As much as we all love travel, there is unfortunately a serious downside to it: pollution.
Whether we take a road trip in our car our hop on a plane to fly half way around the world, the luxury of travel consistently pumps pollutants into the air that will one day ironically destroy the very places we love to visit.
But you only travel a little bit, you say?
Take a moment to pop on over to the handy calculator on SafeClimate.net to determine how much Carbon Dioxide you pump into the atmosphere on a monthly or yearly basis. I figured I drive about 7,000 miles per year and fly about 20,000 (during a good year). According to the calculator, this means that I add 1521 pounds of Carbon Dioxide to the atmosphere on a monthly basis. Or, 18,252 for the year. Ugh!
There are certainly ways to reduce this carbon footprint but it will have serious repercussions on my travel lifestyle–like taking the train to New York instead of flying, or biking to work, or purchasing carbon offsets.
Man! After realizing my carbon footprint for just plane and car travel, I really have to start figuring out a way to offset those 18,000 pounds. Or, simply start buying beachfront property in Alaska.