Travel 'green' or hold your breath
CHRISTINE HICKS- USTA Travel
There's been an awful lot of talk about "green" these days - green hotels, green airlines, green homes, green cars. I haven't seen "An Inconvenient Truth" yet, but when I do, it will be alone, and it has already me wondering what's in store for this earth. Movies like that are intended to instill fear and foster action. Otherwise, what would be the point?

This got me to thinking, and as so often happens, I scared myself into a virtual hysteria. Put on a seatbelt, because (even for me) it's scary in my head.

Now, there are emissions and then there are emissions. There's your car, and then there's you. Maybe we can do something about car emissions, but what's to be done about the carbon dioxide we exhale? What is the choice?

Now, these emissions, as I understand it, are what are causing the polar ice caps to melt. Eventually this water will fill up the oceans like a bathtub overflowing. I won't say this will happen in my lifetime. I have fear, nonetheless, for what effect it will have on children I don't have. For the sake of argument, I'll need to borrow children to maintain a level of fear sufficient to act on this.

The fragments of the issue I gather and maintain (a key distinction, incidentally) indicate we can expect certain species to survive, while others face extinction. After all our hard work, the American eagle will probably perish, and all the whales we have been saving. These were among the first to suffer, so it stands to reason (remember whose logic this is) they will be among the first to go. Turtles, too, though I don't remember exactly why. I saw part of a show once, about how they have a hard time on day one of their lives, so it makes sense … to me.

God, in his infinite wisdom (I trust it; I just don't happen to understand it) has chosen the cockroach to withstand everything, according to what scientific information I happen to encounter … also, zebra mussels.

When the water level peaks, humans will be extinct, too, since that half acre of land remaining above water will have thin, polluted air, temperatures too hot or too cold (can't get a solid fix on that data), and no cable TV. That half acre will be populated above by roaches and below by zebra mussels. Where will that be? I don't know. It could be Mount Everest, or it could be Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. I'll have to get back to you on that. Either way, I won't be there. (Do I have to spell it out for you?) The Mount Chimborazo thing has to do with being the highest point at the widest part of the planet, at the equator. Either way, you'd weigh less on either peak than anywhere else on earth.

How can you help? You can start by holding your breath. Then see what you can do to travel "green."

(Christine Hicks-Usta has enjoyed more than 30 years of globe-trotting as a member of the travel industry. Direct questions to her at Bee Group Newspapers, P.O. Box 150, Buffalo, NY 14231-0150.)