As Travel Becomes Green

How the overall "green" movement will ultimately affect travel is something no one can fully predict today.

Perhaps the impulse to travel will in itself be curtailed, citing the virtue of not consuming and emitting.

Plenty of towels are destined to be re-used in many hotels.

A new tax will be levied, often voluntarily, as travelers buy their way out of the guilt of their emissions by purchasing "carbon offset" credits.  The ideal vacation trip will be "carbon neutral."

Some fairly advanced types of lodgings, such as the beach structures at the Lodge at Molokai Ranch, on Molokai, Hawaii, will become prevalent.  Every unit has its solar generator and composting toilet.  The units are "on the grid" for water alone.

Virtuous lodgings will probably eventually become mainstream, just as "organic" food is now a major growth sector in food production.   Not too long ago organic was exotic, now it is mainstream.

Probably, the evolving traveler will have a better awareness of how sustainable a travel option is, both in terms of the environment it functions in and in terms of the local people who participate in the operation.

Green travel is likely to become a more prominent buzzword as the worldwide environmental crisis intensifies, perhaps symbolized best by the retreating sea ice and its disastrous effect on polar bears.

The discussion of travel and green will preoccupy our thoughts for the foreseeable future.