the only practical way to travel to many locations. The only good way to cross the Chitina river near McCarthy Alaska, is to fly 3 miles across it (but not in a 787 jet).
o The economy is strong enough to pay for an airline infrastructure.
The is serendipitous, almost a fluky hit. Related tech, supersonic, failed entirely. But the big jets are fuel hogs.
A start up called Zunum, financed by Boeing, plans hybrid aircraft that use a very different combination of technologies, separate fans and turbines connected by electricity, and batteries. But its for short haul travel, like Denver to Cheyenne Wyoming. Hybrids might use 1/4 the fuel or less.
There are no plans to challenge the big airliners - which are exceedingly difficult to design.
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@H Smith That's how airline tech works. Some conclusions:
Airlines may increase fuel costs per passenger mile if it makes a profit. Result: Super long haul flights 8000 miles. The craft must carry fuel for that trip, and transporting jet fuel by an airliner aint cheap.
Adding a carbon tax for jet fuel might break the narrow envelope for profitability, given today's jet design.
Jets can burn hydrogen, but its never worked out. It might with a carbon tax.
Radical new jet designs might change everything, and connect nearby cities at low cost. But this takes a moon shot like R and D approach. Boeing and Aerobus make nice profits, but enough not for airliner redesign on a 2030 time frame.
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@H Smith - Rolls Royce is researching new engine designs. Check out https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/05/the-innovative-engines-changing-transport-three.html.
This article points to one of the factors of why we're in a crisis globally when it comes to carbon-footprints and climate change: emotion.
For the past 100 years emotion has been the salient feature of why people are happy capitalist consumers: it feels good when we purchase something--often things we don't really need.
All of those purchases, as finished products, used, and still use, enormous amounts natural or synthetic raw material for production, non-renewable energy to fashion it, carbon-based transport to get it to where it can be consumed. As consumers we probably used some form of carbon-emitting transport (even online shopping has its carbon footprint) to get what we wanted--and that's the key emotion: wanting.
As Americans we're at the top of the heap when it comes to earthly desire and the feelings associated with having--whether it's a vacation, a new outfit, the latest dining experience, that bottle of wine, those shoes--most of us have evidently been unable to stop wanting stuff for the past 100 years, but especially since the early 1960s, and it's gotten progressively worse.
It will be interesting to see how we're feeling when frequent climate-related emergencies and disasters are what we need and want to escape from.
Of course there's always viewing the plethora of digital photos taken from the once-upon-a-time vacation in Rome to make us feel better.
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Those with money will feel fine and those without it will suffer—same as all of history
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The reality is nothing an individual does makes a difference - with climate change we are facing the most extreme example of the tragedy of the commons problem. You can get your carbon footprint down to zero and while it might make you feel better it isn't going to matter one bit. At the national level, the US accounts for 15-20% of global GHG emissions, so even if we could somehow muster the will to get everyone in the US to be to carbon neutral, it isn't going to make a difference globally. So the solution must be centralized at the global level, which requires cooperation with Brazil, India, China, Russia, etc. I'm normally an optimist but I'm pretty pessimistic on this one. In my opinion the best possible hope is we invest heavily in basic research for alternative energy technologies, have a breakthrough and are able to scale those quickly globally. And as a hedge start figuring out how to move people away from low-lying coastal areas before its too late.
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@Mike G.
The corollary to your argument is that no individual had anything to do with how we find ourselves where we do. Thus all the burning of fossil fuels was some sort of "thing" that happened all by itself, as no individuals are implicated in anything, apparently. Or rather it's "the U.S." and apparently there are no individuals living there.
Got it.
The tragedy of the commons is tragically written in your comment. IF individuals had acted in any number of situations that are referenced as a "tragedy of the commons" situation, that tragedy might have been averted.
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@Mike G.
Since "the US accounts for 15-20% of global GHG emissions", when we get the US to be carbon neutral, we will be that much closer to avoiding global warming.
Everybody needs to do their part.
If the USA is not doing anything, why should Brazil?
Or Australia?
Or China?
Or Russia?
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Mike G., That is the same logic as "I won't share my toys until everyone else does too." The only differences are the ages and number of people involved.
Try seeing environmental damage as an ethical issue, not a convenience issue. That might make it easier to rationalize taking action before everyone else is on board. Besides, it is an ethical issue because it amounts to stealing from future generations.
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Helicopter tourism is one of the worst emitters of carbon and noise pollution. There are multiple less impactful alternatives to visiting a destination: walking, bicycling, driving an electric vehicle, take a bus, or sailing. Added bonus: residents won’t be angry at you about the noise pollution caused by tour helicopters. (This is an island wide complaint in Hawaii)
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The Rockaway peninsula is flyover country for flights from all over the world taking off and landing at JFK airport. Judging by the huge number of planes going over my house every single day I don't think the future of air travel is going to disappear anytime soon.
It's time to stop worrying about flight shaming and to stop listening to everything AOC says as though it was carved in stone.
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Fly on jets that use high-bypass engines and lightweight composites in construction, such as the Boeing 787, Airbus 320neo and when fixed, Boeing 737Max. The carbon per passenger mile is significantly lower.
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This article makes no sense, since the percent of carbon emissions that come from air travel is so small. Want to do something useful? Persuade your government to enact laws about clean power plants, or a similar action that would actually reduce carbon emissions.
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@Chelmian--For those who are truly serious and still of child-bearing age, the single most important thing you can do that will have the most impact on the climate crisis is to decide to have fewer children, or no children. Nothing else comes anywhere even close to the same impact on your carbon footprint as deciding not to have another child. For those of us (like me) who made the choice to remain childless, I admit that this is a comforting thought. I try to minimize my impact in every way that might actually have an effect (as I said below, I don't think that refusing to fly has any effect at all); but the main thing I've done to benefit the planet was not to reproduce.
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@me
Fifty odd years ago, as a rabid zero population growth proponent, I had one child. At that time, the global population was a bit over 3billion. That has now more that doubled. Today, I think how pleasant it would be if our population had stabilized at that level. Think: fewer traffic jams, less and less long lines for just about everything, more personal medical and every other type of care, no phone mails. This is how it used to be. In addition to the grave threat that climate change brings and the subterranean fear and stress we endure, just think, for a minute, how much more pleasant life was back in the day. The solution, if there is one, is to have only as many kids as will replace yourself. In other words, one per person. One deer says to its neighbor "Why don't they thin their own herds?"
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@MNM--It was ZPG that was largely responsible for my decision to have no children. We didn't know about climate change yet when I was in my 20s (in the 70s), or at least I didn't know about it, but it was already very clear that Americans use far more than our share of resources and that out-of- control population growth would choke the world. It was the right decision then to have none, or only one, and it's even more the right decision now.
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I'd appreciate information on the comparative pollution (esp carbon) associated with different forms of travel. I live in the urban area that extends from Boston to DC, otherwise known (thanks to Amtrak) as the Northeast Corridor. Some years, I've flown down to Florida to visit family; other years, I've taken the train. For a trip from NYC or Philadelphia to, say, Tampa, which is the winner: flying, taking the train, taking a bus, driving a conventional car, driving an electric car? Greta Thunberg is making her trans-Atlantic trip on a sailboat; for those with the time, how would a flight compare to an ocean cruise?
Waiting for "governments to address travel-related problems" won't work, without encouraging additional regulation. We won't get high-speed solar electric trains (to pick one particular daydream) without demonstrating an appetite for something other than planes.
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Or stay home entirely and listen to the BBC's excellent program, "From Our Own Correspondent", consisting of stories from its reporters around the world. No more energy is required than using your media player and internet connection, and in only half an hour, you'll learn a lot. This is not to say that one shouldn't travel, but this is a good and free alternative, even for those vaunted travel influencers.
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@Mark Lebow But...I'd have to buy a tv set...
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If I lived in Europe, I would take trains (and trams) pretty much everywhere. But I don’t, and I can’t. I do love visiting Europe, and when I get there, I use the trains, and I love them. @AJ said that occasional travel is like an aspirin - that is so true! Life’s realities can be pretty tough, and getting away can be very refreshing. When I have a train from where I live to anywhere else in the world, I’ll be delighted to take it. Or fast boat.
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"Consider an educational exchange program in Vietnam compared to a week at a resort in the Maldives."
What does that choice have to do with environmental impact. That is just someone putting a value judgement on another's behavior. Similarly, the choices of a hotel vs an AirBnB.
It seems like there are a lot snobbish value judgements being mixed up with a legitimate consideration of the impact of air travel.
In fact, I tend to agree with most of the author's preferences for travel, but I don't think that reduces the impact of my flights on the environment.
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@Tundra Green the exchange of ideas and awareness of various cultures might contribute quite a bit to improving our chances of finding empathy, common ground, and solutions that are actually embraced.
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@Allison - If I want cultural awareness, I don't even have to leave my apartment building. Currently, there are 7 languages spoken here. The Ethiopians taught me how to roast coffee on the stove top. The Samoans taught me about making chocolate from cacao beans and how to pick a good mango in the store. My Chinese neighbor properly diagnosed an illness I had last year 3 months before my doctors did. I just found out today that we are having "International Day" this coming Labor Day when we will all go out into the parking lot to bar-be-que our various ethnic traditions. I'm hoping we can get the Guatemalan lady to bust out her legendary soup.
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@Tundra Green I agree 100%. This was the sentence I found the most disconcerting. And trust: I'd rather visit Vietnam than the Maldives. But to each her own. Give people room to live their lives according to their liking, at least to some measure.
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I would mostly leave leisure travel out of this. With current technology, business travel these days is another story. There is no substitute for an American visiting Rome for the first time. But why fly 4000 miles to attend a meeting at the Rome airport and fly home 24 hours later? It is easy for Europeans to take the train. Their taxes support high-speed rail.
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@arp I disagree, arp. There is a substitute for Americans visiting Rome, particularly in this age of globalization. You can see photos, read, and watch videos, then use your imagination.
Which is more important, Americans visiting Rome or the Okjökull glacier melting? Seriously. Do all Americans need to see anything beyond their own town to realize we are wreaking havoc on this place??
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@arp
Because sometimes closing a deal requires being there in person to look a partner in the eye. I average over 150k miles a year, and don’t feel one iota of guilt about it. But my business and bank account definitely feel better.
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@arp: I've just returned from living in Paris. (I mean living like a local in a residential neighborhood far from the tourist sites.) In the course of my daily routine, I would take city buses (public transportation) whose routes often passed by major tourist sites.
These sites were swarmed by tourists being led around by the noose under the direction of fast-talking tourist guides. Most of these tourists looked miserable. I wondered what, if anything, they were getting from their efforts. They certainly weren't getting to experience real French culture.
Therefore, I think these tourists would be better off staying home. They can look at the tourist sites on YouTube and help the environment by not patronizing the airlines.
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Seems like this advice, which will provide essentially no meaningful benefits to the world, is designed to achieve an exquisite balance: keep travelling but feel more virtuous by tweaking your usual routines with tiny sacrifices, while retaining some of the guilt and shame that appears necessary to be a genuine "woke" person.
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@Cary In my opinion, we can view our lives and others' lives in this age of climate crisis through the lenses of the many stages of grief: shock and disbelief, guilt, denial, anger, bargaining, depression/reflection, working through and acceptance.
If we look at the climate crisis through the lens of grief, we can have more compassion for those who are in denial (Republicans voters) and those who are angry (lashing out at Greta Thunberg) and those who bargain (flying yet paying carbon offsets).
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@Cary
Bargaining. We are good at that! But it's all Denial. How did the Nazis kill all those Jews? A whole population had to look the other way to varying degrees. This is what we need to confront in ourselves, all our elaborate forms of denial; implicative, interpretive, "not knowing", and so on.
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@Cary
While the global shipping industry burns massive volumes of the filthiest fuel in existence... Wake me up when that changes.
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Millions of people worldwide depend on international travelers and luring them abroad. And home for many of us is becoming so polluted and hot and congested that long-distance travel is almost a necessity - like an occasional aspirin. It's going to be an interesting struggle. There's still a mind transformation that needs to occur. People complain about the weather and never do anything about it. People complain about climate warming and then book a trip to Italy.
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@AJ - H-m-m, well, their NOT booking the trip to Italy is not going to do anything to prevent climate warming.
If we have any hope at all of avoiding a climate catastrophe, it's going to take global action by governments and corporations, not simply individual actions taken by a few individuals. In this country, we should be working to increase the use of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind as fast as possible, insulating homes and commercial buildings, installing green roofs and light-colored roofs, using financial incentives to encourage purchase of electric vehicles, implementing higher fuel efficiency standards for ICE in non-electric cars (which we are set to do and which Trump is trying to kill), continuing research to increase appliance efficiency and to find alternative sources renewable fuels, encouraging and supporting local farming where practical including, perhaps, more use of hydroponic farming.
We should get going.