Today is blog action day and this years focus is climate change, so I’m doing my little bit. Hopefully climate change is on the mind of every traveler. We play a part in making climate change happen, and we also need to be aware of how the world is changing as we make our travel plans.

I’ve been on 24 flights this year – and that’s likely to get up to 30 by the end of the year. Heck, I’m flying tomorrow. Though it breaks my heart to say that I should travel less this coming year, I know that’s the biggest chunk of my carbon foot print and if I’m going to honestly do anything about climate change, then cutting back on the number of flights I take is the first step. So I’m going to to do even better than the 10:10 pledge to reduce my footprint by 10% in 2010. I’m going to cut my impact by at least 25%. I’m going to do this by trying to keep my number of flights down to around 15-20 in 2010, and ride my bike to and from work at least four days every week.

So what, my fellow intrepid travelers, are you going to do?

Every time I book a ticket, I check the little box to add a pound or two for carbon offsetting. This is not bragable, as I was reminded while discussing carbon offsetting for my travels with my parents yesterday. In reality, carbon offsetting doesn’t do anything to reduce my carbon emissions, a point which is elequently and hilariously made by the site CheatNeutral.com. From their about section:

Cheatneutral is about offsetting infidelity. We’re the only people doing it, and Cheatneutral is a joke.

Carbon offsetting is about paying for the right to carry on emitting carbon. The Carbon offset industry sold £60 million of offsets last year, and is rapidly growing. Carbon offsetting is also a joke.

Since I’m a travel junkie, I know that I’m going to be cranking out the carbon. Though I off-set it, I do feel offsetting is a bit of a joke. If I want to get serious about reducing my impact I need to make sure that my life style is low carbon in other ways. I got rid of my car a couple years back, but I know that I’ve still got a ways to go to reduce my total impact if I want to keep up my travel habit.

I was looking for some good pictures of Venice flooded for my post Monday, but didn’t find any until just now. Thankfully Boston.com’s Big Picture has provided a great set here.

The picture above is from Andrea Pattaro for AFP PHOTO/AFP/Getty Images.

About a month ago, I was telling myself that I need to plan a trip to Venice before the whole place was flooded. Turns out the whole city is flooded right now (though hopefully not permanantly). From Reuters:

“These are exceptionally high waters,” Venice’s Mayor Massimo Cacciari was quoted as saying by the Ansa news agency. “Don’t venture out unless it is necessary.”

The city will not ask for a state of disaster to be declared since the flooding did not cause any deaths or trigger the collapse of buildings, Cacciari said.

But the official overseeing Venice’s architectural heritage warned the city was reaching its limits and said the water was receding at a worryingly slow rate.

Flooded and the water isn’t going anywhere quickly. Pretty crappy situation, and a good reminder to take a look at spring bank holidays and figure out when will be a good time to head over there for a weekend.

It seems that I’m not the only person musing about great places disappearing as sea levels rise. Yesterday the news came out that the newly elected President of the Maldives is going to go shopping for a new homeland for his people. Makes a lot of sense. I’d also think that industrialized nations who are the biggest contributors to global climate change should set up a multi-lateral funding system to help small nations like the Maldives. We caused the problem, seems we should at least buy people new homes if we destroy them.

In the mean time, if you were thinking about waiting for retirement to kick back on your favorite atoll, you might want to consider moving that up your priority list. Sad, but scarily true.

Photo: Flickr user Merlin_1 under Creative Commons license.