I am in a few different Facebook travel groups and in one of them recently, someone asked a question that I thought was interesting. This is in a group that is specifically about trying to travel to every country (not a specific goal of mine but one that I find interesting), and the poster asked about the environmental impact of traveling. That was a topic that I thought would be interesting to explore, since I know that many of us are also ones who travel a lot.
The Environmental Impact of Traveling
Here was the actual question
“How do you justify frequent flying and traveling? I understand it’s a hobby, but I’ve recently had some arguments with friends about it. How do you defend this lifestyle? I mean the environmental aspect?”
The Responses
There were over 200 responses to the original question, and I was mildly surprised that the tone of responses was actually quite civil! Here are a few of the topics that were discussed
- What do you feel you need to justify about it?
- The planes are going to fly whether I’m on them or not
- Eating meat and dairy contributes more to climate change
- So does having kids
- I have cognitive dissonance about this – I know air travel is a big contributor but I do it anyways
My Thoughts On The Environmental Impact Of Traveling
So let me start off by saying that as I understand it, having fewer children has an environmental impact that is orders of magnitude higher than other things, including eating meat and traveling by air. As someone with six children, clearly nothing that I do now will offset the impact of having these children (and their children and so on). I don’t regret having my children of course (and when I do, it isn’t because of environmental reasons 😀 ), but it is something that I’m aware of. We do recycle as much as we can, don’t use plastic water bottles and try to do what we can but again, I do understand that these decisions pale in comparison to the fact that I have chosen to have 6 children. It is my personal belief that having children is important for other (non-environmental) reasons.
I do agree with some of the commenters who said that “climate change is not a problem that can be solved (or really even meaningfully mitigated) by a philosophy of everyone pitching in to use a little less fossil fuel”. Instead, we need new energy sources that don’t use fossil fuel or emit (as much) CO2.
The Bottom Line – How Do YOU Justify Traveling?
So now that I’ve shared some of my thoughts, I am curious to hear your thoughts – what do you think about the environmental impact of travel and does that play at all in making your plans? I do think that there are a few different ways that you can look at this issue, and as I mentioned above, it’s one that hasn’t been top of mind for me personally, but I am always interested in hearing others’ perspectives.
What do you think about the environmental impact of travel (especially air travel)? Leave your thoughts (civilly!) in the comments below
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Given that the climate religion is incompatible with the Christian religion to which I adhere, I have never felt any need to justify my travel.
Couldn’t this same question be framed as “How do you justify driving a car? Or eating X or drinking X” or any number of other things that “some” people find to be objectionable?
That is certainly one way to look at things. I think it’s fairly reasonable to say that there are a large number of choices some people make (and find valuable) that others do not.
I don’t feel bad about the flying I do. It’s transport.
I use and support public mass transit and bikes to get around more than I drive myself around in a gas guzzler (or electric vehicle) on the ground.
I do support inter-governmental efforts to increase fuel efficiency and support governments and markets encouraging airlines to become more fuel efficient and also more environmentally-friendly in various ways.
The idea of killing air travel to save the environment is a counterproductive idea. What’s a productive idea is to get the economy overall and all industries to be less polluting.
I’m frankly tired of the “climate change guilt trip” that a few people try to foist on anyone who disagrees with them. My trip on a plane is inconsequential compared to the GHGs released in the process of ore mining and refining this “dirt” to produce the rare earth metals needed for a single EV battery. It is inconsequential compared to the coal fired power plants that Russia, China and India continue to build. When these climate accusers fix that second problem, I’ll consider their views. My community has curbside recycling, I drive a gas-hybrid, and I keep my HVAC set at 78 summer,70 winter. I just installed Energy Star have double-paned windows on my house. I use a 2-year old plastic water bottle that I wash out and refill. So “climate guilters,” I’m doing my part; get off my case on air travel.