How do you justify your desire for travel & leisure with going green?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because my overall footprint is still less than most. I drive an economical vehicle, and not even that much. Heat is set to 64 in winter, 77 in summer (little cooler at night). Small home, not a lot of land, do not have a consumerist mentality and don't buy junk stuff that isn't needed. Will keep the same phone for 5+ years.

Who constitutes “most”? Certainly it the worldwide most. Probably not the American most.

OP, here’s what I would basically say. We have a net worth of $4M in our early 40s. Most people of our means, in our area, live in 8k sf houses, but we squeeze into 4K sf. We only own two cars, neither is a Suburban, and one is a hybrid. Most of our vacations are driving destinations, and many of them are cruises, which we’re sharing with thousands of other passengers.

All of this is true. I, of course, would never bother to say any of it, because it’s a futile justification. You can not burn fossil fuels and explain it away by saying that someone else burns more. So I just shrug. If we need to decarbonize, we’ll do it with nuclear when people are ready for for that. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

Wow. You are not a model for low consumption. You "squeeze in" to 4K square feet? I guarantee you use more fossil fuels than almost anyone in the DC area. We squeeze in to 1500 square feet for a family of four and don't ask for kudos about it.

We very occasionally travel by airplane. We travel by car a lot.

Mind your beeswax, son. Stop lecturing to other people and try to create some appropriate policies so the US can finally adequately address international climate change. Stop looking for the sawdust in others' eyes when you've got a plank in your own.

You could not have more perfectly missed my entire point if you’d tried.

The point is that all of these things are relative. The only thing people do is compare themselves against someone who uses more resources than they do.

Oh and by the way, our total household energy bills are never more than $200.

[Anonymous]

We do more local driving trips instead of flying. Flying is awful these days anyhow so don't see that we are missing much.

[Anonymous]

I don't try to square up it. I am do my best in most other areas and acknowledge some hypocrisy and convenience.

But I am also fight like an hell for the the things that will really the make change, and these have to come from
Places/people/ businesses/ govt choices larger than my three flights a year.

[Anonymous]

Geez^^ so soy about the typos. Hopefully it is somewhat readable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t give a Skip to My Lou about faddish, en vogue theatre about the environment. So when I hoist my hefty frame onto a First Class flight to the Islands to eat steak and lobster on the beach, taking Chevy Suburbans for every road interval, I feel not the slightest pang of guilt or hypocrisy.

We all need a code. I live by mine.

This comment made me feel a bit sick to my stomach.

It's clearly satire.

Nope. Wasn’t satire at all. (I’m the PP who wrote it.)

You green types are all so tiresome. Nothing you do matters. Literally nothing. You can recycle till Kingdom come, put your little compost thing on the kitchen island, get dual EVs for the driveway, and seriously cut back on red meat. Get yourself a stainless steel water bottle and carry it everywhere. Leave your f$cking thermostat at 79 all summer. Then you can get every one of your friends and family to do the same, then every single American family. And it won’t move the needle the slightest little bit.

It’s all a show.

[Anonymous]

I notice that the people pushing for us to "go green" are either jetting around the country in large aircraft, or being chauffeured around in large, gas-powered SUVs. They do not practice what they preach. I have no respect for hypocrites.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t give a Skip to My Lou about faddish, en vogue theatre about the environment. So when I hoist my hefty frame onto a First Class flight to the Islands to eat steak and lobster on the beach, taking Chevy Suburbans for every road interval, I feel not the slightest pang of guilt or hypocrisy.

We all need a code. I live by mine.

This comment made me feel a bit sick to my stomach.

It's clearly satire.

Nope. Wasn’t satire at all. (I’m the PP who wrote it.)

You green types are all so tiresome. Nothing you do matters. Literally nothing. You can recycle till Kingdom come, put your little compost thing on the kitchen island, get dual EVs for the driveway, and seriously cut back on red meat. Get yourself a stainless steel water bottle and carry it everywhere. Leave your f$cking thermostat at 79 all summer. Then you can get every one of your friends and family to do the same, then every single American family. And it won’t move the needle the slightest little bit.

It’s all a show.

But why do you care if my thermostat is set to 79, especially if you're never in my house? Why is any of this a problem for you, exactly?

[Anonymous]

I don't go green. Not only there is no way one person's conduct can impact things, there is no way that anything would be impacted if we in the US all went green. Rounding error and would not help. China and India are the key and they are never ever going green,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So going green is now en vogue. You aren't progressive, open minded, and concious unless you care about the planet. How then do you explain the massive demand then for travel and leisure? Taking a single flight burns nearly as much fossil fuel as you'd emit from an entire year's worth of driving. Then there is so much taxing consumption on the planet for water, land, pollution etc. all related to tourism and travel. The people who constantly talk the most about going green probably do things like buy expensive Teslas and solar panels, yet are the same types who cannot help to show off how much they travel on social media. How can one possibly be progressive on environmental issues and simultaneously travel the world or even far away in this country for the sole purpose of leisure? Makes no sense. Every trip you take burns massive amounts of fossil fuels and causes tons of waste.

It's true that flying burns huge amounts of fossil fuels, but is the idea here that if you can't completely eliminate the problem, you should make no attempt at all to improve things? Seems to me that if the choice is "lots of carbon emissions from flights + other carbon emissions from daily household life" vs. "lots of carbon emissions from flights + slightly less carbon emissions from daily household life," then option 2 is still better, even if option 3, "no flights + less carbon emission from daily life" would be even better.

Hard to judge the rest of your post, but I'd be interested in seeing some data to support the notion that the people who care most about the environment are also the people who travel most. Might be true! Not sure you've demonstrated that at all!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a great topic. I think air and ocean travel should be heavily taxed. UMC and rich people travel entirely too much. You don't need multiple vacations a year away from home. It is gross consumerism.

hear hear

[Anonymous]

Travel promotes world peace. It's better than bombs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Travel promotes world peace. It's better than bombs.

Tell that to the people who can't find/afford an apartment where they grew up bc so many have been coverted to Airbnb or Vrbo rentals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Travel promotes world peace. It's better than bombs.

Lol, sure! DCUM going to Iceland, Portugal, or Spain is diplomacy in action.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a great topic. I think air and ocean travel should be heavily taxed. UMC and rich people travel entirely too much. You don't need multiple vacations a year away from home. It is gross consumerism.

hear hear

This. We limit flying for vacation to one trip a year max. And very rarely fly if I can get out of it.

[Anonymous]

I'll start worrying about it right after Al Gore and all the celebrities who keep talking about how we need to save the earth starting walking the walk and ground themselves instead of continuing to jet around on private planes.

Till then, I'll fly wherever. I suppose you could say my travel is "green" thereafter because once at my destination I nearly always take trains and public transportation--rarely taxis.