Tourism

vs

Climate Change

How tourism can improve society and slow down climate change

This website is an extention of the book Tourism vs Climate Change. The purpose of this website and the book is to show that travel and tourism aren’t just unnecessary leisure activities which need to be reduced to prevent climate change.
Traveling has allowed us to interact with different cultures and environments. Traveling has helped to create the safest multicultural society in human history.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic tourism was the third biggest industry in the world. It provided more than 10% of the world population with a job, while its carbon footprint was only 8%.
Now our World Economy is badly damaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, but sustainable tourism might be able to help. Tourism can be used as a sustainable tool to spread the wealth of stronger economies more equally among the people who live in weaker economies. When done right tourism will not only help to make our economy more equal and multiracial, but even greener!

If you want to read more about the relationship between tourism, society and climate change, I can recommend to buy our book Tourism vs Climate Change. Besides being informative, your purchase will also help to maintain this website up to date!

Tourism vs Climate Change, buy the book

The index of Tourism vs Climate Change:

Foreword

Ch. 1 How it all started
1.1 Definition of tourism
1.2 The first travel agencies
1.3 Modern-day tourism

Ch. 2 A closer look at the tourist industry
2.1 Industries related to tourism
2.2 How big is the total tourist industry?
2.3 Seven different forms of tourism

Ch. 3 What is Climate Change?
3.1 Climate change through human activity
3.2 The greenhouse effect
3.3 What is carbon dioxide?
3.4 Earth’s natural carbon cycle
3.5 The history of Earth’s atmosphere
3.6 Carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas
3.7 What are greenhouse gases?

Ch. 4 How to reduce climate change and why now?
4.1 The Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement
4.2 Our Carbon Budget
4.3 Representative Concentration Pathways
4.4 Shared Socio-economic Pathways
4.5 Shared Socio-economic Pathways in detail

Ch. 5 Popular ideas to fight climate change
5.1 Change our diet
5.2 Artificial food
5.3 Sustainable livestock farming
5.4 Seawater Greenhouse
5.5 Renewables

Ch. 6 Influence of tourism on the environment, economy, culture, and social life
6.1 In short: the environmental impact of tourism
6.2 Economic impact of tourism
6.3 Cultural impact of tourism
6.4 Social impact of tourism

Ch. 7 How tourism contributes to global greenhouse gas emission
7.1 The greenhouse gas emission of tourism in perspective
7.2 To travel or not to travel, that is the question
7.3 The rebound effect
7.4 The plane is taking off anyway
7.5 The responsibility for carbon footprints

Ch. 8 Negative effects of tourism on the environment
8.1 It isn’t only greenhouse gas pollution
8.2 No place is off the tourism circuit
8.3 Mass tourism
8.4 Mass tourism and resorts
8.5 Some specific problems of mass tourism
8.6 The impact of Eco Lodges
8.7 Spiritual tourism and the abuse of cultural traditions
8.8 Negative effects of volunteer tourism
8.9 Ecological farms
8.10 Tourism strain on infrastructure
8.11 The Lifecycle of tourism

Ch. 9 The relationship between poverty and our environment
9.1 An exceptional story about reducing poverty

Ch. 10 The tourist industry as an economic development tool
10.1 Three major economic sectors
10.2 Income Distribution Effect and employment
10.3 Elements of supply and demand

Ch. 11 Local communities and tourism
11.1 The many challenges surrounding community tourism
11.2 Dependency
11.3 They’re rich and we’re poor
11.4 Different expectations
11.5 The bias of communities against tour agencies
11.6 NGOs versus travel agencies
11.7 Care versus Tropic
11.8 Green-washing
11.9 A problem resulting from capitalism
11.10 Tourist expectations and reality
11.11 Should the remote communities learn English?
11.12 Are local communities able to organize tourism?
11.13 Mutual advantages of long term partnerships

Ch. 12 The importance of tourism on a global scale
12.1 The first example: advantage of tourism on the Galapagos
12.2 Conservation in the Ecuadorian Amazon
12.3 Gene exchange as a result of traveling
12.4 Traveling and viruses
12.5 Social benefits of traveling and tourism
12.6 Tourism can create a better mutual understanding and avoid conflict
12.7 The Fauzi Azar Inn
12.8 Traveling and trading have made the world safer
12.9 Some of my own travel experiences
12.10 People who travel receive many benefits

Ch. 13 Is sustainable tourism possible?
13.1 Everything we do leaves a carbon footprint
13.2 The Carbon footprint of tourism
13.3 The official definition of sustainable tourism
13.4 Sustainable tourism or responsible tourism?

Ch. 14 How to make the tourist industry more sustainable
14.1 The responsibility of the tourist industry
14.2 The Eco Hotels of tomorrow
14.3 Sustainability recommendations for tour operators
14.4 Sustainable tourist projects
14.5 Izhcayluma
14.6 The danger of bookings websites

Ch. 15 Things travelers can do to make their vacation more sustainable
15.1 Fly responsibly
15.2 Natural carbon sequestration and offsets
15.3 Carbon offsets: atoning for sins of emission?
15.4 A few recommendable carbon offset programs
15.5 Be a more sustainable tourist while traveling

Ch. 16 Future sustainable transport based on the past
16.1 Sailing around the world
16.2 The best of both worlds: airships
16.3 Climate change and airships
16.4 Electric airplanes

Ch. 17 The holistic sustainable approach
17.1 Change our mentality
17.2 Create time to travel
17.3 Sustained salaries
17.4 Well-being above economic growth
17.5 The Doughnut Economy
17.6 Increase happiness with a low(er) carbon footprint
17.7 Indulging in experiences provides more happiness

Ch. 18 Space traveling to explore new areas and development
18.1 The advantages of space travel
18.2 Are we now afraid to travel into Space?
18.3 Space tourism to encourage new development

Epilogue

Appendix:
I What is the atmosphere?
II Earth’s carbon circle
III pH value of seawater
IV What is 1ppm of CO2
V Representative Concentration Pathways (RPC)
VI Transient Climate Response
VII How to set up a sustainable community tourist project/ business
VIII Building an ecologically friendly hotel
IX How to improve the sustainability of your existing hotel
X Sustainability tips for tour operators
XI CO sequestration calculation
XII Additional interesting articles about airships:

Special thanks to:

Lifecycle of tourism

Sustainability Blog Lifecycle of tourism 8.11 The lifecycle of tourism Already in 1980 Prof. Richard W. Butler wrote about a possible negative tourism cycle. In his own words he wrote:Visitors will come to an area in small numbers initially, restricted by lack of access, facilities, and local knowledge. As facilities are

Spiritual tourism

Sustainability Blog Spiritual tourism 8.7 Spiritual tourism and the abuse of cultural traditions In a busy world were more people feel stressed, ancient, and exotic ways to ‘cure’ this stress are growing quickly in popularity. One of these exotic ways is participation in spiritual ceremonies with special plant extracts. The two

Eco Lodges

Sustainability Blog Eco Lodges 8.6 The impact of Eco Lodges Let’s have a closer look at the Eco Lodges. From all tourist facilities, these lodges should have the least impact on the environment. Eco Lodges belong to some of the best-known products in Ecotourism. Their intention is good, but there are

CO2 Responsability

Sustainability Blog CO2 Responsability 7.5 The responsibility for carbon footprints To what extent should Western consumers take responsibility for the things they buy and do? If, say, a UK consumer purchases a TV manufactured in China, which nation should take responsibility for the emissions incurred during its manufacture? This dilemma illustrates

Carbon offset

Sustainability Blog Carbon offset 15.2 Natural carbon sequestration and offsets Although it is difficult to calculate exact numbers, several studies prove that earth is still absorbing more CO2 from the air then it produces naturally. This absorbing, also called CO2 sequestration, or carbon offset happens through many natural life systems including:

Poverty and environment

Sustainability Blog Poverty and environment 9. The relation between poverty and our environment There are interesting relationships between wealth and environmental impact. Wealthy people are generally the biggest consumers and leave the biggest carbon footprint. However the poor are often bigger polluters in terms of dumping rubbish, illegal mining, poaching, and

Renewables

Sustainability Blog Renewables 5.5 Renewables What about clean energy from renewables? Solar power on earth is likely not going to be sustainable enough. Maybe in the future we can harvest solar power from space but for the moment giant wind farms can be a solution. In his book Heat from 2006,

Seawater Greenhouse

Sustainability Blog Seawater Greenhouse 5.4 Seawater Greenhouse For a more sustainable way of agriculture I like the approach of Seawater Greenhouse. A moist microclimate is created inside greenhouses in the desert through the use of an adapted pad and fan technology. Electric fans powered by solar power blow saltwater through pads

Sustainable livestock

Sustainability Blog Sustainable livestock 5.3 Sustainable livestock farming According to research from Savory, it will even be counterproductive to eliminate all livestock farming. It will be better to use managed grazing methods to restore grasslands and decrease atmospheric CO2 levels. Restoring grasslands stores CO2 from the air into plant material. Grazing

« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 Next »