Mon 21 Dec 2009
In Defense of Air Travel
Posted by Tyler under Doing the Right Thing, Making Choices, Travel
[3] Comments
I don’t do a lot of traveling.
In fact, looking back on 2009, I only made it out of Oregon a few times to nearby Washington.
I’m not well traveled. I’ve been to Europe for a couple months, Canada a few times, and I’ve spent exactly 6 hours in Mexico.
Airlines are one of the most popular punching bags of the green movement and not without reason. Flying is expensive, it pollutes like crazy and, for the vast majority of people, it’s used as nothing but transportation to a vacation destination where tourism is slowly degrading what was once a beautiful and natural habitat.
Yet, I harbor no ill-will for the airline industry.
Call me crazy, but I just see too much potential in the benefits of world travel to campaign against it.
Despite its drawbacks, there are two enormous benefits to world travel that I just don’t think should be ignored.
The Human Connection
Never before in history has an average Joe like you or me had such ready access to, quite literally, the entire world.
From Germany to Fiji, from Bolivia to Mongolia, in many cases we can put ourselves directly in the middle of a brand new culture in less than a day for less than $1000.
Throughout time, imperialistic and isolationist governments alike have used our lack of knowledge about different cultures as a rallying point to commit some of the most heinous crimes imaginable.
With one fell swoop, the commercial airliner has allowed us to evaluate the claims of our governments for ourselves.
The more we travel, the more we connect with new places, cultures, and people. The more we connect, the more we realize that we’re really all the same.
Even though we look, speak, and act differently, we all share a common goal for a peaceful and prosperous world. We’re many strands of one people. And that gives us power that we’ve never had before.
Try as they might, governments and regimes can no longer pit nation against nation simply by spreading misinformation. Not without a fight.
This is invaluable.
The Spread of Influence
The second major benefit of affordable airline travel is its ability to give voice to the everyday man/woman that wants to make a difference.
Of course, this is becoming more and more viable across the internet (Frugally Green has been read in over 103 countries), but face to face communication is still king. This is proven by the fact that many prominent bloggers write for free, yet earn thousands of dollars to speak face to face with an audience.
Many environmentalists and world changers alike are now able to spread their word around the entire world for a mere fraction of the price that they’d have paid only 50 years ago and in a fraction of the time as well.
Even a well intentioned tourist, perhaps even yourself, can now make a difference in the world with an ease never before afforded to you.
While the polluting effects of a transcontinental jet are something to be measured and weighed carefully in any travel scenario, I do not support the wholesale condemnation of them as a blight on the environment or a telling sign of civilization’s downfall.
To the same effect, I do not think for even a second that they are our savior and path to an enlightened and peaceful existence.
These are false dichotomies created by fundamentalists that attempt to portray only their version of the truth, much like a pharmaceutical commercial that promises to remedy your every last ailment followed by a list of 20 serious side effects spoken at 100 miles a second.
An airplane is a tool used to move people from one place to another. Ultimately, it is your and my responsibility alike to ensure that we’re using them to change the world for the better.
What do you think? Are airplanes useful tools for connecting people and ideas that can change the world? Why or why not?
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Image of airplane by Irargerich
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why do we travel? Or like the song goes “does anybody know what we are looking for”?? Why do we consider travel a basic desire nowadays? I especially like how George Santayana puts it in The Philosophy of Travel: “We need sometimes to escape into open solitudes, into aimlessness, into the moral holiday of running some pure hazard, in order to sharpen the edge of life, to taste hardship, and to be compelled to work desperately for a moment at no matter what.” Do we travel to lose ourselves or to find ourselves? In order to find the WHERE, WHEN or HOW to travel, we need to rediscover the pure pleasure of travels and the meaning of our own inner journey and rediscovery.
Totally agree with you that airplane is a great tool. But the problem right now is people not using the right tool for the job at hand. If the job at hand is to transport oneself from US to Europe no doubt its the best tool available. But if the job at hand is to transport a person 200 miles within a state, then its not. There are better alternatives. This is where the green movement steps in and starts bashing the tool instead of finding fault with the people using the wrong tool.
At least in the US where I live, people have neglected all alternatives and hang on to airlines as their only option (other than driving of course!). But then its hard to find fault with people choosing airplane to travel within the state when the only train that goes through my city arrives at midnight.
Good point KC. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It seems that we’re finally regaining consciousness of the usefulness of alternative transportation options like buses and trains. We’ve neglected them for so long in favor of car and plane travel, though, that we simply can’t right the ship overnight.
It seems that the ball is rolling in the right direction, though, and that is encouraging.