Like a diet, I believe it's not so important what you do during your two week vacation (within reason), it's your actions during the other 50 weeks of the year that count most.

While I do agree with efforts to moderate one's carbon footprint wherever possible, the whole eco-tourism and anti-global warming movement needs to work harder to reduce its pompousity and pedantry footprints too. I love Mort Sahl's description - "the Prius, the car for the Pious..."

But take heart, Green Fodorites - your quest is not lost on the travel trade...

http://www.flysilverjet.com/Website/...reen-faqs.aspx

Sportychick, I applaud your line of thinking. I think our traveling can be impactful in a positive way, especially if we find worth-while volunteer opportunities we can support in our travels. And if we be take to tread softly.

Thanks for the thread.
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I meant to say, if "we take care to tread softly." (darned carpel tunnel)
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I don't think we are pompus in owning a Prius. We had an opportunity to do so in 2005 and we did it. We have been doing positive things for the environment going back to the 80's: recycling, conserving water. turning themostat down in winter and no a/c in summer. Then went to the energy efficient light bulbs in early 90's. We're proud of what we have done, though not pompus, pious or arogant.

I agree that it is silly to assume that Prius owners are pompus, pious, or anything else. Although there are those who bought them just for the image - and frankly who cares, those folks would be pompus anyway but at least now they are using less fuel and producing fewer emissions - there are a lot of Prius owners who have quietly been doing a lot of other "green" things for years and have been waiting for a reasonably alternative to the standard combustion engine vehicle.

I think the best approach is that suggested by several other posters: Behave in an environmentally-conscious fashion when you're not flying, and then don't worry about the inherent and unavoidable environmental consequences of transporting your body and baggage across oceans and continents.

The only other option is to restrict your travel to intensive exploration of your home town by mass transit, bicycle, or foot. There is much to be said for that, but it may not be an acceptable option.

Anybody else notice that Sir Beard and Al Gore announced their CO2 reduction competition today? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6345557.stm

How interesting, thanks! And you might also know that Al Gore was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his wide-reaching efforts to draw the world's attention to the dangers of global warming.

I love the idea of that competition. It will probably do more to address the problem than anything.
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did Al Gore make these pronouncements when he was flying on his private jet or when he was driving his SUV?

Seriously-- can't we just applaud his efforts to search for solutions??
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Not when it is resources, time and scientific brillance that is being wasted and misdirected into areas where there is no cost to result ratio that is in the ball park economically.

That money, effort, time, mass action etc. could be scientifically redirected to any one of 3 to 5 areas I could name which would be eons better for homo sapiens AND all the other species sharing the planet.

Like raising living standards for the poorest by: 1. FINDING out why the homo brain works to a "big man" social agenda system repeatedly (war, economic graft/hording in SO many countries is killing immense millions of humans every year) from "big man" status tribal type thinking. War is the central fixture of this mind set.

Why do we war like chimps, instead of defusing like bononos? KNOWLEDGE NEEDED, MONEY NEEDED.

That's just one issue and a biggie. I could name 4 others bigger than fossil fuels. But they don't lend to the "grand marketing" gesture and "hero" feel as well.

AIDS/Plagues, FAMINE, SUBVERSION of the FEMALE as a Slave/work group etc. etc. etc.

Scientific minds are diamonds- that need to be applied to- like your home economics with a strong knowledge that they are FINITE resources.

Spending every Million dollars to get a two buck result. NOT WISE.

A congressman said on a recent frontline TV show the Global Warming may be the biggest HOAX ever perpetrated on the American people.

UW Green Bay Emeritus Professor Joseph Moran agrees that Bryson qualifies as “the father of the science of modern climatology.” and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world.

So what does the father of the science of modern climatology and the most frequently cited climatologist in the world. say about “Global Warming” or the -after walking around outside -less laughable term “Climate Change”

“All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”


The Faithful Heretic
A Wisconsin Icon Pursues Tough Questions
Some people are lucky enough to enjoy their work, some are lucky enough to love it, and then there’s Reid Bryson. At age 86, he’s still hard at it every day, delving into the science some say he invented.
Reid A. Bryson holds the 30th PhD in Meteorology granted in the history of American education. Emeritus Professor and founding chairman of the University of Wisconsin Department of Meteorology—now the Department of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences—in the 1970s he became the first director of what’s now the UW’s Gaylord Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies. He’s a member of the United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honor—created, the U.N. says, to recognize “outstanding achievements in the protection and improvement of the environment.” He has authored five books and more than 230 other publications and was identified by the British Institute of Geographers as the most frequently cited climatologist in the world.
Long ago in the Army Air Corps, Bryson and a colleague prepared the aviation weather forecast that predicted discovery of the jet stream by a group of B-29s flying to and from Tokyo. Their warning to expect westerly winds at 168 knots earned Bryson and his friend a chewing out from a general—and the general’s apology the next day when he learned they were right. Bryson flew into a couple of typhoons in 1944, three years before the Weather Service officially did such things, and he prepared the forecast for the homeward flight of the Enola Gay. Back in Wisconsin, he built a program at the UW that’s trained some of the nation’s leading climatologists.
How Little We Know
Bryson is a believer in climate change, in that he’s as quick as anyone to acknowledge that Earth’s climate has done nothing but change throughout the planet’s existence. In fact, he took that knowledge a big step further, earlier than probably anyone else. Almost 40 years ago, Bryson stood before the American Association for the Advancement of Science and presented a paper saying human activity could alter climate.
“I was laughed off the platform for saying that,” he told Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News.
In the 1960s, Bryson’s idea was widely considered a radical proposition. But nowadays things have turned almost in the opposite direction: Hardly a day passes without some authority figure claiming that whatever the climate happens to be doing, human activity must be part of the explanation. And once again, Bryson is challenging the conventional wisdom“Climate’s always been changing and it’s been changing rapidly at various times, and so something was making it change in the past,” he told us in an interview this past winter. “Before there were enough people to make any difference at all, two million years ago, nobody was changing the climate, yet the climate was changing, okay?”
“All this argument is the temperature going up or not, it’s absurd,” Bryson continues. “Of course it’s going up. It has gone up since the early 1800s, before the Industrial Revolution, because we’re coming out of the Little Ice Age, not because we’re putting more carbon dioxide into the air.”….Complete article at http://www.wecnmagazine.com/2007issues/may/may07.html#1