Greener Walt Disney World: An Earth Friendly Guide

I am told that airline flights are among the fastest growing sources of global warming gases. Our trip in August will include a return transatlantic flight of 8,455 miles. Each one of us will add about a ton and a half of CO2 to the atmosphere. Obviously, the greenest option is not to fly at all -- I could sell my Disney Vacation Club points and holiday much closer to home ... but I love Walt Disney World!

So, this year, part of my Disney-obsessed vacation planning took the form of investigating ways to help the environment in exchange for us taking those flights. A fitting choice seemed to be to offset the CO2 from our flights, so I began checking out various web sites. It transpired that a friend and colleague of mine is a regular transatlantic Disney-goer too! He'll be in Orlando again this year and has already offset the carbon emission for his flights. He knows what he is talking about, too. He's an architect who specializes in environmental design, so he understands the issues behind carbon emissions and climate change and the effects that we can have on the environment in our day-to-day lives. I asked him to explain the technology behind my proposed solution.

In an ideal world we'd be able to hop across the 'pond' in aircraft that gave out no emissions, but we live in the real world so have to be a little bit more imaginative in our approach. Carbon offsetting is one of those imaginative approaches and one that a 'light' green like me can get behind. It's still a bit controversial because it doesn't stop harmful emissions taking place, but it does invest money in technologies and projects to counteract (or offset) those emissions.

Living With The Land
A beautiful Lily Pond. - photo by BettyBeBop