Travels in climate land

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:48:07 -0700

How many times have you heard that it's cheaper to fly than drive? The extraordinary growth of airline travel in the last twenty years is often touted as a modern miracle of globalization, but it's looking more and more like the blowback may be the impacts of air travel on greenhouse gas emissions. Although the airline ticket might be cheap, jet travel releases more than 660 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year.

Phone it In

emily — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:49:40 -0700

Air travel has a significant impact on the climate -- it's 5-10% of our contributions to global warming pollutants. In addition, traveling for business can be one of the great (mis)adventures in life: getting to the airport, getting through security, waiting for a delayed plane, sitting in a down-sized seat without legroom, circling your destination, waiting for luggage, filing a report when it doesn't turn up, traffic from the airport, a lost reservation at the hotel, a noisy air conditioner next to your room, a stale breakfast, and then a bleary-eyed workday.

Go All the Way

emily — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 11:26:12 -0700

As more and more people want to take action to help solve the climate crisis, and with governments lagging behind public opinion in establishing mandatory reduction targets, the idea of carbon offsets has caught on as a way that individuals and organizations can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stimulate use of more renewable energy. Despite some recent confusing publicity, offsets are real, viable, and important as a way to reduce one's climate impact - as long as they are done right.