To the editor: In her op-ed about the glories of travel, author Lisa Niver laments misplaced baggage, missed flights and LAX. She neglects to say the environmental price of leisure air journey.
She notes the joys of swimming with jellyfish, seeing an enormous Buddha statue and the fun of easy worldwide, intercultural human interactions. Whereas cross-cultural communication is a optimistic concept, it isn’t dependent upon repeated international flights.
Our fragile planet is so compromised by human-caused local weather chaos that we will not afford to gallivant around the globe on airplanes with out additional dire penalties.
Do you wish to commune with different cultures over a meal in L.A.? Try eating places in Little Bangladesh or Koreatown. Slightly worldwide music maybe? Attempt the Ukrainian Pageant or Mariachi Plaza. Little Armenia, Thai City, Pico-Robertson and Little Tokyo are only a few of the culture-rich neighborhoods close by.
The sort of air journey Niver suggests is energy-intensive and depending on fossil fuels, and is the whimsy of a privileged class. It’s merely not sustainable.
Margaret Baker Davis, Claremont
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To the editor: I used to be studying Niver’s article extolling the virtues of her globetrotting way of life with growing bemusement, nevertheless it was her next-to-last paragraph that moved me to write down.
In it she associated how the Palau authorities requires its guests to make an environmental pledge. Does she not understand that by flying all around the world, she is doing one of many extra environmentally damaging acts a person can do?
Gordon Anderson, West Hollywood
