let us be fair. We can't quit flying, be reasonable it's Globalization folks. What we have to do is to invent something which can decrease ,only decrease, the effect.

How about flying (actually: landing and take-off) smarter? A StarrPort saves a whopping 1.000 gallons of fuel per flight on a 747. Planes land on an incline, run directly on top of the tarmac, and take off on a decline. The American inventor Jim Starry has 123 patent-pending technologies to make airports much more sustainable. With a compact design, and many intelligent features. Jim Starry presents the concept in an 8 minutes video, see www.starrportcorp.com

Does Al Gore know about this?

So, if I don't get on the plane it won't go anywhere and, thus, not pollute? Personal carbon footprints (or budgets) is a flawed construct. We need to tackle this challenge at larger levels and through market forces.

It's a bummer that global warming the way its presented by large figures in our country as it being our fault, when the fact show that the climate has been changing for all of time. We should absolutly be managing our transportation so that we conserve energy and produce less polution, but we need to be realistic with our situation.

Maybe it's a matter of taking the train wherever and whenever possible... at least you won't lose your luggage!

As Rachel just commented, living without plane transportation is not a reality. I think all government and corporate initiatives should be pointing to find alternate fuel solutions for airplanes (mainly responsible for high fare prices). I would suggest using electric engines and implementing solar energy by using airplane's surface. Some of this initiatives have been tested before and could lead us to new ways of air transportation.

This is a huge challenge now that we know our personal carbon budgets will not support the work and recreational travel habits we have. As for how to break bad habits?
Step 1: Admit you have a problem.
ME: Hello, my name is Adam, I flew 100,000 miles this year.
GROUP: Hi Adam.

There's no easy solution to something like this. No matter how environmentally conscientious you may be, never getting on a plane again is unrealistic given how travel has become such an integral part of many businesses today (besides from a personal point of view almost everyone wants to take vacations outside of their immediate area and get to see other parts of the world.) Apart from reducing your carbon footprint through regulating other areas of your life, the most effective thing people who have to fly can do is lobby the aviation industry for change. Plane Stupid is all about doing this in order to control airport expansion and the aviation industry's climate impact. http://www.planestupid.com/

While development for cleaner plane fuel is absolutely necessary, living without plane transportation isn't a reality. Other things, however, can be done to make airplane travel more eco-friendly, including changing the materials on seats to organic fabrics and using recycled paper products for tickets and other materials. Nevertheless, this will definitely cause price hikes in fares, and we all know that fares are already too high.