Travel and climate change: conflicting truths

The Hamilton Pool Preserve in Texas. Photo by Dave Wilson.

I’ve been doing more reading about both travel and its impact on climate change. I don’t know how to reconcile what’s ultimately necessary for our survival with what’s good, and beautiful, and connects us.

I don’t have any scintillating synthesis. I just have quotes and pictures. And a wish that there were an easy answer.

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”
— Saint Augustine

“Just one return flight from London to New York produces a greater carbon footprint than a whole year’s personal allowance needed to keep the climate safe.”
— ETA, Air Travel’s Impact on Climate Change

“While we may not want to admit it, Americans lead fairly sheltered lives, and as a result, generally have a poor understanding of what is really happening in the rest of the world. ‘I think it’s really hard to fully comprehend what your own country has, both the good and the bad, without getting outside of your comfort zone on a deeper, more meaningful level,’ says Meet, Plan, Go! Austin co-host Keith Hajovsky. “Taking a gap year or a career break is a great way to accomplish this.”

Likewise, San Diego host Elaine Masters believes that there would be far less intolerance, violence, prejudice, and hatred in the world if more people got to experience the ways in which other people live in it. ‘There is really no better education available, in my opinion, than seeing the world,’ says Masters.”
— Katie Aune, Why a Gap Year Should Come to America

Lison, Portugal. Photo by Filipa Chatillon.

“And, no doubt, many of us have adopted new habits—trying to use public transportation, buying local foods, rejecting bottled water. But the “savings” from such practices are wiped out by a habit that many of us not only refuse to kick, but also increasingly embrace: flying, the single most ecologically costly act of individual consumption.”
— Joseph Nevins, Kicking the Habit: Air Travel in the Time of Climate Change

The Isle of Skye, Scotland. Photo by Tim Wilcock.

“By making a disproportionate contribution to climate destabilization and associated forms of environmental degradation—biodiversity loss, rising sea levels, and desertification, for instance—air travelers exacerbate the precarious existence of the most vulnerable. In doing so, they contribute to unjust hierarchies (e.g. racism and imperialism) that reflect a world of profound inequality.”
— Joseph Nevins, Kicking the Habit: Air Travel in the Time of Climate Change

“I so wholeheartedly believe it’s important to travel even if it’s just to the next town, city, or state over. Look up, look around you, note the small details, find inspiration through meeting new people, marvel at new landscapes, be in awe of a new culture’s traditions. Just do something that can blow the doors wide open to your approach, opinion, perception, or idea of something. When you have access to new activities, languages, foods, what have you that aren’t available where you currently live, you’d be a fool not to take advantage of those things.”
— Kimi Sugiyama, Why Travel At All 

Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia. Photo by Jack Brauer.

“Sometimes, I read National Geographic and travel magazines and then I remember how full of color and culture our world is. Cue overwhelming and insatiable wanderlust. While it physically hurts my heart to know that there is so much to experience currently out of reach, it is comforting to know that I’m working towards a career that can take me all over the world. I hold onto this vision while trucking though day to day life.”
— The Militant Baker, Insatiable Wanderlust

“The dirty secret about air travel is that there is no green alternative to flying, other than staying home. (The exceptions are short-haul flights that could be replaced with train travel, and governments would be wise to try to invest in high-speed rail, as even the Obama Administration is slowly doing—but Europe’s far superior train system hasn’t prevented the rapid growth of air travel on the continent.”
— Bryan Walsh, When Does a Flight Become “Binge Flying”?