{"id":2452792,"date":"2020-01-01T16:56:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-01T23:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/pitkin-county-to-promote-green-air-travel-with-program-to-offset-environmental-impact\/"},"modified":"2020-01-01T16:56:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-01T23:56:00","slug":"pitkin-county-to-promote-green-air-travel-with-program-to-offset-environmental-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/pitkin-county-to-promote-green-air-travel-with-program-to-offset-environmental-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Pitkin County to promote green air travel with program to offset environmental impact"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Planes line the runway while waiting for passengers to load and unload at the Aspen\/Pitkin County Airport.<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Visitors to Aspen who fly into the city\u2019s airport can now offset the environmental impact of their travels through an online program that supports emissions-reducing projects across the country.<\/p>\n

While the program \u2014 called The Good Traveler \u2014 has not yet officially been launched on Pitkin County and Aspen-Pitkin County Airport websites, passengers can go to thegoodtraveler.org website and calculate their impacts and offsets, Pitkin County Manager Jon Peacock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s kind of cool,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see what kind of voluntary participation we can get.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, a round-trip flight from New York\u2019s La Guardia Airport to Aspen covers 3,502 miles and would require a passenger to buy four offsets to balance the trip\u2019s carbon emissions, according to the website. One offset \u2014 said to counterbalance 1,000 miles of air travel \u2014 costs $2, so the carbon offset for the trip would be $8.<\/p>\n

The money goes toward \u201csome extra good like restoring wetlands or growing forests,\u201d the website states. Programs that receive money from the offsets include protection of grasslands in Colorado, waste composting in Washington and improving marine shipping efficiency, according to the website.<\/p>\n

The Good Traveler program began at the San Diego International Airport in 2015 and now includes numerous other airport partners across the country. Aspen\u2019s Sardy Field is set to join the program as a partner at the beginning of the year, Peacock said.<\/p>\n

The San Diego airport chose the Rocky Mountain Institute \u2014 which is headquartered in Basalt \u2014 to manage the program and recruit other airports in 2016. The program now counts 16 American airports as members, which means they promote The Good Traveler program to passengers who use those airports, said Dave Mullaney, a manager at RMI in Basalt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re giving passengers an option to do something in an easy and credible way,\u201d Mullaney said.<\/p>\n

Peacock said the idea to join the program came through the county\u2019s vision process for planning a new airport. Officials realized that the technology for greening the airport industry doesn\u2019t exist and probably won\u2019t for the near future, he said.<\/p>\n

Mullaney said biofuels for airplanes and short-range electric airplanes won\u2019t be available for at least a decade if not two. So, The Good Traveler program is an attempt to bridge the gap between now and when technology catches up, he said.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the program\u2019s goal is to fund local carbon offset projects with money collected from local travelers, Mullaney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d like to see one of those projects come to the valley,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s what all the airports want \u2026 is to make where they live nicer.\u201d<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Planes line the runway while waiting for passengers to load and unload at the Aspen\/Pitkin County Airport.Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times Visitors to Aspen who fly into the city\u2019s airport can now offset the environmental impact of their travels through an online program that supports emissions-reducing projects across the country. While the program \u2014 called The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 23:10:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}