Calming my environmental conscience

Right now I feel there is a huge boom for questions about our environment and especially the climate. Everyday there are new articles about it in the papers, reports on TV and radio and even media that normally don’t deal with these matters do now. It is very political correct. Of course there are many reasons why this happen now, the latest UN-report about the climate change is only one and probably less influential than Al Gore’s film.

Of course it is great that people start to become aware and care about this and I really like the focus on what everyone can do in your normal everyday life and also the focus on that it really matters what you do about it. But still I worry about the effect. Sometimes these things just seem to be a trend or maybe even a fashion and after a while people forget and go back to life as before. There is also a risk that when there is too much talk about it, people tend to get frustrated, feel hopeless or get fed up with it. I must admit I do to some part belong to this second group. I like to see myself as a fairly environmentally aware person and I try to act accordingly, but now I have the feeling that no matter what I do it is not enough.

I believe my worst environmental crime is the way I travel. I love to travel and I do it a lot, both privately and professionally and my international travel is mostly by plane. I find this hard to change and I can not say I would appreciate an increase of the price for flying, especially as I don’t feel sure about what this “extra tax” really will be used for. Somehow I don’t see the connection how the climate automatically will benefit from increased costs for flying, unless you increase the price that much that hardly anyone can afford it anymore. Therefore I have come up with my own idea. I am not saying it is the best and for sure it is not sufficient, but still I kind of like it. I have been thinking about that for every time I fly somewhere I could also donate some money to some environmental organization working with plantation of trees. I know there are mixed opinions and it might not be enough and it will take time for the trees to grow etc etc, but at least it feels as a straight connection, and until anyone comes up with something better that is what I will do, if only to calm my bad conscience. Anyone who would like to join me?

Here is an interesting link, unfortunately only in Swedish: http://klimatfakta.com/2007/03/12/vilken-nytta-gor-koldioxidkompensation-genom-tradplantering/