Learning About Green Travel
In the interest of learning more about just how green (or not) I may be as a traveler and how much greener I can get with some more effort, I've started following Go Green Travel Green's blog, where Earth Day provided impetus for the launch of a cool series, "25 Days to Green Travel." I took the UK Guardian's Green Traveler Quiz, where I was stunned to learn that I'm an "eco warrior," and interested to note that the answers most naturally appealing to independent travelers were the "right" ones for green travelers. I used The Nature Conservancy's carbon footprint calculator to learn that my estimated greenhouse gas emissions are below the US average and hugely above the global average (it was the driving-around-North-America thing).As for "green" travel outfits, tours and possibilities -- boy, that's a can of possibly-not-organic worms, isn't it? We're all beginning to see travel stuff claiming green-ness, like tours that I would want to research to the nth degree before taking, or really not-green things claiming some green connection -- swimming with dolphins in ecological preserves leaps to mind. (In fact, I'm reminded of voluntourism dilemmas wherein I, for one, always wonder if a given tour/volunteer travel company is merely cashing in on a popular leaning and pocketing profits dispassionately, or really doing its part somewhere... the pragmatist in me wants to say, "Show me the balance sheet!".) For now, I'm planning to keep doing what I do, which is conserve and re-use when possible while being constantly nagged by guilt that I could be doing more, and follow the research of folks like those at Treehugger, Planeta, Go Green Travel Green, and The Nature Conservancy.
Further interesting reading:
- About.com's Student Travel:
- Elsewhere on About.com:
- Elsewhere on the web:
- Go Green Travel Green's Recommendation: Best Green Blogs
- UK Times Online: "Blaming carbon on planes 'is flight of fancy'"
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