Fears jet ‘flight guilt’ hitting Aussie tourism
Murdoch roundup site news.com.au is saying Fears jet ‘flight guilt’ hitting Aussie tourism.
AUSTRALIA is concerned that growing guilt over the impact of jet flights on global warming could hit the country’s multi-billion-dollar tourism industry, officials said.
“Tourism is a $75 billion dollar industry employing more than half a million Australians and is dependent upon a sustainable environment,” Tourism Minister Fran Bailey said in a statement.
“For example, the Great Barrier Reef employs 33,000 people and generates more than $5.8 billion for our nation,” she said.
So she’s not concerned that the Reef is dying because of climate change, just that people will stop flying down-under to traipse about in it. If the Australian Government was serious there are dozens of ways to fight climate change both locally and globally, from public education through to participation in the Kyoto Protocol.
Australia could require that all flights in and out of the country be offset for starters. People would still go there, even with an extra couple of hundred Aussie dollars on the ticket price. Prime Minister Howard’s lame insistence that such moves would imperil Australia’s economy ring ever more hollow. — DS
Technorati Tags: Australia, business, climate change, disrupted nature, emissions reduction, global warming, Great Barrier Reef, politics, tourism, travel
