Leaving No Trace

Leave No Trace is an excellent program designed to help minimize our impact on our beautiful natural surroundings.  They run training for youths to adults, helping to educate them about the need to protect our planet.  We especially need to protect it when recreating.  They promote seven principles: plan and prepare ahead; travel and camp on durable surfaces; dispose of waste properly; leave what you find; minimize campfire impacts; respect wildlife; be consider to other visitors.  These are great principles, and the website gives more in depth explanations.

This summer I've been having quite an adventure.  So far I've gone to 8 national parks, several more monuments, and ample viewpoints.  I've followed the principles pretty darn well.  But I still wonder about the trace I'm leaving.  In my pursuit of adventure, I have a relatively large carbon footprint.  NYC has certainly helped reduce this given its abundance of public transit.  That type of transit simply doesn't exist anywhere else in the US, particularly for folks like me who see a sign and decide to follow it.

Though my immediate visible trace is not large, my long-term detriment to the environment and humanity is not the prettiest.  I try to see beautiful and wonderful people and places to encourage stewardship.  In my pursuit, however, I leave an impact that I find increasingly difficult to leave no footprint.  Tinge of Catholic guilt?  Yea, says I!

In comes Ignatian discernment, and I'm still working through it.  So I need feedback from you friends--what do I do about my carbon footprint and need to adventure?