Before I started on this six-month-long trip, I worried about the waste I’d be adding to the world.
Vacation makes waste. But it also opens countless opportunities for personal growth. I struggled to reconcile that paradox. New experiences – meeting new people, trying new foods, learning a few words of another language, seeing the way others live, making decisions quickly on my feet – have created tremendous value in my life. I share stories and photos of enriching experiences at home, with friends and family and coworkers. In quiet times, I reflect on my memories and newly attained wisdoms. One lesson was discovering courage I didn’t know I had when I got my tooth pulled out in Africa. Another lesson was deciding to be more responsible about my contribution to climate change. Yes, vacation makes waste. But is there a way to see the world, and save it too?
The answer starts with some data. I tallied up my journey: 41,000 miles by plane and car. All those jets and my little rental car emitted 9.4 tons of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane. It seemed roughly on par with the average per capita emissions in America. (The average is 16.2 tons in one year, and in six months I had emitted a little more than half that amount of gases. That makes sense with the average, though still egregious.)
Wherever I could, I walked, and took the bus, train and subway. I was mostly eating out at restaurants that had plates and silverware, though occasionally I ordered takeout that came in disposable boxes. What was really a shame was throwing away dozens of plastic water bottles. I didn’t want to take risks with drinking local tap water, so I was always buying my water. After I lost two really nice, expensive steel-cased reusable bottles in Indonesia and Vietnam, I gave up and just stuck to cheap plastic bottles. Another huge regret was reneging on my personal pledge to join a beach cleanup on Gili Air in Indonesia. Two weeks of parties and diving with turtles later, I forgot all about volunteering for a community whose economy runs on tourism. Yet those same tourists and their trash wreck the natural wildlife. That was a missed opportunity for me.
After taking stock of the damage I’d done, I looked for ways to negate my impact (and my guilt). Turns out, in the rich world, in a show of just how addicted we are to convenience, with the click of one button, you can completely cancel all the pollution your activities have created. This is how it works: A few websites calculate how much money you’d need to donate to “offset” or “neutralize” your carbon footprint. The money goes to various global projects in developing African and Asian countries, such as cookstoves that don’t use coal, clean drinking water boreholes and tree-planting programs. There are large-scale power-producing projects as well, including windmills, hydroelectric power plants and geothermal power. Sounds pretty good.
It’s important to note a couple things. One, the main source of greenhouse gases isn’t developing countries. It’s China, which makes up 27% of global emissions, and the United States, with a 15% share, according to 2017 data. We shouldn’t focus solely on developing areas because they actually make up a very small percentage of activities exacerbating climate change. They’re not where the bulk of reform should take place. It should be taking place in our policies and behaviors here at home in America. So hitting the “add to bag” button to help a clean water project in Honduras and cancel your carbon footprint, as clothing brand Reformation offers online, certainly helps, but it’s not actually weeding out the root of the problem.
The other thing is, I want to say what these projects aren’t doing. They aren’t taking existing toxins and gases out of the air (not like some giant vacuum cleaner). They’re simply reducing the amount of new pollutants going into the air each year. Seems the best we can do for now is hope this strategy keeps the earth’s warmth hovering at one temperature rather than soaring into an even hotter fever.
But the effects traveling has on the environment are significant. A study published last year by the University of Sydney found that global tourism accounts for 8 percent of total carbon emissions, three times higher than previously thought.
“How to be a green traveler,” The New york times
As responsible tourists, donating to a good cause is one option. I researched two more choices: We can also proactively make better selections about who we do business with, and we can volunteer.
Using vetted tour companies and hotels can go a long way. Some groups, such as The International Ecotourism Society, and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, certify businesses that uphold international standards for best practices. The fuzzy word “sustainable” sounds great but has many variations of definitions, so you’d have to research exactly what quantitative changes businesses are making to reduce waste. Unfortunately, on this trip, I was strapped for cash and convenience, so I often chose whatever Airbnb or hotel or hostel was cheapest and available. (Maybe an opportunity for Airbnb and Booking.com here?) Volunteering in the local community around your hotel or resort, like the beach cleanup I sadly forfeited, can directly help the people and environment. I regret not being more diligent.
Part of the inertia is simply vacation escapism. Of course we all just want to lounge on a chair in the sun, and there is a time and space for relaxation. I think the inertia comes from a deeper place, all the way back to early education. I realized that we don’t have a solid image of what being truly “sustainable” means in our everyday lives. Is it enough to turn off the lights and heating when not in use? To recycle glass, paper and plastics? To bike and not drive a car? What is the gold standard we’re trying to reach, not just on vacation but at home? Is it to completely neutralize our annual carbon impact of 16.2 tons a year? We don’t have a good ruler to measure ourselves by, or a larger system that encourages such self-evaluation.
Over the last few weeks, settling back into American life, I’ve thought in more detail about my carbon footprint and pollution. I reduced my meat intake, and went vegetarian other times. I thought about buying a road bike to cycle 45 minutes to work, or buying an electric car. Yet I hypocritically still keep buying things off Amazon, and they dutifully come in lots and lots of plastic inside lots and lots of brown cardboard boxes. And because California has been slow to change from low-density suburban living to higher-density neighborhoods with efficient public transport, I have to drive my car everywhere on wide streets. We should do what’s possible within our control. (I’m going to buy that road bike next year.) The full answer, to seeing the world and saving it too, seems to be so much bigger than simply changing individual habits. The answer is seeing ourselves not only as consumers, but also participants in a community that can collectively do something together, as businesses, governments, industry groups and local nonprofits to adjust our future course.
