Peter D sent me a warning after reading the last post about travel, suggesting the carbon credits may not be all they are cracked up to be. I admit that it does sound "too good to be true" in some ways, but sometimes solutions to problems are simple. I am resolved to do more research.

Still, there are a lot of choices that individuals can make to reduce the impact of their travel, and this seems a good thing. 

My aunt (who prefers to remain nameless) sent me a couple of links to articles that I thought were interesting:

Binge Flying killing the planet from The New Zealand Herald about the concerns of the man who started the Lonely Planet travel series to encourage more people to travel -- he is now having second thoughts!
 
She also sent me an article from the April 20th issue of the Wall Street Journal. You can purchase the entire article through their website, but I'm including some particularly interesting parts here to at least whet your appetite!

Traveling Light: A Green Guide

"Roughly 40% of Germans think it's important to find environmentally friendly accommodations when traveling, according to a report published in 2004 by Ecotrans, a European network of experts on sustainable tourism, while about 50% of U.K. consumers say they are interested in finding out more about local social and environmental issues before booking a trip. At the Global Travel & Tourism Summit in May, an industry event in Lisbon, discussions about the environment will top the agenda."

When travelling, you can ask the hotel not to change your sheets and towels every day - the amount of energy used daily just to wash hotel sheets and towels is astronomical. Some hotels have a notice in the room letting you know that if you hang up your towels, they won't replace them, but it's good advice to actually ask other hotels to follow those same practices. Heck, you don't change your sheets and towels at home every day, do you? Just so long as the hotel washes them between guests, that seems the important thing!

from WSJ: "Traveling green doesn't have to be extreme. Small changes can make a difference. Turning down the thermostat in your house just one degree Celsius before leaving town can reduce the emission of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas linked to climate change -- as well as save as much as 10% on heating bills, according to an online guide to greener living produced by the British government (www.direct.gov.uk/en/Environmentandgreenerliving)."

That makes a lot of sense. If you're not in the house, do you really need to keep it as warm (or cool, depending on the season)? But don't go to extremes! The woman we bought our house from turned her heat down so low when she went on a two week vacation one winter that some of the water lines actually froze, and several of the radiators on the second floor were ruined and had to be replaced!

According to the WSJ: "When it comes to transportation, flying emits the most carbon dioxide per passenger for each kilometer traveled, followed by cars and then trains, according to the European Environment Agency, a Copenhagen-based European Union organization that monitors the environment. In 2004, a passenger on a plane accounted on average for 130.2 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer, compared with 124.5 grams by car and 45.6 grams by train."

One good suggestion in the article was to use airlines that have newer fleets of planes - each year, planes become slightly more fuel efficient, so less CO2 is released. You can also invest in projects that plant trees or develop alternative energy sources like wind power.

www.ecobusinesslinks.com/carbon_offset_wind_credits_carbon_reduction.htm.

And here is the point that Peter D raised about being cautious about the carbon credit craze: "Among the biggest criticisms is that these schemes offer legislators and ordinary travelers an easy way out. Travelers pay a few extra euros instead of changing behavior, and the problem becomes someone else's."

The article offers information on several projects that go further than planting some trees or selling carbon credits on the Carbon Exchange: Climate Care (http://www.climatecare.org/) and The CarbonNeutral Company (http://www.carbonneutral.com/). Additional information can be found at www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/ConsumersGuidetoCarbonOffsets.pdf, a report from the U.S. environmental organization Clean Air-Cool Planet.

And then there is the whole issue of the rental car! Basically, consider shopping around for the most fuel-efficient rental option - some places in Europe may even have hybrids avaiable! Tom and I always choose the smallest car available, with the best gas mileage. (In Seattle, we were driving a tiny Aveo that did surprisingly well on the steep hills downtown - someone actually stopped us to ask us how we liked it because he was considering getting one.)  

You can contact the WSJ article's author, Stephanie Gruner, at wsje.weekend@wsj.com