In my AP Environmental science, we calculated our carbon footprint based on our life style. And I found that taking airplane contributed the most to my carbon footprint. I spend about 70 hours each year on the airplane, mostly because I travel between China and US about twice a year. Also, I usually go to southern California and east coast during breaks. Then I changed my hour from 70 to 15, and found that my carbon footprint reduced by half. Therefore, I think taking airplane would be the "off the table" part in my life. I know that traveling by air emits a lot of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, I'm just unwilling to change it. I really like to travel around the world and learn about different local customs in different places, so it is really hard for me to give up my hobby. But I will try to reduce my flight hour by driving or taking trains if I have these options while traveling to other places.

I have the same guilty pleasures that hurt the environment. I also really like to travel. Traveling has been very formative and positively influenced me by being interested and being exposed to different environments. For example I went on a trip to Costa Rica last year, but after realizing how much CO2 I emitted I was astonished. After thinking about bad that trip was for the Earth, I couldn't help but not feel that much regret. I would do anything to go over there again because the experience was beyond words. The big question is however do we have to sacrifice the things we love to do for the sake of the Earth. I feel we do because if we continue to practice and exercise transportation in the way we do for a long time, unfortunately humans will have to be forced to not do anything for fun due to the Earth. Might as well try to resist now so that the future generations do not have to suffer and be taken away from pleasures in life.

I also found that my flights made up a lot of my carbon footprint. It is hard to find alternatives to flying especially to a far away place. I found a New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/sunda … ravel.html)  about how much flying adds to one's carbon footprint and it surprised me that only 5% of global warming is due to flying but it is predicted that the number will rise a lot since the amount of flights are going up so much. I think that airplane companies should look into a different kind of fuel that that does not emit so much CO2. I agree that it is astonishing to see how much our travel can impact the environment especially from something that so many people do. Like driving, flying is very important for a lot of people's lives, though it may not be daily a lot of people need to fly places for work or to visit loved ones. This is why it would be hard to reduce the amount of people flying.

I have the same issue for something I can’t help, visiting my family. There is no other way for me specifically to travel 3,000+ miles just to see my family,  I was really suprised when I got my transportation results and I feel guily but it’s something I can’t help. I think the best thing to do is to make it known to people who have a choice to take other forms of transportation.

Hi all - I have some advice for you on how you can keep your traveling footprint as low as possible if air travel is "off the table" for you:

1) When you fly, see if it is possible to take non-stop flights. Take-offs and landings use the most fuel in a flight, so the more stops, the higher the footprint. Plus, flight paths with stops are often very out of the way (e.g., flying from San Francisco to New York via Atlanta), adding many excess hours of flying and thus a higher footprint. Sometimes non-stop flights are only a few dollars more expensive than a one-stop itinerary, but with a much lower footprint.

2) On a similar note, what I usually do when I travel overseas is to find the cheapest non-stop flight to get me anywhere close to my destination and then from then on travel by public transport. For example, when flying to Europe, I often fly direct to Frankfurt and then take the excellent European trains to my final destination.

3) Look into long distance trains as an alternative to flying at all. I am lucky that I can afford the time to travel by train, but I get  a lot o f work done while traveling by train. I therefore take the train to the East Coast of USA from Washington state 1-2 times per year (3 days in the train) and several times each year take the train from Seattle to San Francisco (1 day on the train).

The views from the train are beautiful, and it's a great way to travel if you have the time.

These strategies keep my transport carbon footprint relatively low even though I travel a lot!

Finally, you can look to “offsetting” your travel footprint with other actions, like hanging your clothes to dry, eating less meat or riding your bicycle to school.
Good luck!

Great advices! Unfortunatelly, my students won't always be able to follow them. We have a lot of projects in our school and student are travelling to foreign countries with teachers. We have to go by plane and the procedure is that we need to choose the cheapest flight. But, when travelling for private purpuses those are great advices. Thank you!

I have the same problem with flights. I take A LOT of them. But so does my dad. He's an international worker that travels 300k+ miles A YEAR. It would affect his own footprint more than mine. And my footprint makes my guilty enough. The advise Jason Hodin gave us would really help most people.

I totally agree, when I took the carbon foot print challenge it was way below average for everything, but transportation, only because I usually do one national and international flight every year. As humans if we figured out a cleaner way to fly, which will be amazing, we will produce way less green house gasses and Carbon dioxide. Also traveling isn't a bad thing, but we need to still figure out some sort of solution.

I think that when the quiz calculates your transportation footprint, it doesn't take into account how many people are actually being transported on each plane. It shows you the total carbon emissions, instead of dividing the emissions evenly among all the passengers

this is the thing with global transportation from with a 24 hour period its very helpful and us first world people depend on t socially and economically. plane carbon emissions are horrible but a more solid and substitute fix would be to create more fuel efficient planes...

I agree, I fly to California about four times a year to visit, and that resulted in my carbon footprint in transportation being about a lot above the average.