Sunday, March 23, 2008
Tourist Apology
I'm not just traveling in Florida - I'm vacationing. I'm more lazy, more focused on comfort, and more willing to let my principles slip for convenience. I'm also traveling with my family - they don't want to wait for me to sift through online food listings for local, slow, or green offerings. They're willing to get a cheaper hotel even if it means we have to drive further to almost any destination. They don't worry about taking long showers, or making sure the lights are off in the hotel room.And they prefer to drive than walk, to powerboat than paddle. Just like me, they're mindset is one of play and indulgence.
To make matters worse, I'm also away from my natural environment - the minimalist lifestyle I've carefully crafted over the years. At home I can bike or ride to work because of residential choices I've made. I know exactly where to go to get the healthiest food - both from stores and from restaurants. Even my sailboat purchase was a balance between convenience and environmental impact.
Now, I know what you're saying - and you're right - with the right amount of preparation I could have constructed a minimalist vacation. I could have started to socialize my family members on choices, taken a bigger role in planning our events, and I could have worked harder to identify and control more aspects of our experience.
But I didn't. So now the line between what is easy and what takes effort has moved away from my baseline. Instead of taking up the slack between my standards and those of the mainstream consumer society in which I find myself, I'm just going with the Florida norm. And I'm not impressed.
Let's start with food: fish (including sea bass) is still offered in restaurants with little indication of origin or method of capture. No mention is made of organic - let alone local - food, including Florida's domestic wine. Most convenience stores offer the same mass-produced junk you see anywhere in America. Even if there are some businesses that are focused on these issues, the issues themselves aren't important enough for businesses to address them - even with small steps.
Trash is another pet-peeve: neither the convenience stores nor the hotel where I am staying offer recycling bins (let alone a composting bin). At an upscale shopping area in North Naples, I was horrified to see a plastic bag floating right next to posh boats and condos. Even the beach was tarnished - I couldn't walk fifteen feet without seeing cigarette butts and random paper trash tucked into the bushes.
Transportation is also problematic: while this part of Florida has some of the best maintained roads I've seen anywhere in the United States, the mass transit options seem very limited - in all the travel literature I read about popular destinations I only saw options that targeted larger groups, not smaller families. While I saw a lot of bikes in downtown Naples, I couldn't imagine trying to navigate Highway 41 from my hotel down to any of the places I'd like to each or shop.
But not everything is negative - I was lucky enough to stumble on a recent news report that lists local establishments that are making strides to recycle. Everglades National Park has recycling containers, bike tours, and kayak rentals. The grocery chain Publix offers small - but clearly labeled - organic food sections. They also have a beautifully appointed spread of fresh seafood that was labeled to indicate the country of origin. Even more impressive, the grocer in charge of the display even knew which items came from Florida (mussels, clams, pink shrimp, and grouper). I even found a restaurant that is unabashedly organic without being strictly vegetarian - but they close too early (7:30) for our feeding schedule.
I talked about this dilemma with GG - she just happened to be passing by Naples today - as we walked along the beach and enjoyed a warm, stormy sunset. After tossing a few ideas around, we realized that tourists present as much an opportunity for a sustainable Florida as they do a challenge. What if every rental car included complimentary fabric grocery bags and the road maps included recycling drop-off points? What if travel websites had an indicator for which hotels had met sustainability benchmarks or carried sustainability certifications? What if every hotel provided a condensed, updated list of local establishments that met environmental standards?
Notice that most of these ideas incorporate current resources - many grocery stores offer fabric bags for sale. Florida does have a small (but growing) list of certified hotels. And there are many independent sites that track local foods, recycling resources, and transportation alternatives. The key is to make these resources easier to incorporate into the existing tourism infrastructure. I believe that while individual businesses play an important part by pursuing initiatives out of self-interest, I think that a broader effort on part of the official tourism organizations to integrate and expose these innovations to "mainstream" tourists is probably the best way to provide a beneficial feedback loop. And that's exactly what GG and I are hoping to support by writing this blog.
One final note: I'm not absolving anyone (including myself) of personal responsibility. The links above reflect (a small amount of) research I should have done as part of my vacation planning, not as a token post-facto attempt at satisfying my own guilt. Any mistakes, oversights, and outright inaccuracies are my own - which just shows how difficult it is for a modern tourist to wade through volumes of information and effective, rational decisions.
To make matters worse, I'm also away from my natural environment - the minimalist lifestyle I've carefully crafted over the years. At home I can bike or ride to work because of residential choices I've made. I know exactly where to go to get the healthiest food - both from stores and from restaurants. Even my sailboat purchase was a balance between convenience and environmental impact.
Now, I know what you're saying - and you're right - with the right amount of preparation I could have constructed a minimalist vacation. I could have started to socialize my family members on choices, taken a bigger role in planning our events, and I could have worked harder to identify and control more aspects of our experience.
But I didn't. So now the line between what is easy and what takes effort has moved away from my baseline. Instead of taking up the slack between my standards and those of the mainstream consumer society in which I find myself, I'm just going with the Florida norm. And I'm not impressed.
Let's start with food: fish (including sea bass) is still offered in restaurants with little indication of origin or method of capture. No mention is made of organic - let alone local - food, including Florida's domestic wine. Most convenience stores offer the same mass-produced junk you see anywhere in America. Even if there are some businesses that are focused on these issues, the issues themselves aren't important enough for businesses to address them - even with small steps.
Trash is another pet-peeve: neither the convenience stores nor the hotel where I am staying offer recycling bins (let alone a composting bin). At an upscale shopping area in North Naples, I was horrified to see a plastic bag floating right next to posh boats and condos. Even the beach was tarnished - I couldn't walk fifteen feet without seeing cigarette butts and random paper trash tucked into the bushes.
Transportation is also problematic: while this part of Florida has some of the best maintained roads I've seen anywhere in the United States, the mass transit options seem very limited - in all the travel literature I read about popular destinations I only saw options that targeted larger groups, not smaller families. While I saw a lot of bikes in downtown Naples, I couldn't imagine trying to navigate Highway 41 from my hotel down to any of the places I'd like to each or shop.
But not everything is negative - I was lucky enough to stumble on a recent news report that lists local establishments that are making strides to recycle. Everglades National Park has recycling containers, bike tours, and kayak rentals. The grocery chain Publix offers small - but clearly labeled - organic food sections. They also have a beautifully appointed spread of fresh seafood that was labeled to indicate the country of origin. Even more impressive, the grocer in charge of the display even knew which items came from Florida (mussels, clams, pink shrimp, and grouper). I even found a restaurant that is unabashedly organic without being strictly vegetarian - but they close too early (7:30) for our feeding schedule.
I talked about this dilemma with GG - she just happened to be passing by Naples today - as we walked along the beach and enjoyed a warm, stormy sunset. After tossing a few ideas around, we realized that tourists present as much an opportunity for a sustainable Florida as they do a challenge. What if every rental car included complimentary fabric grocery bags and the road maps included recycling drop-off points? What if travel websites had an indicator for which hotels had met sustainability benchmarks or carried sustainability certifications? What if every hotel provided a condensed, updated list of local establishments that met environmental standards?
Notice that most of these ideas incorporate current resources - many grocery stores offer fabric bags for sale. Florida does have a small (but growing) list of certified hotels. And there are many independent sites that track local foods, recycling resources, and transportation alternatives. The key is to make these resources easier to incorporate into the existing tourism infrastructure. I believe that while individual businesses play an important part by pursuing initiatives out of self-interest, I think that a broader effort on part of the official tourism organizations to integrate and expose these innovations to "mainstream" tourists is probably the best way to provide a beneficial feedback loop. And that's exactly what GG and I are hoping to support by writing this blog.
One final note: I'm not absolving anyone (including myself) of personal responsibility. The links above reflect (a small amount of) research I should have done as part of my vacation planning, not as a token post-facto attempt at satisfying my own guilt. Any mistakes, oversights, and outright inaccuracies are my own - which just shows how difficult it is for a modern tourist to wade through volumes of information and effective, rational decisions.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Thoughts That Keep Me Awake
I love Diet Dr. Pepper. I don't love the fact that I tend to go right for the 20 oz. plastic bottle instead of the smaller can. I love even less that I have yet to see a convenience store that offers recycling bins for either type of container.
The Drive
At the rental car counter in the Tampa airport, I asked if there were any hybrids and/or flex fuel vehicles available. I really expected a blank stare, but the lady behind the counter actually did a search on the computer before letting my hopes down. Apparently there are a few Prius vehicles in the fleet, but none were in at the moment.
Before we headed south to Naples, the family (my mom and my sisters) decided they wanted a nice place for dinner. We ended up at J. Alexander's. The waiter was new and we were hungry, so instead of my typical Guantanamo-inspired interrogation as to the origins of the fish on the menu, I simply ordered four sides as part of the vegetable plate: Mac 'n cheese, baked beans, mashed potatoes and cole slaw. All yummy, and way too much food. So of course we ordered dessert - warm cheese cream on the carrot cake was the best (although Key Lime was a hit with my sisters).
The drive down was good until about thirty minutes outside of Naples - we ran into the construction/traffic accident bottleneck that seems so common anytime any serious road repair happens on Florida byways. We ended up idling our way through a five mile stretch. Fourty minutes later, we were back again at highway speed, only to run into yet another stretch where traffic slowed to a crawl, merged, and then sped back up.
Is there really an effective approach to the kind of fuel waste (let alone environmental impact) that occurs during chronic traffic delays? I also can't ignore the impact I have - as a tourist - on traffic patterns, road expansion (more asphalt, less trees), and specific fuel consumption. As I get ready to sleep in my nicely air conditioned hotel room, I'm left with one nagging question: what if I had paid the extra money to fly right into Naples?
Before we headed south to Naples, the family (my mom and my sisters) decided they wanted a nice place for dinner. We ended up at J. Alexander's. The waiter was new and we were hungry, so instead of my typical Guantanamo-inspired interrogation as to the origins of the fish on the menu, I simply ordered four sides as part of the vegetable plate: Mac 'n cheese, baked beans, mashed potatoes and cole slaw. All yummy, and way too much food. So of course we ordered dessert - warm cheese cream on the carrot cake was the best (although Key Lime was a hit with my sisters).
The drive down was good until about thirty minutes outside of Naples - we ran into the construction/traffic accident bottleneck that seems so common anytime any serious road repair happens on Florida byways. We ended up idling our way through a five mile stretch. Fourty minutes later, we were back again at highway speed, only to run into yet another stretch where traffic slowed to a crawl, merged, and then sped back up.
Is there really an effective approach to the kind of fuel waste (let alone environmental impact) that occurs during chronic traffic delays? I also can't ignore the impact I have - as a tourist - on traffic patterns, road expansion (more asphalt, less trees), and specific fuel consumption. As I get ready to sleep in my nicely air conditioned hotel room, I'm left with one nagging question: what if I had paid the extra money to fly right into Naples?
Florida Green Dreams
GG asked me to share my perspective on being a tourist in Florida who sees things through an environmentalist/minimalist bent. Two minutes into the Tampa airport and I'm already asking myself if the beautiful, airy terminals are worth the amount of air conditioning necessary to cool down such empty space? If they teach us in business school that saving a dollar adds more to the bottom-line then making a dollar in sales, then I'm going to assume that translates to efficiency and conservation.
Not that I expect anyone is going to tear down the terminal...
Not that I expect anyone is going to tear down the terminal...
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Ditch the Hitchhiking and Share a Ride
While walking or riding a bike to the office is a good thing for the environment and your body, it's not often feasible. The next best thing is to carpool. Fewer cars on the roads mean fewer carbons polluting the air.
Don't have a co-worker you're willing to share a ride with? Find a ride-pal over at eRideShare.com, a free service connecting commuters.
What's the VISIT FLORIDA office doing? VFg3's research indicated nearly 50% of the staff said they'd carpool to work. During Green Launch Week in January, a groovy carpool ride board was posted in the employee break room with high expectations. Sadly, no one has connected.
On the plus side, the Green Team committee, which evolved from the VFg3 project, will evaluate this and other issues in converting the VF offices to more environmentally responsible workplace.
Personally, I'd like to see the proposal of a 4-day work-week considered. Four days in the office means fewer cars on the road and reduced energy consumption in the office. Wonder how that proposition will go over...
Don't have a co-worker you're willing to share a ride with? Find a ride-pal over at eRideShare.com, a free service connecting commuters.
What's the VISIT FLORIDA office doing? VFg3's research indicated nearly 50% of the staff said they'd carpool to work. During Green Launch Week in January, a groovy carpool ride board was posted in the employee break room with high expectations. Sadly, no one has connected.
On the plus side, the Green Team committee, which evolved from the VFg3 project, will evaluate this and other issues in converting the VF offices to more environmentally responsible workplace.
Personally, I'd like to see the proposal of a 4-day work-week considered. Four days in the office means fewer cars on the road and reduced energy consumption in the office. Wonder how that proposition will go over...
Monday, March 17, 2008
Can You Really Have a Green Vacation in Florida?
G.G.'s been touting how easy it is to have a green vacation in Florida but what happens when we put theories to the test? Is it really easy to have a green Florida vacation? I mean, I had an awesome time in Pensacola last December, but that really wasn't a vacation, that was a staff retreat. (Here she is birdwatching with some of the VF crew.)
Soon enough, we'll be having a guest blogger sharing his spring break vaca to sunny Florida and all the green vacation opportunities he finds (and by green, I don't mean margaritas). Stay tuned!
Friday, March 14, 2008
Green Passport Launched During ITB in Berlin Last Week
Still not convinced traveling green is easy to do? The United Nations Environment Programme launched the Green Passport during ITB in Berlin last week. The Green Passport is designed to create global consumer awareness about the impact made when traveling. The Passport offers easy to follow green tips for travelers planning a vacation (or "holiday," as you non-Americans prefer).
The Passport is divided into different sections, depending on the vacation planning process. There's information about planning a green vacation, how to get there, getting around once there, how to act while there and what to do upon returning home. Site visitors can also submit their own green travel tips.
Have I mentioned how easy it is to use this Passport?
See! Traveling green isn't that hard.
The Passport is divided into different sections, depending on the vacation planning process. There's information about planning a green vacation, how to get there, getting around once there, how to act while there and what to do upon returning home. Site visitors can also submit their own green travel tips.
Have I mentioned how easy it is to use this Passport?
See! Traveling green isn't that hard.
Monday, March 10, 2008
T-Shirt Bags are a Green Good Thing
Attending numerous conferences means I accumulate numerous t-shirts and conference bags. I keep the groovy ones, some are given to friends and family and others are donated to Goodwill. But what about making something useful out of those t-shirts?
Check out Martha Stewart to see what she and her team have come up with, a t-shirt converted into a shopping bag! Now that's a green good thing. (BTW - fast forward through the part about gourds to see the green t-shirt bag).
Check out Martha Stewart to see what she and her team have come up with, a t-shirt converted into a shopping bag! Now that's a green good thing. (BTW - fast forward through the part about gourds to see the green t-shirt bag).
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