Having spent 37 of the past 39 winters in B.C.’s Southern Interior, there does come a time when I think enough is enough.

Frosty is photogenic but freezing isn’t fun. Cross-country skiing is great exercise but so is swimming somewhere in a warm ocean. It’s the shoveling that eventually gets to me and this winter there’s been a ton of white stuff to remove from my roof and driveway. So who can blame a person for fantasizing about a sun-drenched beach far away from the Great White North? After all, Canadians have had this dream since 1917 when Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden suggested the Turks and Caicos Islands become part of Canada. The idea was shot down by then British Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

NDP MP Max Saltsman tried in 1974 to use a private member’s bill to persuade the government to consider annexing the islands. What could be better, he reasoned, than a warm weather destination where Canadians could spend their dollars on a Canadian beach? The idea was brought up again in 1986 by Progressive Conservative MP Dan McKenzie and also in 2004 by Canadian Alliance MP Peter Goldring who visited Turks and Caicos to explore the possibility once more. The province of Nova Scotia voted in 2004 to invite Turks and Caicos to join the province should the islands ever become a part of Canada thereby avoiding any problems with admitting the islands as a separate province.

Currently a British overseas territory, the Turks and Caicos are actually a grouping of 40 islands located 250 kilometres east of Cuba with an average wintertime temperature floating between 28 and 29 C. Only one problem: snowbirds fleeing winter need to fly to the sun and sand and the small aviation industry has a disproportionately large impact on our climate system, accounting for between four and nine percent of human-made greenhouse gases. (Airplane manufacturer Boeing disputes this figure, saying it is only two percent.)

Since 1990, CO2 emissions from international aviation have increased 83 percent. Cheap fares are turning out to have costly effects on climate change. Air travel increased fivefold from 1970 to 2000 and carbon dioxide emissions from aviation are expected to triple by 2050.
Compared to other modes of transport, such as driving or taking the train, travelling by air has a greater climate impact per passenger kilometre, even over longer distances. It’s also the mode of freight transport that produces the most emissions.

When jet fuel is burned, the carbon in the fuel is released and bonds with oxygen (O2) in the air to form carbon dioxide. Burning jet fuel also releases water vapour, nitrous oxides, sulphates, and soot. Aircraft emissions trigger the formation of contrails (condensation trails seen in the sky behind airplanes) and contribute to the formation of cirrus clouds.

Aircraft emissions are mostly produced at cruising altitudes high in the atmosphere where scientific studies have shown that these high altitude emissions have a more harmful climate impact because they trigger a series of chemical reactions and atmospheric effects that have a net warming effect. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that the climate impact of aircraft is two to four times greater than the effect of their carbon dioxide emissions alone.

If you want to kiss winter goodbye and flying is in your future, there is a way to mitigate your climate impact – purchase carbon offsets to account for the emissions from your flight. Many airlines now offer carbon offsets with every flight, for a small fee on top of the ticket price. You can expect to pay between $5 and $20 per ton of CO2 offset.

But better yet, check out the special offers page at www.offsetters.ca where participating airlines use a portion of the ticket price to purchase complimentary offsets on the customer’s behalf. This ‘climate friendly’ option is only available to customers who connect to the airline’s online reservation system through the Offsetters website.
You can book flights with WestJet and Air France by clicking on the airline logo and with Air Canada by clicking on the FlyGreen.ca logo. Offsetters will receive one dollar for every flight booked online through the Escapes.ca logo. Escapes.ca, a Canadian company specializing in vacation packages and last minute deals. has been donating $1 from every online booking to the World Wildlife Fund since 2001, with over $23,000 in donations.
Offsetters.ca is a Canadian not-for-profit carbon offsetting organization that was co-founded by Dr. Hadi Dowlatabadi and Dr. James Tansey, both of whom are professors at the University of British Columbia.
The organization helps create renewable and permanent energy sources to replace outdated carbon emitting sources. One such way is by installing ground source heat pumps to heat new buildings instead of natural gas or electricity.

Other tips to reduce flying impacts: Try to book your flight on one of the new generation of fuel-efficient aircraft like the Boeing 777 and Airbus A340 series; fly direct since the most emissions are produced during takeoffs; fly in the daytime as night flights have a greater impact; fly economy because more people per plane means fewer emissions per person; pack light because heavier planes burn more fuel.

British journalist and author of the book Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, George Monbiot has concluded that the only way to reduce the impact of flying is to fly less. So if you normally take ten flights a year, your first step is to cut that back to three and offset them with carbon credits.
The climate impacts of air travel are not adequately regulated under national or international laws. The onus is thus on individuals and businesses to limit their flying unless absolutely necessary.

And if the Turks and Caicos Islands do become part of Canada, I hope there’ll be plenty of sailboats to help us get there.

RESOURCES – The carbon offset marketplace may have some unscrupulous companies with offers too good to be true. Look for Gold Standard companies. Check out the Voluntary Carbon Offset Information Portal at http://www.tufts.edu/tie/carbonoffsets/TCI-offset-handout.htm for more information before you buy. A November 2000 report by the IPCC on Aviation and the Global Atmosphere can be found at http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_sr/?src=/Climate/ipcc/aviation/. A November 2005 report by the National Aerospace Laboratory entitled Fuel efficiency of commercial aircraft: An overview of historical and future trends challenges some of the IPCC report’s aircraft fuel efficiency improvements as too optimistic. This report can be downloaded from http://www.transportenvironment.org/Publications/prep_hand_out/lid:398.