Published Jun 18, 2006
So in about four hours I will leap out into the unknown and get on one of China Air’s widebodies, headed for Southeast Asia (via Taiwan, with a seven-hour layover — yecch). I’m filled with that mix of excitement and dread that always comes before a big trip, with part of me deeply enthused and the other part wishing for a good night’s sleep in my comfy bed. Seriously, I’m incredibly looking forward to this trip — and glad that I was able to make it an environmentally-sounder “green” trip.
I made my trip green by offsetting the carbon emissions of the major modes of travel I expect to take — air, in particular. Now, it’s hard for me to be more environmentally-sound in getting to Southeast Asia, because the only way to do that is to sail, which takes rather too long. There’s really no way I can get out of contributing my 1/300th of a widebody’s carbon output; but I can offset those emissions, by paying a small sum of money to a company that makes investments in programs that either remove more carbon from the atmosphere — for instance, planting trees — or add less carbon to the atmosphere — for instance, replacing a polluting coal power plant with a wind farm. The net result is that I’ve invested in programs that take out as much carbon from the atmosphere as my flight puts in, so the world is just as nice when I get home as it is now.
That is to say, already altogether too hot. I’m excited to get out of here and enjoy too much sun and too much heat as part of a regularly-scheduled vacation, rather than a Los Angeles Summer. With luck, there will be Internet in the Far East, and you’ll hear from me regularly. Sa wat dee krap!
enjoy it, babe! hope to read about your exploits and all the rest of that jazz. and don’t forget to bring me back a small thai slave.