What shade of green traveler are you?

by Anna Brones on

“Green” has turned into a hot word, especially in the realm of travel and ecotourism. Last week Aaron asked the question “does global warming make travel unethical?” giving us some interesting ideas on air travel and when to choose to not fly. But beyond cutting back on long plane rides, a lot of travelers take a variety of steps to make their journeys more green. So how green of a traveler are you? Go Green Travel has come up with a list of three definitions of green, determined by how many eco choices you make when you travel.

Pea Green Travelers – Pea green travelers are the ones who care about the environment, and they will choose a green option if it is cheap and easy, but they are not going to go to great lengths to make changes in their normal traveling habits.

Forest Green Travelers – These are the travelers at the opposite end of the spectrum; they do everything in their capacity to travel green. They don’t take planes, they only eat in organic restaurants, they carry a tent with them or they couch surf, and they most definitely wear environmentally friendly travel clothes.

Kelly Green Travelers – Kelly green travelers fall somewhere in the middle. They are conscious of the impact of their choices (whereas pea green travelers are only conscious part of the time), but because of time and budget constraints they may not always choose the greenest method of travel like their forest green friends.

Read the whole Shades of Green Travel article here.

Simbabwe: Easy to play but hard to escape from

by Aaron Hotfelder on

When I used to play Sim City, one of my favorite computer games back in the day, I would always think: This is fun, but when will they come out with a Zimbabwe edition? Finally, it seems, my prayers have been answered.

Introducing Simbabwe. Hailed as the “leading Zimbabwe simulation for Mac OS X”– and I’m sure there’s some fierce competition in that category– the game tries to simulate all the great things about Zimbabwe that you and I love so much: economic disasters, humanitarian crises, and of course, megalomaniacal dictators.

From the website: “Welcome to Simbabwe, where the property is already owned and the houses built and you compete to burn and dispossess them. Bounce around the map plundering farms, denying grain silos to opposition supporters and robbing the community chest.”

Sounds like fun, no?

No word on whether the game, like the real Zimbabwe, features $10 million bills.

Love from London: Heathrow protesters use GoogleEarth for publicity

by Iva Skoch on

The plans to open a sixth terminal and a third runway at Heathrow have been keeping protesters busy in the last couple of weeks. You can’t exactly blame them. Heathrow is already the busiest airport in the world (and it is not exactly a well-oiled machine) and now they want to add to the already chaotic situation? The problems with Heathrow are apparently so huge, Londoners call it The Terminal Case.

I saw a bunch of protesters at the Houses of Parliament just the other day. What I didn’t see is that they were actually able to sneak into the Parliament as visitors, get on the roof and pull out banners legible from planes as well as Google Earth. Way to use technology for activism…

Does global warming make air travel unethical?

by Aaron Hotfelder on

That’s the question recently considered by two blogging economists, Tyler Cowen and Will Wilkinson. One reader presents his situation:

“If I don’t fly from London to my sister’s wedding in New Zealand she will be upset, I will cause her pain and so that’s morally bad. If I do fly to my sister’s wedding in New Zealand I will put about four tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which will contribute to climate change, which, according to the World Health Organisation, already causes about 150,000 deaths every year. Clearly that’s also morally bad. Which is the morally correct thing to do?”

Tyler seems to punt on this question, stating that having children is much worse for the environment than flying. He writes, a little tongue-in-cheek, “So people with no biological children should be allowed to fly a lot and people with lots of biological children should not get to fly so much at all.” I don’t think Tyler’s actually recommending a new law, or a “carbon quota”; instead, he’s just trying to re-order our priorities a little. Sure, flying is bad for the environment, but having children is much worse.

Will Wilkinson answers the same question another way. “Your choice is very unlikely to determine whether or not an airplane leaves London for New Zealand. So, chances are extremely high that the same amount of carbon will be emitted whether or not you choose to go… So, if not being a horrible selfish brat of a brother matters to you at all, then you should go.”

Just like voting, one individual flying on a plane is highly unlikely to make a difference to the environment in the grand scheme of things. To forego a trip to New Zealand for your sister’s wedding would be almost completely symbolic– that plane is leaving with or without you. But if you care enough about global warming to make such a choice, you might surprise people with your principle, and change their behaviors too.

Still, if it were me, I’m getting on that plane.

Check out Gadling’s recent interview with Tyler Cowen here.

Three extreme athletes snowkite across North Dakota

by Anna Brones on

“They’re doing what?” was my first reaction when hearing about To Cross the Moon (2XtM) expedition that took three extreme athletes across North Dakota by way of snowkite. On Friday 2XtM successfully finished their 390 mile snowkiting trek across one of the coldest states in the country, making them some of the coolest and intense travelers in my book.

Snowkiting is basically snowboarding with the help of the wind; optimal when you want to cross flat distances on your board. An offshoot of its cousin kiteboarding, snowkiting allows a snowboarder harnessed to the long reins of a power kite to launch upwards of 40 feet while riding on horizontal terrain. 2XtM team Sam Salwei, Jason Magness and Paul Cassedy spent three weeks in Ferburary snowkiting across the desolate, and incredibly cold, landscape of North Dakota to promote wind energy. Not only did they deal with below freezing temperatures, but they also carried all of their own gear.

Seems to be a pretty intense way to travel, but like any good trip it’s always a little hard to return back to home and to everyday life. An excerpt from their blog:

“What do we do now?” asked Magness. “We’ve spent the last nineteen days trying to eat enough, and worrying about freezing to death or blowing away.”

“Yeah,” agreed Salwei, “We spent the last three weeks worrying about not dying, and now as we go back into society, we have to worry about not living.”

Although it might not be on the top of my list for winter activities, it’s still pretty amazing.