02 Dec
The Great Canadian Mileage Run 2005
Marc Tacchi’s The Great Canadian Mileage Run 2005 - He buys a $7000 60-day aeroplane ticket, flies on 56 of those days and clocks up more than 1 million miles. This qualifies him as million-mile Air Canada flier and they give him $70,000 of business class flights as a reward. More info [via]
I posted a comment on the blog of that guy who flew 1 Million Miles for the sake of it. I don’t know how long it will stay up there, but I’d like to share it with you.
Perhaps you’ll agree with my viewpoint that flying 1 Million Miles for the sake of it is terribly irresponsible, from an environmental standpoint.
Some of the statistics below might shock you. Read on below…
My comment to the 1 Million Mile Flyer:
In working toward your goal of clocking 1 Million Miles of air travel within 60 days, you have been directly responsible for the burning of a disproportionately large amount of fossil fuel for one person, and the release of a huge volume of CO2 gas – a climate-forcing gas derived from the burning of a non-renewable fuel, the overconsumption of which is pushing the world closer and closer toward a global energy crisis.
Based on a calculation provided by http://www.carbonfund.org I have estimated that your 1,003,625 miles of air travel have caused the release of:
290.8 Metric Tons of atmospheric carbon
Atmosfair is an agency which offers individuals the chance to offset their carbon emissions from air travel by investing in carbon sequestration projects around the world. Based on their calculations, your impact from flying the 1 Million Miles is roughly equivalent to driving a middle class model car for 145 years, an average of 12,000 km per year.
In 1998, the EPA estimated that the average Canadian citizen was responsible for 17 Tons of CO2 gas released yearly. In only 60 days, you managed to clock 17 times that many tons of carbon.
Now as you do, I live in Vancouver, and I know that residents of the rainy coast are some of the most environmentally conscious people in Canada. I find it hard to believe that a Vancouverite like yourself would find himself responsible for such a huge sum of carbon emissions and not feel responsible to invest in a carbon sequestration program or two to help offset his direct emissions. The David Suzuki Foundation website has a long list of links to carbon offseting programs; I suggest you start there. If you would like to meet in Vancouver to talk about some of your options I would be happy to hear about your travels and to suggest ways that you can become Carbon Neutral.
December 3rd, 2005 at 10:17 am