Ecotravel and Greenwashing and a Ramble on Ethics

As someone who strives to reach the unobtainable goal of living ethically (or if you prefer the word: moral, holy, pure.) I am always questioning the decisions I make. I rarely get it right, but I make the effort. In these blogs I try to share not just the travel experience, but how these travels have changed me.

Travel is a big issue in my personal path, and for the planet as well. Travel has its cost. I am not speaking of the monetary cost, but the ethical cost of going to another place and the affect on that place. I was accused by one troll of “Killing the penguins.”  The question becomes how do I tip the scales of Osiris in my direction.

"Ethics is the branch of philosophy that deals with moral questions and values." Encyclopedea Britanica

This essay is on my thoughts on that particular dilemma. I can’t tell you what to think, but perhaps in reading how I came to my decisions you can add to my thinking, and perhaps think about your footprint. The photos are from my various trips, and all taken by myself

A small housekeeping note: Formatting in Blogger is a pain in the office chair. I am trying not to fuss too much on the spacing and margins and such, rather focusing on the content.

My Background: I have lived with limited funds and carried family responsibility for most of my adult life. So the travel I have done before has been about making a living or taking care of this or that family member. I rarely stayed in hotels, or took planes, or did road trips for fun. But I  now have an opportunity for travel. 

I have a bucket list of off the wall travel goals. I promise to try to keep you up on my follies.

My travel style really tweaks with the poor travel professionals that have to deal with me. I would rather stay in an upstairs pub room than a hotel with room service. A bus across a country is so much more interesting than a guided tour of a destination city. And don’t get me started on cruise ships, they really freak me out.

The jewels of my travels are an unexpected dinner companion, a chisel mark made 500 years ago, walking a path that has been traveled since before writing was invented. My recent trip to the Antarctic was truly a gem in the tiara, but at what cost to that place? Can I use my personal travels in a way that improves stuff in even a tiny way.
Knowing and sharing these connections is one way that I give back to the world.











I break my musings down into several areas:

• Hydrocarbons and Global Warming: Air travel, trains, buses all contribute

• Biodiversity: What is our affect on the plants and animals we visit?

• Privilege and Poverty: Can my travel decisions make a difference to the lives of the people in the places we go to?

• Politics

• Ecoeconomy VS Green Washing: How to cut the crap

• Guerilla Education

Hydrocarbons and Global Warming: 

This is the current 800 pound gorilla in the middle of the room so I will start from there.

If you are going to do anything, you are going to release hydrocarbons into the atmosphere. The question is how much and how can you mitigate what you release.

When you see relative numbers it is not because one side is lying, but rather it is complex to figure just how much is being released. If you drive an electric vehicle, you are not directly releasing hydrocarbons out your tail pipe. But that electricity comes from somewhere. And the manufacture of that brand new car releases hydrocarbons. The recycling of the components releases hydrocarbons.

This book is the one that I did not buy at the British Museum of Science, thinking I would just get a copy once I got home. Alas I am not finding a copy in the US of the current edition. I will get it when I am next over there.

Air travel is a hot topic. So looking into the carbon cost of flights is really interesting because you can come up with all sorts of different ways of looking at the "cost".  It is not straight forward. Here are a few links that get more specific:

Graph This is an interesting graph that lists the grams per mile of carbon associated with different sorts of travel. These estimates try to calculate for how many people, and how much other goods are hauled on a flight. Reading the article points out how difficult it is to give a definitive answer. 

There are lots of articles on the web that will tell you exactly what you want to hear. This PDF is helpful, but a bit soft on exact science

You can boil it down to: using a car is bad, using a big car for one person is worse.  Using a private jet is really bad. Flying economy is better for the footprint than first class. (not that that has ever been a problem for me.) Flying in a plane that is also transporting goods lowers the average carbon cost on that flight.

Short hops are worse, long haul less. That is in grams per mile. 

Ships can be good or bad, depending on the ship and how the ship is used. But is staying on a ship worse than going somewhere and staying in a hotel?

If you are going to fly somewhere, or take a train, you should cut back on how you expend carbon emissions elsewhere. You are going to leave footprints. Even staying at home releases hydrocarbons.  Try to make your footprint smaller where ever you go.

Your travel is a luxury, use it with humility and respect. That doesn't mean don't go, just be aware of how you tread.

"No matter where you go - there you are."   Confucius 

Biodiversity: 

On the plus side, our visiting places that have been protected from rampant human development adds to their economic value to a community. 

Jasper/Banff were developed by the railroads specifically to bring in tourist and sell tickets on the trains. This made it economically prudent to protect the area from mining and lumbering. So we have a more pristine wilderness.

Sometimes we are gonna get it wrong. The highways into Banff were death alley for migrating animals. Now they are developing these "highways" for animals to migrate.

Perhaps the most striking place I have been to in this respect is the Galapagos. Not only have they protected the utterly unique biome there, but they have reconditioned an ecosystem that was almost lost. It was not done by a big government coming in and laying down laws. It was done by making it possible for the people living there to control and profit from the drastic changes that were made. Now the locals are highly invested in keeping the place protected. This is their treasure that they own and protect.

In case you don't recognize him, that is Darwin. I visit him when I go to Shrewsbury and tell him about where I saw some of the stuff he did.

But the flip side of this is that any place that humans go can be a loss for some of the animals that live there. A lion, a bear, a panda all need room to move unfettered by the presence of humans. When we make a place so we humans can experiance them, we also create a place they cannot live. 

Stay on designated trails, call out those that don't. Loudly. Do not take dogs on trails marked No Dogs. If you have a service animal, yeah they can go, but just like taking a child, you are responsible for them. Their scent can wreck havoc with the fauna. Evaluate and act responsibly.

Leave only foot prints, take only photos, well perhaps not. As I look at going to Africa, I became aware of a problem caused by even our cameras. Digital photos are time and location stamped. Posting those photos on social media gave a tool to poachers to find these endangered rhinos and elephants. Two articles are note worthy: SanWildSanctuary and Save the Rhino Trust

Privilege and Poverty: 

No matter where you go, even if you stay home, you have something that many people do not. Money  and privilege. You could give away all of what you have and not make a dent in the problem of Dire Poverty. (Unless you are fabulously wealthy, then your ex-wives will do their best to do that for you.) But since you have this resource, use it to boost others.

Buy local, buy personal, tip big, and never, ever haggle with an artisan. By this I mean go to a local small café rather than a chain restaurant. Stay in an inn or pub, even better a home stay. B and Bs used to be owner run, but AirBnB has shifted that to many places are corporate owned and degrade their neighborhoods. But not all of the AirBnB, some are run by lovely local folk. Ask before you rent. 

Buy street art rather than from gift shops. And always tip, not just your waitstaff, but the musicians, the shoeshine boy, the girl wiping the table in her mom’s café. Your $5 quietly slipped into another's hand can make a world of difference.

Look for the deeper story. The small museums, the informational signs. The back story is usually richer than the stuff you already know.

Look at who you are booking with. My experience with G Expeditions has shown me a company dedicated to doing good, but more about them later.

Politics: 

There are stories out there that we in the USA do not get to hear about. Listen up. Take notes. Spread the word. My two huge trips have given me insight I try to pass around.

Our talk in Quito, Ecuador, was given by a wonderful and passionate woman who had been given the topic of the indigenous people of Ecuador. She said lots about their history and lifestyle. But when she started talking about the terrible poverty they are experiencing now, our Road Scholar host tried to shut her down. Kay and I did our best to ask questions giving her room to talk more on the subject. Now that there is political unrest going on, I see questions in some of the feeds I am on about whether it is safe to go to Ecuador. But nobody asks why these protests are happening. Well almost nobody, I am the one that will casually ask “Why are they protesting? Could it be because they have no other choice?”

In Ushuaia I saw a hut built from palates and tarps just in front of the government building. Of course I had to go and ask. They found someone that could speak enough English to talk to me about it. It was teachers. Their pay is a fixed amount  is in Argentinian Pesos. Inflation is such that what they get paid is not enough to buy a shopping cart of food each week. The situation is really bad, and it is going to get worse. Understanding this gave me a chance to understand why the exchange of dollars to pesos is so really complicated and weird. My attempt to do go with this information has led me to suggesting to people when they ask about how to change the money and save money in doing so that they pay in dollars, and if they don’t get the absolute best deal then perhaps they have supported one person in buying food for their kid.

In the world of politics, going to the Antarctic, and listening to Katie’s fabulous talk on the international politics that run the place gave me an incite to an admittedly imperfect system, but one that requires international co-operation to governing the southern continent. It is quite complicated, and I don’t fully grok how it works, but there are a bunch of countries, some that have been at war with each other, but they manage to do this incredible balancing act to keep it running. How does that work? More importantly how can we harness the ability to co-operate to foster world peace?

Ecoeconomy VS Green Washing: 

It is so trendy right now to proclaim how eco friendly a product is, and travel is no exception. “We plant a tree for every___” Yep, they plant a finger tall tree, provide no support or maintenance, and the trees are lucky to have a 10% survival rate. And the property is not protected from future logging or clear cut. 

How in the heck are you supposed to tell them apart?

Do your research. When the web site links to an altruistic organization, follow the threads. For example:

G Adventures, Supports programs world wide, and then uses those organizations as part of their tours. See their links to Planterra From there there are links to articles in known publications about their work https://planeterra.org/press/

In the Antarctic, IAATO is a leading group of tour operators that work together to create a positive force there.

Guerilla Education or Share the Wealth of Information

We live with privilege. Some of us more than others. If you were born in the US, or much of the "developed" world, you have opportunities that others do not. The question becomes how can you use your learning to make the situation a bit better.

Take photos and share them. Yeah, get the big stuff, but look for the little stuff, the stuff with a back story. 

Look for stuff that would mean something special to one of the people you know. I have a couple of women friends that were police officers. I look for opportunity to photo other female police. I always ask first. This is not only a gift to my friends, but it lets other women in a similar situation know that they are not alone.

When you go somewhere, really be there.

Look for the anomalies. Go to cemeteries.  Sit on park benches.

Ask questions. The answers are not important, the value is in the asking.

I go the weird places, and I notice the weird little bits. When I tell people about this stuff, the hope is that as they have access to this knowledge they can know just how wonderful and weird and diverse this planet is. Perhaps they can value it just a bit more, and understand how fragile the whole thing is. If my excitement can be like the pollen on a bee, and rub off on someone else, and then to another someone else I will have done good.