Is Taking Away a Travel Option Really Progress?
Paul Burman on November 20th, 2009
Recently, the travel agency Responsible Travel stopped providing their customers with the opportunity to offset their travel and apparently hasn’t replaced their offering with anything to help individuals reduce their travel footprint. Responsible Travel had offered their customers the opportunity to offset their carbon emissions since 2002. The general argument for the company so far has been that the offsets the company provided did little to change customer behavior and limit travel.
But what are customers taking away from Responsible Travel? What about individuals who have to travel for their livelihoods or work in travel and the like; will they realistically travel less?
While it is a fact that flying to where we need to go is carbon intensive, many flights are not impulse buys. In order to travel plans need to be made: where will I stay? Who is going to take care of my pets? How will this trip fit into my budget? In short, most people aren’t jetting around the world for no reason – they alter their lives (and submit themselves to airport security or weather delays) out of necessity for business, family and much needed vacations. So why not give people the opportunity to take responsibility for their carbon emissions?
Responsible Travel’s position on offsets is misguided because 1) they over-estimate people’s ability to modify their travel arrangements and 2) appear to take the position that it’s better not to do anything than to do something. The fact is that carbon offset projects can be validated to do what they’re supposed to, which is reduce carbon emissions and therefore serve as an offset to one’s own emissions.
By supporting real, high quality certified and verified carbon offset projects we can take responsibility for our carbon footprint, which is real and needs to be addressed if we are to solve global warming.
Like what you see? Check out these related posts:
Follow @Carbonfundorg on Twitter!
[...] Read more from the original source: Carbonfund.org Blog » Is Taking Away a Travel Option Really Progress? [...]
[...] You can find information on your carbon footprint and carbon offsets, calculate your carbon footprint, and offset your footprint by visiting http://www.carbonfund.org. Carbonfund.org’s blog also has a response to UK travel agency Responsible Travel’s decision to stop offering offsets for travel generally. You can read that posting here. [...]
Scientific Doomsday Mania
by
Amitakh Stanford
22nd November 2009
There is a doomsday message that is swiftly gaining global acceptance. The new wave is clothed in acceptable clichés and has won over the support of many of the respected scientific communities.
Unlike most other doomsday messages, this one is supposedly based upon scientific evidence. The scientific “doomsdayers” wear masks and pretend that they are predicting calamities based on hard evidence. This lulls the unsuspecting public into absolute belief and acceptance of the doomsdayers’ ravings.
If the same message were given in a spiritual setting, the adherents would probably be encouraged to turn to God in preparation for the final days. Generally, scientists have sneered at and mocked spiritual predictions regarding the end times, and the same scientists have convinced the general public to do likewise. Further, governments of the world use their police powers to suppress, restrict, or even eliminate these spiritual-based groups. Scientists have now one-upped the spiritual believers by supporting their dire predictions of calamity with supposed scientific evidence. Using their scientific clout, they have now convinced most of the world leaders to meet in Copenhagen. The stated agenda of the gathering is to halt global warming with a unified and urgent approach.
People may remember that there have been similar gatherings to solve the global economic crisis. In those meetings, every leader attending was told to boost their economies by stimulus spending. By and large, the world leaders have dutifully followed those dictates. One might ask: Is the global recession over due to this unified approach – or is it deepening? Many thinking economists have finally realized the latter to be the case.
[...]
Were the carbon traders truly concerned that global warming is a seriously urgent issue, they could perhaps justify following their untested carbon-trading notion. But if it were an urgent situation, why would they offer a solution that will take decades to take effect? If they have decades to work on the solution, by definition, it cannot be that urgent. And, if they have decades to implement their plan, could they not spend at least a few years or even a few months openly and transparently debating which course of action will save the planet from its imminent death?
To demonstrate the absurdity of the current “green” position, consider that they are proposing massive increases in nuclear power because it is supposed to be carbon friendly. The nuclear proponents do not seem to care about the disposal of nuclear waste from these sites. This means that they are presenting an extremely short-sighted solution, which is not really a solution at all. Besides, the proponents of expanding nuclear power want to tremendously restrict who can and who cannot use nuclear power. For instance, Iran and North Korea are presently being ostracized for, among other things, having nuclear-power programmes. This is a glaring instance where part of the real agenda of the ruling elite shows through; the nuclear proponents are not as concerned about global warming as they are with political dominance.
As indicated earlier, humans are only marginally responsible for global warming. The hotter sun is undeniable, and it is the main reason for global warming.
[...]
This would be all well and good if it could be believed that scientists are acting in the people’s best interests. But, since when have scientists been assumed to be altruistic? Why is it accepted that they will only act in the best interests of humans? And why should it be accepted that the scientists are correct about human causes of global warming?
[...]
The carbon-trading schemes, and other emissions-based solutions presented by the ruling elite’s scientific doomsdayers, will not solve global warming. But, if they get their way, they will change the lives of people for the worse.
http://www.flyingbuffaloes7.net/keluar6.html