RE: Individual Responsibility Vs Corporate: Should You Really Be Boarding Your Next Flight to Bali?
I've thought a lot about the flying too and some of my friends who really do care about climate change and do pay a carbon offset, but it does seem a bit ludicrous to tell yourself that the offset is/will be enough.
Perhaps, a better plan would be each person only allowed one flight per year and those who are making daily flights for business would have to find a better way, or buy theirs from people who aren't going to use theirs? I know, that's never going to happen....I'm just dreaming up silly solutions.
So, I'm not so sure what we do? Like you, I've learned much traveling and appreciate the world more, but also don't fly that often. I'm trying not to participate as much in corporate culture and that means earning less money in order to do more important things (like garden and give time to my community) so in doing that I have less money to buy plane tickets ;)
Girl after own heart. I love the one flight per year idea and swaps/sells if you cant fly that year or choose not to. Lets be dictators together. Xx
Yes, lets :P
Sorry, I got distracted yesterday and wanted to respond to other parts of your great comment too. I am doing the Deepak Chopra Abundance challenge, as naff as that sounds, and though I'm a few days behind and know a lot of the ideas he's espousing, it has reinforced for me how I get so bound up with the money culture even though I KNOW it doesn't equate to happiness. We don't live beyond our means, don't have a huge mortgage or expensive cars, and like you say, I earn less to contribute more to the world by doing more important things! And I want to do more - I just have to let go of that nervous feeling of not having enough - and one of those things is flights. It's hard when your husband is British too and you kinda HAVE to have that money stashed for flights to go back once or twice every couple of years. But we'll figure it out I'm sure - step one is working less and earning less. @riverflows xx
The abundance challenge sounds like a great idea :)
Like everyone else, I enjoy nice things and some of the experiences that money can bring and there are times that I notice having less, but that's when comparing and there are always those with much less too. I've somehow always had enough and some of the times when we've had the least we've experienced the greatest joy in the smallest of gifts and/or experiences. One Christmas we were particularly impoverished after I'd quit my job and my then husband made less money than I had and someone decided to be our secret Santa bringing a count down of food dishes, knick-knacks and small surprises for every day of the month of December culminating with a card and fifty dollars! If I remember right, it was just enough to pay off a bill and might has well have been $50,000 at that point in our lives :)