To fly or not to fly ... that is the Question

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Our trip will be roughly 32,000 km in total from Australia to Ireland via Singapore, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Mongolia, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, France, England (or something vaguely resembling that plan). The first 9,000km will be by air and from India we’ll cover the remaining 23,000 kms or so overland.

To off-set our air emissions we’ve chosen to use Carbon Neutral. Carbon Neutral is run by Men of the Trees, an independent, not for profit, non-government organisation that will plant native trees on our behalf. The trees will grow and absorb carbon dioxide and trap it for years to come. WE LOVE TREES.

The real challenge would’ve been to do the whole trip from Australia to Europe without flying, but to be honest at the time the plan was hatched the thought didn’t really cross our minds. In hindsight though, it would’ve been a great challenge - if you want to read about some of the brave souls that did exactly that - check out Dal and Ab's blog.

So while traveling itself is not an entirely sustainable exercise, for the seven months we’ll be consuming less than if we were at home (as anything we buy we’ll have to carry), we’ll be using local transport (we won’t be driving around Melbourne), we’ll be using less energy and heating (less hot showers and no air-con) and we’ll be eating locally sourced food. Travel breeds understanding, tolerance and respect of other cultures and tradition. Perhaps a shared understanding can help to open the discourse on climate change, a global issue that affects us all, and requires both individual and collective action.

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Photos

Congestion - of the sustainable variety!
Melbourne Critical Mass - 11th anniversary. Photo by Damon.

Comments

[jilsabam]

global movement
hey suz, what an amazing adventure bout to begin. Lookin forward to readin your travels and meeting you somewhere along the way, maybe waving at you from my bike in mongolia? love jill