Environmentally friendly traveling doesn't stop with your hotel: It may come as a shock to some Americans, but many eco-advocates overseas have encouraged would-be flyers to give up air travel completely, due to the carbon dioxide emissions that are a necessary by-product of flying. (The release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is considered the leading cause of global warming.)

"When we first started doing posts on [limiting air travel], the reaction was just incredulous," says Lloyd Alter, a Toronto-based correspondent for the Web site www.Treehugger.com, which covers environmental issues. "What readers told us then was, the U.S. is a really big country, and you need to fly.'" As an example of a radically different perspective, Alter points to Barbara Haddrill, a British bridesmaid making the 10,000-mile trip from her home in Wales to her best friend's wedding in Brisbane, Australia, by land and sea. The flight, she calculates, would have "cost" 3.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, while her revised trip will produce only 1.65 metric tons. For a slightly less exacting rule of thumb, Maschman recommends traveling by train for trips of less than 500 miles, or if necessary, driving—and carpooling whenever possible.

Want to help the environment—but still need to fly? One way to deal with this is through carbon neutralizing, a system that's generally well regarded overseas but has yet to make many inroads here. Basically, you measure the carbon costs of your trip, and offset them with a donation to an organization like the Oxford, U.K.-based Climate Care, which then channels the money into carbon-reduction programs. A calculator at its Web site reports that a round-trip flight from San Francisco to London would cost 2.47 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions—offset by a donation of about $35.

"We're a repair service for your carbon dioxide emissions," says Tom Morton, Climate Care's director. "So you make carbon dioxide emissions and pay an amount of money, and then we use that to fund new projects." Those programs include a recent initiative to put 10,000 energy-saving light bulbs into homes in the Marshall Islands, a country fueled entirely by imported oil. Morton sees the transaction as a relatively easy way to offset some of the costs of traveling—without giving it up altogether, or pedaling your way to Disney World. "A lot of environmentalism has been about going back to the cave, which has put a lot of people off," Morton says. "This is about making a positive choice, and giving people something realistic but meaningful they can actually do."

"People feel like if something's green, it's granola," echoes the Orchard Garden Hotel's Muhle. "When electric cars first came on the market, they looked doughy, and it wasn't until the recent hybrids that people started buying them. When we started building this hotel, we wanted to build a three- or four-star hotel, and we weren't willing to sacrifice any of the luxuries." Consider the Orchard Garden project as an object lesson in the splendor of green travel: Come opening day, the hotel will offer its guests all the expected amenities, from Egyptian cotton sheets to flat-panel TVs. The one thing it will lack is a traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony, even as San Francisco's mayor is expected to attend. Instead of cutting the ribbon, Muhle says, hotel staff will plant a tree.

Source :- MSN