You might think that Going Green has it all…and it does. But more realistically, it doesn’t. There are a million great websites, books, articles, search engines, eco-certifiers, etc. out there. As I come across any that stick out to me, I’ll add them here. If you have suggestions for additional resources, send me an email at goinggreentravelblog@gmail.com.
Other Great Sites
Center for Responsible Travel (CREST): CREST provides information on culturally sensitive, environmentally friendly travel that supports local folks. Their tip sheet gives a great overview of the resources and information they provide.
GOOD Travel: GOOD Travel has tips on how to have a positive impact on the places you travel. They have great information in their blog about being environmentally friendly and they actually lead trips to exciting destinations all over the world. If you want to travel responsibly without having to do extensive research, consider going with GOOD.
Books
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson: Widely cited as the book that started the modern environmental movement, it’s a great place to start your education on people being terrible to the environment. A relatively quick read with a jarring perspective on our cavalier attitudes towards the nature.
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert: The fact that Kolbert used an Oxford comma in the title should be enough to get you to read this book. If it’s not, you should read it because it’s a brief but fact-filled overview of climate change that’s accessible to non-scientists like me.
This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate by Naomi Klein: A brutally honest look at how the structure of the world economy and the incentives for the folks in charge create (to this point, at least) insurmountable inertia in getting decisive worldwide action on climate change.
Carbon Offset Calculators & Vendors
FlyGrn: This travel booking site allows you to search for flights just as you would on Kayak. The difference is that FlyGrn shows you how many tons of CO2 your flight will emit into the atmosphere and offsets up to 100% the emissions for free. The offset money goes directly into their own solar panel project in India. Pretty great.
Miscellaneous Resources
Ecosia: Not necessarily travel related but this search engine uses its ad revenue to plant trees. You can either search directly from the site or, if you use Google Chrome, you can add it to your browser as a Chrome extension. I’ve been using it for several months and don’t see much of a difference from searching with Google (or Yahoo! for the 65+ crowd). Plus, it shows you how many trees you’ve planted. You can also download it as a browser on your phone.
Going Green 