The Environmental Effects of Nu Nomading

by Carmen Bolanos
Most of us are thinking about our impact on the environment these days (at least I hope we are) and we are hearing more and more about pollution emitted by air flight. I have been concerned because of my love for travel and for the environment that I could be encouraging people toward an activity that has a negative impact on our world. The question has been churning in my mind for several months, "What's more polluting - a long distance air flight or daily car commuting?"

So - here is my attempt to answer this question for myself. I'm not an expert on these issues so I welcome any comments or corrections from folks who may be.

In order to answer this question I am creating a sample human being who is a mix of myself and my NuNomad partner Ricardo and adding some data about the average American. This sample human lives in the Los Angeles area, drives a 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan (not a Prius, but not a Hummer either). This person commutes 32 miles each day, the national average for an American as reported by an ABC News Poll analyzed by Gary Langer in 2005.

According to TerraPass.com the Grand Caravan emits about 2000 less carbon dioxide pounds per year than the average American car. That said, it is emitting 10,207 CO2 pounds per year if driven the national average of 12,000 miles per year. This is 1.17 miles per CO2 pound.

If our nomad-to-be is commuting 32 miles per day this is 8,000 miles per year with a 50 week year. This means our nomad-to-be is emitting about 6803 CO2 pounds per year simply by his/her commute (or just over 566 CO2 pounds per month).

Now, let's say our nomad-to-be has decided to take the leap into Nu Nomadic living and has chosen a destination that requires a long flight but where s/he will be able to live without a vehicle on a daily basis and not have to commute (as my partner Ricardo has done). Let's say the destination is Bangkok.

According to TerraPass.com, a round trip (assuming at some point our nomad will have to return home) flight from Los Angeles to Bangkok emits 6,432 CO2 pounds per passenger. This means our Nu Nomad emits approximately a year's commute worth of CO2 pounds just in the round trip flight to their destination.

Wow! That is a lot. However, let's consider the fact that the average American uses their car for more than just the daily commute. As I stated before, the average American drives 12,000 miles per year and emits 12,000 CO2 pounds per year with their car (the 2006 Grand Caravan is below the national average). If the Nu Nomad is staying in a location that will not require car travel for their year, they are saving 3,568 CO2 pounds per year that would have gone into the environment just through their car. I won't even try to compare other factors that would influence impact in the U.S. vs Thailand (use of air conditioning, heating, number of miles food is transported, trash sent to landfills, etc.) but I have a pretty strong hunch that the U.S. lifestyle is the bigger environmental culprit since we are fairly abysmal on many environmental measures.

What does this mean? Well, several things. If you are a nu nomad or nu nomad wannabe you can lessen the environmental impact of your travels in several ways. Here are some suggestions:

1) Choose a destination that will not require a daily commute once you have arrived.
2) Choose a lifestyle at your destination that will not require a car.
3) Consider the emissions factor when choosing how far you will go (could a small town in Mexico satisfy your wanderlust just as well as one in far off Asia?).
4) Stay in your destination long enough to offset the impact of getting there.
5) Eat local foods during your stay.
6) Educate yourself about the environmental impact of your travel and your daily life. TerraPass.com is a great resource to find out the emissions of your current vehicle and any flight you plan.
7) Contribute to the health of the environment by doing an act that offsets your impact. TerraPass offers a program through which money can be contributed to environmental causes in amounts that offset your specific activities.

Comments

[Ricardo]

Carmen. Though I'm used in this example (yup, I'm the one in Bangkok) and your NuNo partner, I gotta say that this stuff really hits home to me. (It must, since this is the first time I've added a "comment" to your blog.) I too get concerned that my traveling about may be impacting greatly on the environment. But as you pointed out, even with my being over here instead of my "home town" of Los Angeles, I'm sure that I'm making a smaller contribution to Global Warming than the average commuter. (BTW, most people who work in California are commuting a lot more than the national average.) But aside from the comparison of commuting to work versus trans-Asian flights (not to mention that most of us fly around domestically at least once a year in the States), there is--as you mentioned--the factor of being more ecologically correct abroad that at home. When I live and travel abroad, I use public transportation, my bicycle or motor-bike. And I don't crank up the air-conditioning like I would have to in the USA. Also, garbage is a lot less here. (And if you're thinking about the empty water bottles that are associated with travelers, I tend to refill my liter size one from a big bottle. Plus, plastic bottles are recycled in Thailand.) Also, taking your life as an example, the person that telecommutes is obviously impacting less on the environment. So I think it is safe to say that Nomading instead of living the status-quo lifestyle, is less damaging to the environment.

[Carmen]

Yes, I feel pretty certain that the lifestyle you have developed in Thailand is fairly low impact and you're right, if you lived in LA you probably would drive more than the national average.

One thing I love about the coaching work I do is that it has almost no environmental impact. I work from home and am virtually paper free (not to mention I can be mobile for nomading if I want!)

However, life with children means lots of driving to school, athletic events etc. and even though we carpool as much as possible I am still above the national average when it comes to miles put on the car. I try to offset in other ways such as keeping our home temp at 80 in summer and 65 in winter, recycling, composting, growing our own veggies, etc. I also just don't buy a lot when it comes to products. Anyway, we just keep trying to improve where we can.

[Manu]

Hi Carmen,
I already had fixed planes to fly to New York tomorrow – to meet our next partner. It should be a short stay trip. The flight tickets Berlin-NYC-Berlin are very low at the moment – also because of the weak US$ towards €.

After reading your article I decided to postpone this meeting to my next visit to the states, pooling all my “US-meetings” into my next trip in some weeks – but staying for a longer term than.

It’s very exiting travelling around the world - meeting people, friends ... but it should stay in a senseful way.
It is easy to complain about the pollution ... but doing nothing.

Thanks for you posting,
greetings from Berlin

[Carmen]

Wow Manu! I like a man of action. Did you use the Terrapass site to look up the mileage for you flight?

[Manu]

Yes! That's far too much for a one-week trip!

Your Flight Emissions Profile:

Flights are round trip. Emissions data are per passenger.
1 trip Air Pollution by CO2 Emissions Carbon Emissions from Flying | Flight CO2 Emissions
Berlin, Germany ↔ New York, NY
7,919 miles : 3,088 lbs CO2

[Jim]

I'm not sure I see the point in comparing the environmental damage of long-haul flights to annual commuting. Neither of them are sustainable. It's sort of like saying, "Which is less toxic for my body? Smoking two packs of cigarettes or eating 20 Twinkies a day? It's clearly the Twinkies, so I'll do that and I can feel good about myself!" ;-)

Why not consider alternatives to flying? I'm an American living in Europe and I'm planning a long-ish trip to the States and Latin America this summer. (If it qualifies as NuNomading will depend on whether I can organize some income while I'm on the road.) I'm seriously considering doing it without flying at all: Take a cargo ship from Europe to New York (or maybe even up to the Great Lakes since my first stop is Minnesota), then use Amtrak in the U.S. and buses in Latin America. Aren't NuNomaders supposed to have more time to do this kind of traveling? (A separate question is exactly how "green" cargo ships are, although they're clearly better than flying.)

[Carmen]

Jim,

I get what you're saying. Why compare the lesser of two evils. I guess this is where I was coming from. Sometimes, when thinking about whether I'd like to go nomading again soon I have wondered about the environmental impact of my decision to make a long flight. My next thought is then, "but I'm using resources in my daily lifestyle anyway. If I can use fewer resources at my destination would it in the long run lessen my impact". To be honest, the environmental impact of air flight is much greater per person than I had imagined. I now know that to lessen my impact from what it is in my current life (if I want to travel) I will have to stay quite a long while at my destination and choose a place with a very low impact lifestyle. But you're right - if we can do even better by taking trains, not commuting at all, or finding other less carbon producing alternatives - we should. You bring up a question that I would have liked to have answered in my article. That is - what is the impact of ship travel. I could not find any data on it so I didn't include it but I'd love to know.

[Jim]

Hi Carmen:

(TypePad appears to be stripping out any attempt at using HTML so I'm doing without.)

Enlightened people can't make lifestyle changes that benefit the environment if the city/country authorities where you live are not enlightened enough to provide alternatives to the private auto. Clearly the U.S. has a lot of catching up to do here.

During my brief perusal of the literature on travel by cargo ship, I didn't get a definitive answer; there doesn't seem to be much data. One article (http://philbattos.blogspot.com/2007/04/green-travel-ship-or-plane.html) is a pretty good starting point, with more info here (http://www.greentraveller.co.uk/node/24). In the end, I think travelling by cargo ship is much greener than flying or cruise ship. Maybe the only greener thing (but requiring even more time and money) would be a sailing ship.