Extract from the My Clean Sky Submission
to the North QUeensland Tourism Awards, 2009.
North Queensland has a fantastic biological diversity made up by rangelands, wetlands, tropical rainforests and coral reefs. The latter of these two natural features rainforests and reef, draw huge numbers of tourist from all over the world. Most of these visitors fly into North Queensland.
Jet fuel used to power the airliners, is made of kerosene. When it is burnt in a jet engine, kerosene breaks down into carbon di-oxide and water vapor. The water vapor is often visible as a long white trail behind the plane, called a contrail. On the other hand, the carbon di-oxide is invisible. It is nonetheless, a greenhouse gas – a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. As such, CO2 contributes to global warming, which is leading to climate change.
Climate change is a natural phenomena. However, humans have greatly exacerbated the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere and this has increased the natural variability of the climate. In turn, this is threatening to destroy many important ecosystems including rainforests and coral reefs.
This is the Environmental Tourism Paradox. Through the use of fossil fuels for transport, tourists who come to experience the rainforests and reefs accelerate the destruction of the things they come to enjoy.
This is information is not overtly communicated, but it is nonetheless a fundamental and inconvenient truth of the North Queensland tourism industry. Fortunately, there is a way out of this paradox: My Clean Sky.
A tourism experience is not a physical manifestation, such as purchasing something might be. Is an emotional and experiential endeavour. A tourist returning home brings with them things they have purchased on their trip, however, it is the memories of the trip that are the greatest part of the tourism experience. It is the memories that define the quality of the holiday. The memories are many and interconnected relating to all of the things that the tourist saw, heard, discussed, considered and thought about during the trip.
My Clean Sky seeks to add a new line item in the memory list of people who visit North Queensland. By offsetting their air travel CO2 emissions, the travellers are able to purposefully mitigate the global warming impacts of their air travel and thus break the back of the Environmental Tourism Paradox.
This leaves the traveller with a feeling of having done something that protected the very experience that they came to visit. Furthermore, the detailed information about air travel and the environment on the My Clean Sky website, will permit the users of the service to learn about the subject. In particular, the My Clean Sky website educates the public about:
- Air travel emissions including how they are formed
- The atmosphere and impact of increased CO2
- The history of the aviation industry
- Sustainable aviation including biological fuels and solar planes
Given that air travel forms the beginning and the end of an overseas holiday, this is particularly relevant information. It is also likely to be the only source of carbon emissions on the trip for which these is an option to offset. Carbon emissions are an integral part of modern life and will be for as long as our society is powered by fossil fuels. A traveler returning home from the Great Barrier Reef who has offset their air travel emissions can claim that the CO2 impact of the air trip has been neutralized. However, the same cannot be said for the CO2 emissions from the taxis to and from the airport, the coach trip up the range to the markets, the energy consumed on the cable car or the ferry to the reef, or the hotel room, or the cup of coffee at the café on the Strand.
It is possible to calculate the CO2 impact of each of these elements and to offset them. However, it is because air travel is by far the largest component of the CO2 footprint of travel, and is relatively easy t calculate and to retail the offset, that My Clean Sky specializes in calculating and offsetting air travel and air travel alone.
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