Bill McKibben Likes Us! (and the Ethics of Flying to a Climate Rally)

With ten days to go in our Kickstarter campaign - and $5,000 still left to raise - I've started feeling a bit desperate. So I wrote to Bill McKibben this morning about our project, hoping he might help to spread the word. It felt like a vain hope - I mean, I've written to plenty of bloggers and journalists already about this project, and most of them don't respond. Plus, I decided to write to the leader of the climate movement two days after some really, truly bad news about the state of the climate came out, and a few hours after his most recent article in Rolling Stone hit the Internet. Getting any kind of a response seemed highly unlikely at best.

So imagine my joyful disbelief this afternoon, when I saw this tweet:

Yes, this is from THE Bill McKibben. And yes, I did tell him we were thinking of attending the climate rally in NYC.

I wrote him back and thanked him, profusely - but what I didn't ask (I hate to bug the guy, he's so busy trying to save the world) was whether or not he thinks that flying across the country to attend a climate rally - ok, THE climate rally - is actually a responsible use of fossil fuels. I have a feeling he would argue that it is. (Read his article - I think you'll see why.) Especially since we would (of course) offset all that carbon. But still. I'm curious.

What do you think? Is it ethical? Are YOU going to be in New York? Why (or why not)?

What About Pooping Airplanes?

Elliot and I have talked about whether or not to include "pooping airplanes" in Worse Than Poop! - and the idea of all that CO2 poop free-falling from 30k feet does conjure some potential hilarity.

But right now, there isn't much in the way of an alternative for long-distance travel (how many times has Elliot asked me if they've developed an electric airplane yet?). For those of us here in North America without decent rail service, our only choices are either to offset all that carbon, or simply to not fly.

So for anyone grappling with this dilemma, Mother Jones just published an article on a great new study that helps you determine the least-pooping airline for your particular route. Not exactly a long-term solution - but hey, the less poop, the better.