Can Traveling be Environmentally Friendly? (And How I Chose To Live My Life)

Tourism or traveling can be a lot of things. It opens up our worldview to other cultures and can help us better understand those that are different than us (if we allow it). It can be both enriching, humbling, educational and simply fun.

However, I am also an individual who believes in climate change, and therefore tries to be environmentally conscious. I'm mostly vegetarian, I don't own a car, I limit my consumption of consumer goods and try to buy second hand when I can. I try to reduce and reuse where I can as well. But traveling is one of those enriching experiences that I value. If you've read any of my other posts, once I land and I am in-country, I enjoy exploring the city by public transit and bicycling and seeing the city outside of the windshield of a car or through a tour group. If I'm traveling in between cities, I enjoy taking high speed rail that places like Asia and Europe have. I also enjoy finding neighborhood bars and getting to know the locals.

But when I ask myself the question, "can traveling be environmentally friendly?", I believe the answer is "no". And the biggest reason it cannot be environmentally friendly is because of flying. Traveling can be other things that I listed above, like culturally enriching, educational, fun, etc., but not environmentally friendly.

So, what can someone like me, who values being both environmentally conscious and wanting an enriching cultural experience do? I would say, other than stop traveling and stay local, there isn't much.

How Much CO2?

I was researching how much CO2 I use when flying international to see what is worse, flying or driving a car for a year. I found that the average passenger vehicle in the U.S. contributes about 4.6 metric tons of CO2 (source: EPA) per year. I compared that to a roundtrip flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo. Depending on what website you visit to calculate your CO2 for flights, it can range from 2.2 to 3.5 metric tons of CO2. I don't understand how they conduct their calculations, but here are the few sites I used.

Sustainable Travel International is at 2.2

Myclimate is at 3.5

Calculover is at 3.2

StarlightTools is at 3.5

And these are all assuming you fly economy. It's higher if you fly Business or First Class. So for me, one international trip at the very least, creates half of the CO2 of an average American driver if not close to it.

Whose Responsibility is it to Fight Climate Change?

But here's the other issue. Why is it up to me, or individuals to reduce our CO2 and fight climate change? Traveling overseas is one of the few things I really enjoy. And any changes I make in my lifestyle doesn't move the needle as much as what corporations and governments can do. So, I have to sacrifice something I enjoy because corporations and their shareholders are greedy bastards that only value short term profits over long-term investment in clean technology?

And I think the sad part of this, is that most people have been misled. Once again, corporations have given misinformation to the public about climate change and who is responsible. Recycling is a classic example of corporations misleading the public by lobbying the government and putting the onus on us to fix their problem (NPR). And, according to TIME, most Americans do seem concerned about climate change. But there's no incentive for corporations to change as long as they can bribe our government to maintain the status quo and to misinform the public by putting the responsibility onto us.

So What Do We Do?

Ideally, society would be in unison to boycott and pressure government and investment firms to divest from corporations that pollute our planet. This would put pressure on corporations to change because it's all about money. I would also say, start with the low hanging fruit. How do you divest or boycott 3M or Dupont? It's too difficult. But start with everyday consumer items, such as electronics, clothes, cars, etc.

How I Chose to Live my Life

For me personally, I can only do what I can control in my own life. Sadly, unless we are united on this issue, what I do doesn't really move the needle to a better world, and the most it does is give me good feelings.

So, traveling is not going to change too much for me. I still want to see the world because it's something I value. Although I can't control how much CO2 is emitted during the flying part of the travel, I can control how to spend my money and conduct myself once I land. And I will continue to travel more "sustainably" when I am on the ground.

But outside of traveling, over the years I have adjusted my life to align with more of my values. And it has led me to the following:

• I deleted my Amazon account years ago (although I can't control AWS).

• I do most of my banking at a couple credit unions, because as far as I know, they invest in the local economy versus major corporations.

• I've had used iphones given to me for over 10 years now and continue to not support new products from Apple or Android phones.

• The laptop I am writing this post on is over 10 years old. I am no longer able to update to the latest OS anymore. So, when this laptop dies, I'll get a used one or see if someone can give me their old but still working laptop.

• I am very fortunate that if I do buy new clothes, I typically buy from retailers that have some sort of limited or lifetime repairs and/or exchanges (I try not to throw away clothes. Donations to Goodwill also are not the solution either).

• I am also fortunate that I live in Portland, OR where we have repair cafes that I can bring in old items and have it restored again.

• Another fortune of mine is to be able to live in a walkable neighborhood. And because of that, I don't need to own a car. I walk, bike and take public transit. If I do need a car, I'll rent one, and run all the errands I need in one day.

• For the most part, I grocery shop at my local co-ops, farmers market or other various local markets. If I need dry goods or bulkier items I try to shop at Winco (employee-owned) or Grocery Outlet (mostly independently owned). Although shopping at these places means the products I am purchasing is supporting major corporations (what can I do?).

And as for this blog, I'm going to be switching my blog site into less about travel and more on living a sustainable lifestyle, urban planning, housing, problems with car-culture, food, corporate greed, etc. In between all that, I still will be traveling when I can but will do less of it. My next trip is heading back again to Europe.