Leisure travel bad for the planet? Stay home?

Dear EarthTalk: Is leisure travel so bad for the planet that we are all better off just staying home?

—Jackie Smith, Boston, Massachusetts


According to the International Air Transport Association, in 2024 global air travel increased by 10.4%. Behind this surge in tourism is growing affluence in developing countries, demographic shifts to younger generations, convenience of travel, and increasing awareness through social media.

Despite the booming economies traveling creates, there lurks the harsh penalties that each flight, drive and cruise puts on Mother Earth. Tourism accounts for about 8% of world greenhouse gas emissions. University of Queensland Associate Professor Ya-Yen Sun conducted a study showing how tourism is the leading producer of greenhouse gases of all global economic sectors. Dr. Sun and his research team anticipate “annual increases in emissions of three to four percent” from travel alone.

Transportation is the primary contributor of greenhouse gases from travel, almost half of tourism’s carbon footprint. Online emissions calculator, Atmosfair, shows that a single round-trip flight from New York to Los Angeles for a typical family emits 7.1 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2). This is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from approximately 1.7 gasoline-powered vehicles driven in one year.

“Goods” and “Food & Beverage” make up the next largest contributors of greenhouse gases. These categories encompass the souvenirs and shopping experiences of tourism, considering production, manufacturing and shipping. Food production entails growing, processing, transporting, and much more, thus multiplying its carbon footprint.

Visualizing the effects of global warming is difficult, even with these numbers and facts. Rising sea levels and dwindling ice sheets seem hardly connected to one airplane ride.

University of Tennessee Professor John Nolt concluded after calculations that “the average American is responsible, through his/her greenhouse gas emissions, for the suffering and/or deaths of one or two future people.”

Yet, we can and are doing more to combat travel’s eco-damage. Aircraft emissions are being lowered through biofuels, electric motors and efficient design. Quitting travel is extreme, but consider the impacts of your next trip. And if the answer to travel or not is yes, decrease your carbon footprint: buy offsets, choose efficient airlines, fly during the day. And remember what Dorothy concluded after her travels: “There’s no place like home.”

EarthTalk® is produced by Roddy Scheer & Doug Moss for the 501(c)3 nonprofit EarthTalk.

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Lakeville Journal and The Journal does not support or oppose candidates for public office.

Latest News

Six die in Copake plan crash

COPAKE — A Mitsubishi MU-2B-40 plane carrying six people crashed in an open field near Two Town Road shortly after noon on Saturday, April 12, killing all aboard.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the aircraft departed from Westchester County Airport and was headed to Columbia County Airport in Hudson.

Keep ReadingShow less
Connecticut approves merger of Northwell, Nuvance health systems

Sharon Hospital

Archive photo

Connecticut’s Office of Health Strategy approved a merger between Northwell Health, a large New York-based health system, and Nuvance Health, which owns Danbury, Norwalk, Sharon and New Milford hospitals in Connecticut, as well as three hospitals in New York, according to a Tuesday announcement by the agency.

The two systems now have to complete the step of formally joining the entities together under the Northwell Health banner, a spokesperson for Nuvance Health said.

Keep ReadingShow less
Out of the mouths of Ukrainian babes

To escape the cruelties of war, Katya finds solace in her imagination in “Sunflower Field”.

Krista A. Briggs

‘I can sum up the last year in three words: fear, love, hope,” said Oleksandr Hranyk, a Ukrainian school director in Kharkiv, in a February 2023 interview with the Associated Press. Fast forward to 2025, and not much has changed in his homeland. Even young children in Ukraine are echoing these same sentiments, as illustrated in two short films screened at The Moviehouse in Millerton on April 5, “Once Upon a Time in Ukraine” and “Sunflower Field.”

“Sunflower Field,” an animated short from Ukrainian filmmaker Polina Buchak, begins with a young girl, Katya, who embroiders as her world becomes unstitched with the progression of the war. To cope, Katya retreats into a vivid fantasy world, shielding herself from the brutal realities surrounding her life, all while desperately wanting her family to remain intact as she awaits a phone call from her father, one that may never come.

Keep ReadingShow less
William F. Buckley Jr.: a legacy rooted in Sharon
Provided

Sam Tanenhaus, when speaking about William F. Buckley, Jr., said he was drawn to the man by the size of his personality, generosity and great temperament. That observation was among the reasons that led Tanenhaus to spend nearly 20 years working on his book, “Buckley: The Life and Revolution That Changed America,” which is due out in June. Buckley and his family had deep roots in Sharon, living in the house called Great Elm on South Main Street, which was built in 1812 and bought by Buckley’s father in 1923.

The author will give a talk on “The Buckleys of Sharon” at the Sharon Historical Society on Saturday, April 12, at 11 a.m. following the group’s annual meeting. The book has details on the family’s life in Sharon, which will, no doubt, be of interest to local residents.

Keep ReadingShow less