Only 4️⃣ days to go until our trip! To fuel a little anticipation until then, there's also a topic about our travel plans to read today. Today:
Ecological footprint
As close as we are to our journey, the earth is also close to the climate crisis. Actually, that's not true - we are already in the middle of it, even though we may live in a region that will have it relatively good for a while yet.
Without wanting to be doomy, we will probably only be able to experience the world as we imagine it now or never, with glaciers, rivers and at least some special animal and plant species, many of which will unfortunately become extinct.
But just pointing out climate change can't be everything, after all, we are also actively contributing to global warming ourselves by travelling the world. We are aware of this and will also emphasise this to others.
What's particularly kicking hard is of course mobility, especially flights. Of course, it helps to combine many destinations so that we only have one-way flights, and at the same time we don't want to fly on the continents themselves or only in exceptional cases. But the fact remains that if we were to do everything right in terms of the climate, then we shouldn't actually be travelling around the world.
In order to do something, we have decided to donate a climate offset. In fact, this debate is unpleasantly complex, because it's not that easy to compensate for the CO2e you blow into the world. After a bit of research, we decided on a German NGO called Atmosfair, which has received several awards and, in addition to climate protection projects, also promotes sustainable development through technology transfer and poverty reduction, which is one of the consequences of global warming.
It all sounds great, but how much does it cost to offset the carbon footprint of a round-the-world flight: around 400 euros per person for all flights. As a rule of thumb, you can basically add 10% to the price of the flight. That's the price you pay for perhaps a clearer conscience, for not jetting around the world completely irresponsibly.
📖 Today's book recommendation: „The world by hitchhiking“ by Ludovic Hubler. I recommend it because he travelled around the world without any flights or transport costs. It took him five years and he had some interesting experiences. Particularly worth reading are his pertinent geopolitical assessments, which are still relevant today, twenty years after his journey. He is also very cautious in the topics of global warming and nature conservation, and on his journey he goes from being a listener to an activist.
