Ecotourism: Taking Pictures and Leaving Footprints: October 2009

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Fighting Climate Change is not for Machos!

I wrote a post last week about the 350.org manifestations all around the world "On 24 October, people in 181 countries came together for the most widespread day of environment, organizing over 5200 events around the world." I was really happy to write a post about it as I found the initiative very thrilling. But today I am disappointed by the following video.

The first time I watched it it put a smile on my face, but then I thought: "Wait a minute mate, you are the first one to criticize car companies when they use beautiful women to sell cars, and this is exactly the same!" And then other things came up:

Half of the world population is made of women and this video is targeted to men only.
Male values are the ones responsible of the climate change problem, greed being the main one. All developing studies shows that if you want to bring development to a country, you need to empower women, so the same logic could apply to environmental issues.
There is something quite sad that we have to use women wearing underwear to raise awareness about such a big issue.
This sexist video is a disgrace to all the women that have contributed to the event (which is even worse as you may have more women involved in NGOs than men).

So to the people that created this video, next time you want to create something that has to reach as many people as possible, do not forget half of your target!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

To Offset or not to Offset??

Let's be completely honest: the concept of carbon offset has always been borderline. The idea you can offset your carbon dioxide emissions by giving money to projects of tree plantations or that encourage carbon dioxide emissions could have been nice if it stayed limited to what it was conceived for: trip you cannot avoid to do. Here is an example of a business that offers carbon offset solutions.

However, it quickly became an excuse for not changing anything. I guess this is what ResponsibleTravel felt and this is why they decided to change their policy and forsake carbon offset.

So what else should we do? Should we stick to carbon offset or should we get rid of the idea? Well we could just bypass the people making profit out of it but keep the positive side of it. Every year millions of people give money to charities for Cancer or any other respectable cause, so why not giving for the environment? Why not giving to projects that will make a difference, somewhere in the world, would it be in another continent or in your own neighbourhood? But in the same expecting nothing in return, just giving as a pure act of generosity. And if we associate this with genuine efforts to tackle climate change, this would transform carbon offset to a bad memory.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Fight Climate Change

There is a time to stomach things and another one for fight. And let's be honest, regarding climate change, we have not time left for anything else than a fight. A long, difficult one, but not something impossible to achieve. I would like to introduce you to two initiative that can make a difference.

The first one is called "The Wave" and aims to gather people in London for the Copenhagen summit on December 5th in order to organize a demonstration to push political leaders to take actions on the issue. People are invited to upload a picture on which they raise their hands in order to put an image on their hands saying "Climate change is in our hands!". This will raise awareness on the issue of climate change and reach more people through the use of social media.

The second one is a much broader initiative called 350 that has for objective to "build a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis". Their focus is on the number 350--as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. They plan to coordinate a planetary day of action on October 24, 2009. Here is a video on that explains in 4,000 languages what their goals are.

So it seems that now you have the opportunity to do something for a good cause and to join thousands of people all around the world to do so!

Monday, October 12, 2009

A Panda Helps You to Measure Your Carbon Footprint

Image by ponChiang via Flickr

Well to adopt a greener way of life you need to assess what is positive and negative in all your actions, so measuring your carbon footprint is for sure the easiest way to get a clear picture of the situation.

WWF helps you to measure your own carbon footprint with a handy and easy to use tool. This is not only convenient, this is above all a way to wake up people by showing them the impact of their actions.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Be an Uber Ecotourist: Share Your Tips with Others

Ecotourism has grown a lot because an active community has used the internet to share information and knowledge about places and transportation. So the more collaborative tool the better.

The new one in town is Everlater, a tool that lets you create a true travel journal, with maps, notes and pictures. But the best thing about it is that it aggregates all your social media tools (e.g Facebook, Twitter or Flickr) in one place, which makes it a lot easier for you and the people following you to communicate.

I was wondering how I could communicate on my next trip idea, a tour de France, but I stopped wondering when I discovered Everlater. So if you plan a big trip in the coming months and then you want to show the green side of it, here is your tool.

Ecotourism: Taking Pictures and Leaving Footprints

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