Don’t take flight

Is air travel way worse for the environment than driving?

Honey, you know I’m not one to lay on a guilt trip. If you can sleep at night knowing your carbon footprint is larger than the average car-driving monger, that’s your deal. Don’t get me wrong, I feel ya. Just last month when I was booking a flight for a vacay at my Cabo San Lucas time share, my moral prerogatives got all twisted in a bunch.

Because you clearly have a guilt complex, I’ll let you in on a little secret: When it comes to flying the eco-friendly skies, we’ve not yet arrived.

Air travel worldwide accounts for 1.5 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions caused by human activity annually. In the United States, it accounts for 3.5 percent. My climate-analyst friends tell me these percentages will rise significantly in the next two decades as the number of air travelers is expected to more than double worldwide.

Companies are working to replace old jets with planes made from plastic composites that decrease weight so planes burn less fuel. They’re also designing planes that minimize aerodynamic resistance and looking into biofuels. But industry-wide adoption of these advancements is still far off.

My advice to you? Drive the 600 miles instead of flying. Cut down on short-distance flights, which have a bigger carbon impact per mile than long ones because takeoff and landing accounts for most of the energy expended. Schedule flights during daytime hours and in the summer. If you’re a business traveler, shame on you. Your trips constitute 65 percent of air travel nationwide. Try a conference call instead.

When I have to fly, I neutralize my carbon impact by purchasing offsets from www.terrapass.com, which uses the money to fund reforestation, energy efficiency and renewable-energy development projects.