Greenhouse Airlines

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Nor is there any replacement for long-haul air travel itself. I can take a train from Boston to Washington, but until we can figure out how to travel via fireplace, Harry Potter--style, the only way I'm getting from Tokyo to New York City is in aircraft that may emit more than 5,200 lbs. (about 2,400 kg) of carbon per passenger, round-trip, according to one estimate. On an individual level, you can try to make your flight carbon neutral by donating to, say, a forestry project that will soak up the greenhouse gases you have created. An increasing number of airlines and travel agents do offer such options. The London-based CarbonNeutral Company reports that requests for carbon offsetting from individual travelers have jumped over the past six months. But the still tiny number of neutralized flights can hardly compensate for the rapid increases in global air travel.

So is grounding ourselves the only answer? That seems to be the conclusion of environmentalists in Britain, who also went after Prime Minister Tony Blair for a recent holiday trip to Miami. Though Blair belatedly promised to begin offsetting his leisure travel, he insisted that telling people to fly less was simply impractical--and he's probably right. Some environmentalists suggest that we could learn to live more locally, but good luck keeping them in Brighton after they've seen Beijing--and vice versa. Our best bet for now may be to limit any business and leisure flights that we can and offset the rest. So when you're pondering that luxury Swiss vacation, ask yourself: What would Prince Charles do?