The New York Times really, really wants you to behave yourself environmentally on your travels this summer. In March the paper published “How to Have a Green Vacation.” Come May (for those who may not have been paying sufficient attention in March) the Times published “Greening Your Summer Vacation.”
Here’s how the March article began: “With the United Nations designating 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, there has never been a better time . . .”
Here’s how the May article began: “The United Nations has proclaimed 2017 the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development with a goal of promoting . . .”
Not that everything in each of the articles was the same. In March the “director of sustainability for the luxury travel network Virtuoso” chirped, “Being greener on vacation doesn’t take a lot of effort . . .” Come May, “the executive director of the Center for Responsible Travel” warned, “The problem with doing responsible travel trips is that it does take a little bit of work.”
What kind of work? In March the Times was recommending you search out places such as the Three Camel Lodge in Mongolia, “which composts its kitchen waste for use in a solar greenhouse producing fresh ingredients for the restaurant.” In May the Times recommended you search out places such as Lapa Rios in Costa Rica, where “pigs are fed restaurant scraps and produce the biogas that fuels some of the cooking stoves.”
In March the Times urged its readers to “Say ‘No’ to Plastic Water Bottles.” In May the Times pointed readers to remote resorts that ban “plastic bottles and drinking straws.”
In March the Times said to enjoy “meals that emphasize local ingredients.” In May the Times said to patronize tour companies “staffed by locals.” So, if The Scrapbook has this right, one should avoid eating at a Bangladeshi-staffed Kentucky Fried Chicken in Dubai—we think we can manage that.
But how do you manage to get to some plastic-free, jungle yurt where pig flatulence fuels the kitchen stoves without first assaulting the environment by getting on an airplane, with all the carbon-burning that entails? In March, the Times said, if you have to fly, “pick nonstop flights” and be sure to “use a reputable carbon offset provider.” In May, the Times quoted an expert that one should “try to travel on nonstops” and then be sure to buy carbon offsets.
If environmentalism is a sort of religion, as has often been suggested, then it strikes us that carbon offsets are a kind of indulgence—a way for the rich to buy off the guilt of their sins. But we expect that when the next article on green travel appears in the New York Times, the suggestion that one buy a carbon offset will be made again. After all, when it comes to reporting on the environment, the Times sure does know how to recycle.
