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Blissfully Ignorant: Environmental & Social Impacts of Travel

Travel and the Environment

The Environmental Impacts of Travel

Travel is a selfish & environmentally destructive activity. Over 60% of US citizens do not have passports. Guess what? They are helping to protect the environment more than you are.

This post isn’t going to win me a lot of new friends. :)

But our dirty-little travel secret has-to be exposed. It’s for your own good. Living in denial isn’t healthy.

While I certainly haven’t been traveling for very long, I’ve started to notice a trend in the backpackers circuit. Many from our group seem to consider themselves “above-average” when it comes to general environmental & social awareness.

A large percentage take pride in eating locally-grown organic food, volunteering in poor communities, and might make a scene if locals throw trash out a public bus window onto the street.

That’s great. I’m generally all for social & environmentally responsible behavior. But there’s one little fact many seem to be blissfully ignorant about:

Our personal travel addictions are creating more environmental & social destruction than our friends & family back home who don’t travel very much.

EXAMPLE #1

A round-the-world plane ticket consumes more fuel in one year than the same typical year of driving at home. This of course doesn’t even take into account all the taxis, buses, and trains you’ll still need to use for transportation at your foreign destinations.

Neither does it factor in the greater environmental impact of exhaust fumes getting released at 30,000 ft vs. on the highway.

“But I don’t use round-the-world tickets.”

It doesn’t matter. Even one round-trip flight is more harmfull. When you get to your destination, you will still use other forms of fossil-fuel based transportation. Rather than burn those extra gallons of jet fuel and expel the toxic exhaust into the atmosphere, you could have stayed home and taken a public bus (or walked) to a local park.

While maybe not quite as fun, it would’ve been far more environmentally responsible.


EXAMPLE #2

Antarctica & the Galapagos Islands are said by many to be some of the most incredible places to visit on Earth. Unfortunately they won’t be around for very long in their current state, and it’s all due to us…

Tourists.

As tourism to both these pristine areas increases at ridiculous rates, the danger & destruction to the environment increases as well. Not a little, but a lot. Shuttling thousands of people in ships & aircraft filled with more thousands of gallons of fuel over fragile ecosystems at an ever increasing rate has consequences. And that’s just the obvious danger.

Animals are dying off in both these places as we speak. Our actions are causing extinctions. No one will ever see those plants & animals alive again.

“But travel teaches us to respect and protect these environments”.

At what price? While you will certainly receive a better education on conservation by visting these sites first-hand, you’re still contributing to their destruction in far greater ways than if you didn’t go at all.

And guess what? When people back home see your photos and hear your stories, a greater percentage of them will selfishly want to have the same first-hand experience as you. While not nearly as rewarding, watching a Discovery Channel feature about the area will teach you all you need to know about how incredible & fragile these places are.

No Discovery show about the location you want to visit yet? There will be. Just wait. There always is eventually. :)


EXAMPLE #3

The Bedouin are a group of nomadic people that live in the deserts of the Middle East. They live off the land in caves and traditional tents made of goat hair. Many have used the caves around the famous Jordanian site of Petra for generations.

In the 1920’s, the Jordanian government tricked the Bedul into giving up ownership of their land in return for a guarantee of rights for their occupation & use. But the government knew the site had huge income potential as a tourist location. They eventually kicked the Bedul out of their traditional homes, breaking the previous agreement, and relocated them to densely-packed concrete settlements.

As a result, their traditional way of life was practically wiped out.

“But I can’t control what foreign governments do”.

Actually, yes you can. In theory.

The reason the Bedouin people were kicked out was because the government saw dollar signs. Tourism is incredibly profitable. If that means wrecking the lives of a small group of local people and destroying a bit of the environment, so be it. The reward is greater than the cost (in their eyes).

If all of us stopped traveling to sites like Petra to spend our money, there would be less incentive for governments to do this kind of thing. Is that realistically going to happen? No. But just be aware that your personal desire to visit places like Petra, (along with millions of people just like you) is what entices governments to wreck the lives of locals that live there.


Had Enough?

I could go on with these examples all day. The fact is, no tourism is truly environmentally or socially responsible. Are you really prepared to blindly believe what a country’s tourism marketing department tells you in it’s paid advertisements? What about the for-profit tour agency, organization, or hotel that is trying to sell you something?

If that lets you sleep better at night, well…

All these places would have been 1000x more eco-friendly if they hadn’t been built at all. Someone is profiting from the destruction of the environment, and YOU are helping them. If we were really learning to protect the environment as we traveled, we’d stop traveling.

What’s the Solution?

Sadly there isn’t a good one. People are not going to stop traveling. One argument that frequently comes up is that tourism helps save some places from destruction. The money goes to restoring & protecting these fragile sites.

This is true. But if we all REALLY wanted to protect these areas, we’d insist on tourism caps and create insanely overpriced entry fees that would exclude all but the wealthiest 1% of the world from experiencing them.

Why not limit the number of visitors to the Galapagos Islands to 100 per year? Companies could charge $500,000 dollars per ticket. The resulting income could still go to preservation, only there would naturally be much less environmental impact…

Well, that’s not going to happen. We travelers are a selfish & destructive bunch. As much as we protest to care about socially and environmentally responsible behavior, it’s only true to a point. If said behavior happens to hinder our own ability to engage with these environments personally, well, that would be a deal-breaker.

Even if it’s truly better for the world around us.

Take Responsibility!

Personally, I believe I’m relatively aware of the destruction I’m causing to the environment. While I don’t necessarily like it, I’m prepared to continue traveling. I selfishly want to see these places in person before they are wiped out. Because eventually, they will be. Humankind has been destroying it’s own environment for many hundreds of years. To assume that suddenly our present generation will change all that, in my opinion, is pretty damn arrogant.

I admit it. I’m a selfish & environmentally destructive person. A traveler.

I’d just like to take a moment and suggest that my fellow travelers come out of the closet.

You are not an environmental superhero. In fact, you’re causing more problems by jet-setting around the world to see these places in person than your peers who either don’t care to, or can’t afford the luxury of world travel.

I’m not telling you to stop traveling. But if you decide to continue, at least admit to yourself that your travel lifestyle is selfish & destructive to the world around you. Please don’t hide behind a self-constructed wall of blissful ignorance. Most of all, if I catch you trying to pretend you are somehow better than others due to your so-called green way of life, I’m gonna call you out on it! Pound for pound (of carbon emissions), the locals throwing trash out their windows probably pollute less than you do…

To be completely frank: the whole situation is quite embarrassing. I thought ignorance was something we as travelers were looking to reverse!

If you really want a gold medal for your responsible travel practices,
try traveling the world by bicycle or walking. ;)

END RANT.

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