A futurist decarbonizes his professional travel in 2024: problems and options

How can we travel without contributing to global warming?

I’ve been considering this problem for a while at the institutional and macro levels, as I researched climate change and higher education’s future. I’ve also mulled it for myself, thinking of how to decarbonize my professional travel, mostly recently in 2022. Since then I’ve made some changes and also hit some obstacles, and want to share where things have ended up today.

Two quick introductory notes: first, for context, I live in Manassas, Virginia, right near Washington, DC. I have traveled extensively for professional reasons, heading to locations to give presentations, lead workshops, facilitate or be in meetings, work conferences, conduct research, and so on. This has led me throughout the United States and to every continent except Antarctica. I am also a very busy person who does a lot of work online, which means I need to travel quickly and/or with opportunities to work.

Second, some people have told me not to bother analyzing and redesigning my travel, the main argument being I’m just one person with a statistically infinitesimal impact on the globe. This is true on the face of it, but I’m otherwise unconvinced. The obvious counterargument is that the climate crisis is a civilization-wide thing, an all of the above, all hands on deck kind of event. Everyone gets to participate and should. Moreover, and perhaps vainly, I hope I can stir some discussion with this…