Fly-Drive Holidays: Carbon Munching Planet Killers?
There is loads of chat lately about our carbon footprint and the effect we personally are having on the environment. With this in mind I completed Google’s survey to calculate my own carbon footprint and was surprised to see that my footprint was over double that of the national average.
On looking further into this, I found out the real reason. It was the amount of yearly travel that was letting me down, one yearly long-haul flight and a gas guzzling VR6 to be precise – my environmentally friendly home habits were in fact actually putting me well under the national average, something that gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
So - travel being the problem, where was I going wrong? It got me thinking back to the last holiday I had taken: a long-haul flight to the USA on a fly-drive holiday, to be met at the airport by a Dodge Caravan for me the wife and my three kids, so that we can trek our own way around the magnificent country, taking in the sites we wanted.
Now looking back, I have many fond memories of that holiday, and not just of the hundreds of gas stations I regularly stopped at, but mainly of the fascinating sites and scenes the country has to offer, but would I do it again with the knowledge I have now? Yes and no.
I do want to do my bit, and I have started to look for a more fuel efficient car to use at home, and I will start using energy efficient light bulbs but should we start to curb our travel costs when the one time we do embark on one luxury holiday a year pales in comparison to the big industries that jet their employees off all around the world, numerous times a year for meetings and the like – particularly with a novel invention called the internet and video messaging!
Maybe I will balance this out by taking a nice long haul fly-drive holiday one year, and a nice holiday in Devon the next – perhaps then I will be doing my bit for the environment and still have the opportunity to enjoy the planet – while it is still around.
