Travel and Sustainability – how can this match?

Traveling makes me really happy

Those who know me a bit better know that I love to travel the world. I have always been fascinated by foreign countries, foreign cultures and their ways of life. Even though I speak 5 languages, I always come to countries where I do not know the language and sometimes I am very grateful for that. It shows again and again that one can always communicate somehow with hands and feet. And often much more authentic, with more emotions and with a smile on the lips. Often I make a of myself but since I think that we take ourselves too often too seriously and I actually love having fun, these are often the moments travel-memories are made of.

I would describe myself as a very grateful, positive, and very conscious person. Probably, that was not always as it is today, even though my parents told me so very early. I just know what it’s like when you do not have that much, when you’re not feeling well, or when everything feels like heading down south (e.g. my stalking experience). But I’m also convinced that everything negative has something positive. You just have to be ready to want to see that, too. Even if it is not apparent at first. This all sounds very esoteric – maybe it is, but I’m not spoiling my good mood so quickly. It all has to add up.

Travel quenches my wanderlust

Traveling is my source of positive energy and a good mood. Right now, I came back from two super spontaneous trips. I was in Egypt with a dear old friend for my birthday, Christmas, and her birthday. We are both quite sorry that everyone is in Christmas stress or is under general stress and no one feels in a party mood for our birthdays. In addition, surprisingly many blunder with wrapping our birthday presents in Christmas paper. That just adds insult to our injury. 🙂
So, we decided in a half wasted Sunday-afternoon-condition to go for a last-minute trip to Soma Bay in Egypt, which should start two days later. As soon as I got back from Egypt, I spontaneously decided to take a trip to Mexico, where the plane departed 20 hours later. You could say that you could use the name “Rosa” to define spontaneity! 🙂

In this blog post dealing with “happiness“, I have already revealed that traveling makes me very happy. I’m not a person you can impress with status symbols, overpriced, fancy luxuries, or other material things. Maybe that’s because I’ve done my master of economics in online marketing and I know that in such matters, only the image’s gain justifies the high price. What impresses me more are things that money can not buy: character, empathy, trust, honesty, loyalty, respect, morality, integrity, manners, decency, class, common sense, humor, selflessness, and, of course, true love. But that is another matter altogether.

Traveling makes me happy

For me, most material things are really not important or I give many items only the value they really have: their utility. In addition, I am economical and diligent during my travels. In addition, you can find me rarely inexpensive resorts. I prefer to stay with locals and really get to know the country. Traveling the world is my reward, and in fact, from time to time, I calculate how many trips I could make instead of buying anything. Traveling is much more important to me than, for example, carrying an expensive watch, running around with overpriced luxuries, or something similar.

In any case, it’s a mystery to me why so many people buy things they do not need to impress people they do not care about anyway. Many are looking for more and more. More money, more prestige, more status. But what is so bad about just enjoying the status quo and being happy about what you have achieved so far? Because our economy does not work that way?! Everything is focused on growth so that the rich can make even more money. Mostly at the expense of nature, the poor, and future generations.

Travel and Sustainability – the climate impact of aviation

As you know, I’m a big believer in sustainability. I try to live as sustainably as possible. So I have been eating vegan for over 6 years, eating as much as possible regionally, organic, and seasonally. Within Munich, I move almost exclusively by bike, on foot, or by public transport – that’s the way to stay super fit! I also try to avoid plastic as much as possible and repair things, when they are broken. I also often buy second-hand, donate or up-cycle my stuff. There are also a few fun facts to me here.

The only thing that actually queers my eco-balance-pitch and makes my ecological footprint swell to immeasurable shoe size, is my desire to travel. I am a sun-worshipper. My wanderlust thwarts my plans. According to the German Aerospace Center (DLR), air traffic has a clear impact on our climate. More on “climate change” and what causes it has, I’ve already told you in this blog post.

Airplane travels cause many greenhouse gases

The biggest impact on the climate when flying is the burning of petrol and kerosene. Not only the climate-damaging greenhouse gases CO2, ozone, nitrogen oxides and water vapor, but also soot and sulfates (aerosols) are produced here. Aerosols can have a strong impact on cloud formation. Contrails and fog clouds form on the one hand, on the one hand, shield the sun and thus have a positive cooling effect. However, contrails or clouds of fog prevent radiation from getting back into space.

That’s exactly the greenhouse effect – as described in more detail in my blog post on climate change. In addition, there is an ozone formation and the removal of methane. Actually, the decrease in methane and the shielding of the sun are positive. Methane is one of the most dangerous greenhouse gases and therefore a decrease is actually desired. On the whole, however, the negative effects outweigh the decrease in methane, so that the positive effect can be completely neglected.

atmosfair – the good conscience for travelers like me (unpaid advertising)

But here, too, I have found a solution that compensates both my guilty conscience and my CO2 emissions: atmosfair.
A little digression: I think the idea behind atmosfair is great and I do not want anyone to think now that I am writing this because I have a cooperation with them. I don’t and I think that you can just recommend stuff if you like it anyway. True story.

atmosfair is a non-profit climate protection organization and finances itself almost exclusively through donations, i. e. through climate protection contributions for CO2 compensation. 90% of all their revenues go directly to their climate protection projects in the global South. 10% is used for the administration, public relations and customer service, within reason. On their homepage you can easily calculate your CO2 emissions, no matter if flight or cruise. For the flight you only have to enter your departure airport and destination airport.

Trying to travel more sustainable

Optionally, you can provide a few more details, such as a stopover or your travel class, such as the Economy. But it is also possible to simply donate or compensate for a self-mentioned CO2 amount. The projects supported by atmosfair through your compensation payment are mainly in the technological field. This will support projects around the topics of energy efficiency, wind power, hydropower, biogas and biomass as well as solar energy and environmental education. And if that’s not enough, you can also deduct your compensation payment as a donation – so what more could you want! 🙂

For example, I paid 30 € and 126 € for my flights from Munich to Egypt and to Mexico. 156 €, that’s quite a lot! But it shows how big the damage actually is, which I caused with the flights and which is not included in the price. Personally, it is worth it, because for me it is a perfect interim solution, to be able to continue my travel behavior with a reasonably good conscience. How do you deal with the topic and have you ever dealt with it?

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Here are the sources for this blogpost

Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
https://www.dlr.de/pa/en/Portaldata/33/Resources/dokumente/mitarbeiter/Klimawirkungen_des_Luftverkehrs_Folien.pdf

Umweltbundesamt
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/377/dokumente/klimawirksamkeit_des_flugverkehrs.pdf
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/377/dokumente/lehmann.pdf

Forster, P./Ramaswamy, V./Artaxo, P./Berntsen, T./Betts, R./Fahey, D. W./Haywood, J./Lean, J./Lowe, D. C./Myhre, G./Nganga, J./Prinn, R./Raga, G./Schulz M./Van Dorland, R. 2007: Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing, in: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M.Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224988383_Changes_in_Atmospheric_Constituents_and_in_Radiative_Forcing