Reduce Your Flights
Reduce Your Flights
Why?
According to the EPA, commercial airplanes and large business jets contribute about 10 percent of our country’s transportation emissions. If you want to get the biggest bang for your “emissions buck,” cutting air travel would be a good place to start. You may not be able to completely eliminate it – especially if it’s required for work or seeing your family on the other side of the country. But you can take steps to reduce the number of flights you take.
Make an air travel budget
To meet a goal of fewer flights, make an air travel budget – not the kind that ensures you don’t overspend, but the kind that ensures you choose airline travel less often. Start by thinking about which trips are absolutely necessary. If it’s a business trip, can you accomplish what you need by phone or video calls instead?
Just as it makes sense to group your local errands, making longer trips less frequently can also reduce GHG emissions. Again, this might require a little upfront planning, but it’s well worth the effort. “Budget your travel” is the operative phrase. Attending a conference in a distant state? Think about friends you might visit while you’re in the area. Or, flying to a family reunion? Consider any long-deferred sightseeing you’ll want to do while you’re there.
Sustainable Travel International: Calculate Your Travel Carbon Footprint
Carbonfund: How to Offset the Carbon Footprint of Flying
Travel by train
Along with walking and biking, trains are the most efficient way to travel. In fact, a medium-length trip by train instead of by car cuts emissions by about 80 percent and a train trip instead of a domestic flight cuts emissions by about 84 percent. Amtrak has numerous routes through varied and gorgeous landscapes. And for short trips in Sonoma and Marin counties, you can take advantage of the SMART train.
Our World in Data: Which form of transport has the smallest carbon footprint?
SMART: Train schedules
Amtrak: Schedules
