And I say it's funny that the Himalayas came up in this context, because my favorite lines in my fav

And although many car trips are hard to avoid, thrifty car rental edmonton airport given 60 years of infrastructure development, a lot of the air travel is unnecessary -- and concentrated among the so-called one percent. Only about half the country takes as much as one flight a year; I m willing to bet that virtually every U.S. citizen gets in a passenger car at least once per annum. And while most of those car trips are the business of everyday life -- getting to work, procuring food, etc. -- most of those flights are either vacations, or elite workers flitting to conferences and business meetings....
If we re going to get serious about greenhouse gasses, we need to get serious about air travel. Going to a distant conference should attract the kind of scorn among the chattering classes that is currently reserved for buying a Hummer.
I have a number of arguments against travel, so it's easy for me to adopt one more. I have thought thrifty car rental edmonton airport about but thus far resisted gibing about global warming when the topic of travel comes up in conversation. I sometimes imagine dialogues in which someone asks me as people so often do if I've got travel plans for summer/winter/spring break and I claim to be doing my part in the fight against global warming, or someone goes on about their wonderful destinations and I puncture the mood by inquiring about the morality of needless carbon thrifty car rental edmonton airport emissions.
I believe the truly modern technological solution is not to travel at all. Overcome the need to have the body go anywhere. That's the most efficient answer to our transportation problems. Musk's tube would supposedly get people back and forth between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Why? Pick a city. Stop this senseless flitting thrifty car rental edmonton airport from one city to another.
Instant video/audio/text/data communication between people and total availability of all information resources via something quite like a super duper internet led to the rich becoming isolationists in the extreme, to the point that a woman forced to travel finds herself flying over the Himalayas and sees nothing worth the effort of observing.
@mikee thrifty car rental edmonton airport I think it's a limitation in the capacity to observe that makes people think they need to rove. If you really paid attention to your surroundings, you could be endlessly fascinated by your home town. It's similar to the value of a marriage compared to multiple sex partners.
And I say it's funny that the Himalayas came up in this context, because my favorite thrifty car rental edmonton airport lines in my favorite movie "My Dinner With Andre" use a trip to Mount Everest to signify looking for meaning by going far afield instead of seeing it nearby:
thrifty car rental edmonton airport Tell me: why do we require a trip to Mount Everest in order to be able to perceive one moment of reality? I mean...I mean: is Mount Everest more "real" than New York? I mean, isn't New York "real"? I mean, you see, I think if you could become fully aware of what existed in the cigar store next door to this restaurant, I think it would just blow your brains out! I mean... I mean, isn't there just as much "reality" to be perceived in the cigar store as there is on Mount Everest? I mean, what do you think? You see, I think that not only is there nothing more real about Mount Everest, I think there's nothing that different, in a certain way. I mean, because reality is uniform, in a way. So that if you're--if your perceptions--I mean, if your own mechanism is operating correctly, it would become irrelevant to go to Mount Everest, and sort of absurd! Because, I mean, it's just--I mean, of course, on some level, I mean, obviously it's very different from a cigar store on Seventh Avenue, but I mean...
thrifty car rental edmonton airport I had just quoted that last month in a post called "What do you think the difference is between a tourist and a traveler?" where I had said "Most of our depth comes from the life we live at home, and if we were really thrifty car rental edmonton airport observant we would never run out of things to perceive and contemplate at home."
These ideas are not about fossil fuel and global warming, but about psychology and philosophy. But it is the elite class that pushes environmentalism and (hypocritically) flits all over the earth (sometimes to talk about environmentalism), and it is the elite class that ought to be delving into the psychology and philosophy of travel.
I read a friend s copy of Vanity Fair when I visit and it s like an homage to the hypocrisy of the environmental jet-setter. They even proudly shout out about their green issue in the same breath that they boast of mega yachts and bi-coastal living. I think the low point lately was bragging about a Parisian hotel manager who was able to locate thrifty car rental edmonton airport elephant steaks for an exotic dinner (they had a zoo animal shot IIRC).
Too esoteric. Just shoot the greens thus sequester the carbon in a form more useful such as natural fertilizer. thrifty car rental edmonton airport It s a win-win: Gaea is better served and when rid ourselves meddlesome, thrifty car rental edmonton airport worthless hypocritical pains in the rear.
Re: your quotation from Andre . ANY place is better than New York City. The soul shrivels from the press of other souls in that madly compacted space. I used to work in NYC...trained in and trained out...couldn t wait to get a job elsewhere. (Houston...blessed place....spread out and relaxed. ...and why not travel if it pleases you? New vistas to see, new people to meet, new experiences to enjoy. Even new political views to uncover... a bit more conservative than Madison, I d bet. So get out of your cocoon and come to Houston. Only wait until mid-October when it is not so d...n hot.
Yes. It is the elite class that needs to think about its own behavior and ponder their need for a $30,000 handbag. Along with their need to tell other people how to live and impose solutions on others while exempting themselves.
It is very stimulating to visit and live briefly in other cultures. Then people interact on so many levels that is only experienced in the presence of new groups. You absorb culture that way. The internet is no substitute for that. Hermit monks and monastery monks are not nearly as smart as they imagine they must be.
I m reading Halperin s A Soldier of the Great War . The hero is a young Italian academic who studies aesthetics (beauty). As a result he is a close observer of the world, and wherever he looks, he sees beauty, not just in objects but in humanity. thrifty car rental edmonton airport Beauty, thrifty car rental edmonton airport to the hero, is not the appearance of particular things, it is an aspect of God, the spirit that lies behind the appearance of things.
It is very stimulating to visit and live briefly in other cultures. 1. Why is it important to be very stimulated? 2. When you travel are you really in the other culture? 3. If you are only in another culture briefly and to obtain high stimulation, are you even experiencing that culture? Have you gone there to be there, are is the there some place in your head? 4. Is that place a good place? Then people interact on so many levels that is only experienced in the presence of new groups. You absorb culture that way. 1. Absorbing a culture... sounds like what aliens do. 2. Do we flatter ourselves here with this claim of interaction on many levels, like this is a heightened, lofty existence compared to life at home? Are we really so fabulously complex when we travel, or are we actually more shallow? 3. What do the natives think of the tourists? Surely not that we are a wonderful experience for them. Do they involve themselves with the tourists... other than to reap money? The internet is no substitute for that. No, but living at home in your actual culture, involving yourself with people in your community is superior to efforts at getting into someone else s culture. Hermit monks and monastery monks are not nearly as smart as they imagine they must be. If the point is that people imagine what they are doing is more valuable than it is, you must turn that analysis to your own activity in travel. Here you are claiming stimulation and achievement thrifty car rental edmonton airport of levels ... kind of sounds like a video game.
JimB said: ANY place is better than New York City. Couldn t disagree more. We moved to northern NJ when I was twelve; spent the first two weeks living in the Commodore Hotel, on top of Grand Central Station. Rode every subway line clear to the end. Every time I got off I saw something wonderful. My first day I forgot to make sure I had money to get back before I got off. Found a quarter on the Brooklyn Bridge. That was 65 years ago. I still feel the same way every time I return. My sister is gone now, so I don t get back as often, but her garden is still there in Riverside Park, and the city is still AMAZING!
Incredible the number of commenters there who missed the point of McArdle s piece. The left s irony impairment is wondrous thrifty car rental edmonton airport to behold. Actually, no. The irony impairment of the left is simply a part of their nature. Just another manifestation of The White Man s Burden.
Seeing Red, The comments to McArdle s piece are indeed interesting. (I waded in there myself.) It s not nearly as clear as you think it is that she got the carbon figures wrong; there are a lot of complicating factors. That said, I think McArdle s primary point is that flying people all over the place for conferences, meetings, c. is ridiculously wasteful. I thought the Bali meeting on climate change was already well into Onion territory: Hey, let s fly representatives of 180 nations from all over the planet to a tropical resort so they can debate how best to reduce everyone s carbon footprint! But it s true on a smaller scale as well. Why, in Heaven s name, does anyone in 2013 need to be in the same room with his/her colleagues for a business discussion? You d think Skype was some pie-in-the-sky piece of future technology, right up there with time travel, from the way some people talk about the necessity for face-to-face contact in what is revoltingly called meatspace. And you ll notice that the meatspace encounters are generally in pretty places. It s always (say) Hilton Head, not (say) Newark. I ll believe this is all about work when it takes place in locales that aren t terribly