Comments on: Truth and Reconciliation

By: Lolly Knitting Around » Tidbits

Lolly Knitting Around » Tidbits — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:11:04 +0000

[...] Help fund research and development for sustainable alternative energies (this would enable me to travel everywhere without having “greenie guilt“) [...]

By: Knitting Friends - Today’s Top Blog Posts on Knitting - Powered by SocialRank

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 10:21:23 +0000

[...] Truth and Reconciliation [...]

By: moirae

moirae — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 01:52:23 +0000

I too struggle with this issue. It’s important to remember how travel opens up the world and fosters cross-cultural communication and understanding in a way that other methods of exploration (books, internet, movies, etc.) do not. Sometimes I think the world would be a better place if more people traveled. Then they’d understand why it’s worth saving.

I strongly applaud your support of eco-tourism. In many ways, eco-tourism is helping to save some areas from deforestation and becoming victims of a global form of NIMBY.

Keep up your good habits at home and remember that the same rules apply when you travel abroad. Combine trips, reduce, reuse, walk when you can, use public transportation and support the local economy.

In the meantime, don’t forget to travel in your own back yard. Everyone has an undiscovered country close to home. The true adventure is finding what has yet to be discovered rather than visiting what others have already recorded.

My mother recently told me that she feels similarly to you about carbon offsets. If you decide to purchase them, just remember that many of those organizations use that money to fund environmental education projects. Just be sure to pick a good organization. I recently attended a green commencement during my alumni reunion weekend. Being able to purchase carbon offsets at the event was just one of many ways the event was green. Other measures included compostable picnic ware and the use of local foods.

Good luck in all your travels Lolly and thanks for caring about the environment.

By: amisha

amisha — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:22:14 +0000

hi lolly,
been catching up on your posts and as always there is so much to think about here. being a person with wanderlust and a LONG list of places i would love to see (and having just come home from vacation), i read this and the comments with great interest. for me, i tend to agree with some of the comments that talk about balance and moderation. our travel, though it may be more frequent than most other americans (and is definitely more frequent than the majority of people on earth who are not able to travel by air), is still a drop in the bucket compared to business travelers who fly every week. in the meantime, there are so many environmentally responsible practices to implement (which i know that you do) that balance the impact of a flight, at least somewhat. is this rationalization? maybe, but i feel that it is true– i drive a car only once every couple of weeks and am moving to a city where i won’t have a car; this has to balance the flying a little bit, right?
xo

By: Pipe Dreams and Purling Plans » Blog Archive » On Change

Pipe Dreams and Purling Plans » Blog Archive » On Change — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:25:22 +0000

[...] about the future and options regarding land and farming. There have been articles and blog entries which have spurred the thought process. And I found this write-up in my email box – which [...]

By: Michele

Michele — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 12:45:31 +0000

Interesting post. Living in NYC, I do not own a car. I take public transportation, walk alot, use green products as much as I can, buy at the Farmer’s Market, eat seasonal as much as possible (no strawberries in Feb for me), have taken the train on trips throughout the US – and when I have to fly, I fly. For me, I’d rather focus my worrying and activist efforts on the true polluters in this world – the big companies that pollute like crazy throughout the world – and I try to make informed consumer choices and not buy from them; and on our current gov’t that does nothing to stop the looming crisis.

By: loriz

loriz — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 23:21:56 +0000

I’m glad to hear that you are thinking about the complexities of today’s world rather than turning a blind eye, which is so easy to do. Last year sometime I heard a rather interesting interview with George Monbiot, author of Heat, share his thoughts on the end of pleasure travel as we know it. His arguments seemed sound to my scientifically trained ears. From what I remembered, he said if we must travel, it should be for extended periods of time.

Good luck finding a solution that works for you and your conscious!

By: DebbieB

DebbieB — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:42:28 +0000

Thanks for making me think!

By: parikha

parikha — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:15:08 +0000

kudos to you for being so green-conscious! it seems like more and more people are getting passionate about this cause, which is fantastic–it means we don’t have to wait for our government to get off its ass and do something about it before we can start seeing change.

By: Jen

Jen — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 08:15:41 +0000

From my own travel research and being involved in the climate change industry: Long-haul flights are better than short-haul in terms of fuel efficiency and co2 emissions since take of and landing use more fuel and release more co2. Better to take one overseas flight a year than flit around the US.

I think you are being too hard on carbon offsets. For full disclosure the carbon offsets market and carbon trading pay my rent so… However, the NGO I used to work at had carbon offsets projects in places like Madagascar and Ecuador -forestry projects in particular. They were not only replanting lost forest, but also using the money from carbon offsets to prevent further deforestation (setting up trusts, etc). If not for the carbon offsets market, there is little incentive to preserve the forests in developing countries. So, to over simplify it a bit, forestry offsets have a two-fold purpose. I don’t at all believe it’s green washing. You do, however, have to be careful which offsets to buy in the so-called voluntary market.

You bring up a point, however, in that some people may view offsets as a ‘license to pollute’ but I wouldn’t necessarily look at it that way. People should calculate their carbon footprint and take measures to reduce it first – there are tons of ways. But it’s impossible to get it down to zero, and carbon offsets are a win-win for the polluter and the land-owner on the receiving end.

I would go to the mat in defense of forestry offsets projects having traveled to where deforestation is at its worst. Without the offsets market, there’s so little incentive for land holders to preserve their land. In terms of Kyoto credits, there is some really amazing development work happening on the tail of Kyoto-certified projects. My husband has worked on some really cook projects that not only produce carbon offsets credits, but also bring very basic city services to rural poor in Africa.