Military flying is HUGE – and the US military CO2 impact is excluded in their reckoning of what carbon reductions they’re going to make (probably true of other countries too, but the scale in the US is massive). But it goes back to the same thing: we can blame everyone else for the state of the world but the only person whose behaviour you can actually change (if you’re lucky!) is your own. The water situation sounds mad. What a shame…

Yes but the problem is precisely that no one wants to stop travelling! The only way I ever managed to stop myself from travelling anywhere at all was to have so little money (by going back to university, essentially) that I couldn’t afford to go anywhere… and that means I can’t take my kids anywhere exotic either. Ho Hum. Still, they meet a lot of interesting people who pass through here, and one day, just once, I’ll take them on a long haul to Canada or to Alaska, because my my Dad lived and worked there and I want them to see some of the places that we went to as kids. Eamon Ryan calls this ‘love miles’ – I’m not sure about that phrase, to be honest!!! Sounds seriously cheesy to me. But I do think the small things make you reflect on the bigger things and I do think that we need to work out ways of curbing our addiction to travel, however seductive and beautiful the imagery (and often the reality) of other places is… HOW? (Apart from self-enforced poverty – not fun, folks).

Very well said.

For example here in Helsinki, Finland, there was a trend to save water. We don’t have shortage of fresh water and due the people trying to save water, the water company now has to run water straight to the ocean to maintain the quality of water in the pipes. Perhaps we could lower the standards but it’s kind of stupid just because people are doing the wrong things because they feel it’s the right thing to do.

It’s very similar thing about electricity. The local electricity company is owned by the city and a major source of income. If we save energy, the income from the electricity company will go down and our local taxes will raise. During the night Finland sells electricity to Norway. Why? Because our nuclear plants cannot be stopped for the night anyway and Norway will use the electricity to pump the water back up. During the day that same water will flow through the hydro plant and generate “green electricity”. It’s not that green but it’s smart thing to do.

Our forests grow faster than we use them. If we don’t use the wood for anything, we will end up with overcrowded, unhealthy forests.

There are local greenhouses that grow tomatoes and other vegetables during the winter. When it’s dark most of the day. When it’s down to -30 C cold. But they can be called “locally produced, organic”.

In our case, “ecology” isn’t in our travel vocabulary. We prefer to travel smart, do things that make sense from the local perspective.

PS. When people are worried about the ecological footprint from flying, why is military flying always forgotten? Just saying 🙂

I’m not suggesting that people should not travel or that they should not try to be conscious of reducing the impact that they have when they do. But, we need to be honest with ourselves and recognize that no matter how many seasons we wear out recycled Patagonia high-loft jacket or how much we eschew big fancy hotels, the simple act of being somewhere other than home (with the lights off) is unsustainable in very real ways.

Anyone who has ever watch a busload of tourists (ourselves included) clamber over the ruins of Machu Picchu has to recognize that the problem is us. If we are there to witness it, then we are contributing to the consumption of resources, destruction of wilderness and wearing down of precious cultural icons. Does this mean I won’t travel? No, but I won’t try to kid myself into thinking that reusing a towel or eating from a street cart has a meaningful impact on the environment when I got there by jet and saved the money to travel in the first place by participating in the first world economy.