How much does that trip really cost?! Let’s use the pandemic pause to shrink our gigantic transport and travel-related carbon footprint

There are a lot of things most of us sorely miss from before the pandemic: hugging our friends and family, eating at restaurants, hosting parties…but I don’t think any of us would say we miss rush hour traffic. I don’t think most people miss work related travel. Coronavirus related lockdowns caused record drops in carbon emissions this year, in large part related to decreases in emissions from transportation and travel. Climate scientists aren’t too optimistic about this temporary drop having much of an impact on the overall catastrophic level of carbon we’ve put into the atmosphere if we just go back to “normal” when the pandemic is over, but what if we carry forward some of our more sustainable habits from this time of crisis?