Impact of Travel on Culture and the Environment

Impact of Travel on Culture and the Environment

Travel and mobility play indispensable roles in our lives as modern Americans. Their largest impacts are seen within cultural realms: airplanes, automobiles, trains, and, to a lesser extent, boats allow fast and easy transportation to virtually all parts of the world. Such easy access to the inhabited portions of the planet has facilitated face to face meetings with family, friends, and colleagues living in distant parts of the world; the ability to move quickly and efficiently from home to work or school; and the ability to visit exotic locations for brief, recreational purposes. Usually, these cultural aspects of travel are the most salient when the subject is suggested. Yet, the environment is also a significant factor that deserves consideration during a discussion of travel. For instance, the environment may be the predominant factor when making a decision to travel: one might escape to the beaches of Florida during a snowy winter in Boston, or one might choose to visit the beautiful mountains of Colorado or an exotic South American rainforest in order to flee the less than thrilling flatlands of the American Midwest. The environment also brings to bear considerable influence during the process of travel. For instance, a flight may be canceled because of a summer storm, or local roads may become impassable during a blizzard. Finally, the process of travel itself greatly impacts the environment. Airplanes and automobiles produce large amounts of harmful air pollutants each time they make a single trip, and the gases they emit have played a significant role in expanding the hole in the ozone layer and increasing global warming. The air pollution has also negatively impacted ...

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Works Cited

Crystal Cruise Lines story, from cnn.com on March 6, 2003: http://www.cnn.com/2003/TRAVEL/03/06/cruise.ban.ap/index.html

Exxon Valdez information, from the EPA website: http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/exxon.htm

Diamond, Jared, "Ch. 11: Lethal gift of livestock," in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" W.W. Norton & Co, 1997, ISBN 0-393-03891-2, pp. 195-214

Meyers, Barbara. "Textiles and the Reformation," http://online.sksm.edu/1/papers/p-meyers~textilesreformation

Ponting, Clive. Ch.11 from "A Green History of the World," St. Martins Press, NYC, 1991, pp. 224-239.

Schneider, Jane. Rumpelstilskin's Bargain: Folklore and the Merchant Capitalist Intensification of Linen Manufacture in Early Modern Europe. In Cloth and Human Experience, edited by Annette B. Weiner and Jane Schneider. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press 1993.

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