Little did I know until I completed the carbon footprint challenge that the largest source of pollution from my family comes from our regular travel. My parents are fairly adventurous, and we have family in LA and in Pennsylvania. Our many plane flights a year contribute a horrific amount to our family footprint. Last year my family and I traveled to Africa. This incredible trip raised my awareness for the wildlife there as well as the people in need. Are these types travels, that cost the environment heavily in gas, but inspire a lot of learning and awareness for the environment and social justice, a good or bad idea? Should we abstain from these trips out of respect for the environment? Or is the new knowledge gained worth the CO2 lost into the air?

Hi Alessandra,
I seem to have the same issue regarding my carbon footprint. For transportation, my total carbon footprint this year is 6,439 kgs, compared to California, USA's average carbon footprint of 2,557 kgs. I try my best to always carpool and limit the amount of liters/100 km my car uses whenever I do go somewhere. But, like you, I did a bit of travelling over the summer. I travelled to London and Paris, which was an extremely, rich cultural experience. I think it is extremely important that we learn about the world we live in, and different cultures which contribute to the diversity of our society. But, in order to do this, it does require travelling to new countries and regions and unfortunately, sometimes the only way to do this is by air travel. Although air travel has a disportionately large impact on our climate system (around 4 to 9% of climate change), there are ways we can reduce our carbon footprint without having to sacrifice too much of cultura l awareness. Some examples could be travelling to countries closer to where you live, using other modes of transport like bus or train or trying to minimize the number of flights we take per year.

I completely agree. My family and I love taking trips to visit family and friends across the world; however, the CO2 emissions were quite extensive. When calculating my carbon footprint, two short domestic flights added up to 3951 kgs of carbon. How much more if I had calculated recent years where we traveled out of the country? I researched a bit and found out that the International Civil Aviation Organization made a carbon calculator for each passenger to estimate the amount of CO2 they’re emitting. I think this would be very helpful in letting the passengers know the amount of CO2 that results from their trips as well as help acknowledge the effects coming from this large sum of carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. Transportation is really important because we as humans use up resources from all over the world, along with the number of cargo and products traded and cultural awareness. Another way to resolve this other than minimizing our number of flights is to  find ways to use jet-fuel more efficiently. Of course, the next step would be to evolve technology used for airplanes (and really all modes of transportation) to be greener.