Travel pollution

There are many ways to go from here to there. And the mode of transportation we choose can have a big impact. It can affect time, comfort and cost. But how we travel can also have a big impact on the planet. Airplanes are about 3% of total global climate emissions. Business travel is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Travel accounts for an average 15% to 20% of a business’s total emissions, reaching as high as 80% for service business. Carbon pollution from aviation is the fastest-growing source of the greenhouse gas emissions driving global climate change. 

• Short-haul air travel by regional flights of less than 300 miles, create the most carbon emissions because of the high fuel consumption during takeoffs and landings. 
• Planes also emit carbon dioxide directly into the earth’s upper atmosphere, making it especially harmful.
• Trains use 50% less fuel per passenger than planes for the same trips.
• Bus travel emits less carbon dioxide than trains on short and long trips.
• On longer trips of more than 700 miles, train and plane emissions per passenger are comparable. Bus travel is still the greenest option. 
• Solo car travel is the biggest culprit when it comes to emissions, producing nearly twice that of trains and three to four times that of buses.
• Reducing unnecessary trips, using buses, eliminating solo car travel minimizes carbon emissions.

Driving a car solo has the same basic climate impact as taking an 80% full plane flight a similar distance. It pays to carpool. Trains and buses have an average occupancy of only 40%. If the plane is full, it beats the solo car. If your travel is fully booked, the diesel bus comes out on top, followed by the high-speed train, the car with three people in it, then the medium aircraft. Environmentally speaking, the growth of air transport is not desirable. It can be good if people use their cars less and use train or bus rather than taking the plane instead.

Environmentally speaking - train is the best, followed by bus , then car with 3-4 persons, then solo car and lastly air travel. Business & First class air travel is 3-6 times burdensome on both costs and emissions.

Tourism's negative effects

Travel and tourism is one of the world's largest industries. There are 1 billion tourist arrivals in the world every year. This industry generates one out of ten jobs worldwide. In 2015, travel and tourism constituted 9.8% ($7.2 trillion) of the world’s GDP. Tourism is usually regarded as a boon to a region’s economy. Tourism brings prosperity to the region and provides employment to the locals of the region. When tourism becomes unsustainable, it can have disastrous consequences on the environment. Tourism can cause all kinds of environmental issues from roadside garbage to polluted water to ugly beaches covered in flotsam and jetsam. It might be the locals doing the littering but they are only a part of the problem. 

• Tourism brings jobs, investment and economic benefits to destinations. But overtourism occurs when tourism expansion fails to acknowledge that there are limits. 
• Tourism is a fascinating, invisible export industry. Tourism inevitably brings with it environmental and cultural degradation. Tourism can disrupt or destroy ecosystems and environments.
• Tourism adversely impacts the environment by producing massive amounts of pollution. Increased movement of people across the globe (1186 million international tourist arrivals in 2015 up from 25 million in 1950), means that transport by plane, car, and train is continuously expanding. Air travel for tourism is responsible for a substantial part of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. A single transatlantic return flight emits almost half the CO2 emissions produced by all other sources consumed by an average person yearly. 
• Extreme differences of wealth and lifestyle between locals and tourists in some areas can cause resentment.
• Tourists often, out of ignorance or carelessness, fail to respect local customs and moral values causing irritation and stereotyping.
• Drug and alcohol abuse is one of the biggest problems facing the tourist’s hot spots around the world. Prostitution is rampant in places where the tourists arrive in hordes.
• The commercial sexual exploitation of children and young women has paralleled the growth of tourism in many parts of the world. Though tourism is not the cause of sexual exploitation, it provides easy access to it.
• Tourism leads to loss of traditional jobs when workers move from farming, fishery, mining etc to service jobs in tourism.
• Tourism often leads to overuse of water. Golf courses require a lot of water daily and an average golf course in a tropical country such as Thailand needs 1500 kg of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides per year and uses as much water as 60,000 rural villagers.
• Tourism contributes to more than 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Tourists as a group consume a tremendous amount of natural resources and produce an equally tremendous amount of waste.  
• The 'mega resort'  has been one of the most economically successful and environmentally destructive additions to the tourism industry.  Large corporate owned resorts rarely give back to the local communities on which they depend and thrive.  Only lower level positions such as maids, cooks, waiters, and bellhops are available to the local residents while upper level and management positions are reserved for corporate immigrants. 
• Large resorts are very rarely environmentally friendly, and in turn do not normally attract an environmentally conscious clientele. 
• Overtourism is defined as the excessive growth of visitors leading to overcrowding in areas where residents suffer the consequences of temporary and seasonal tourism peaks, which have enforced permanent changes to their lifestyles, access to amenities and general well-being. 
• Overtourism is a symptom of the present era of unprecedented affluence and hyper mobility, a consequence of late capitalism.
• Overtourism harms the landscape, damages beaches, puts infrastructure under enormous strain, and pricing residents out of the property market. 
• If tourist arrivals to a destination decline suddenly and dramatically it would likely have considerable economic repercussions for those who rely on them. Prioritising the welfare of local residents above the needs of the global tourism supply chain is vital.

Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin - Bruce Chatwin

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