Is your trip killing the planet?
Feeling the flames
Might our attitudes be shaken up by an abrupt climate change?
Heat rising - but how much?
Judging the change in the climate requires accurate data but how do you measure the temperatue of an entire planet? Or of the past? There are a surpising number of ways of taking the temperature.
Related programme
One hundred years ago the average person travelled 13 miles a year. Now the average is 13 miles every day. That's nearly 5000 miles a year! What's more, approximately 4000 of those miles are by car and under 900 miles are by modes of public transport. We are all beginning to realise that travel has a detrimental effect on the environment, but travel is now an essential part of life, and it's difficult to decide which mode of transport is the best.
There are many unanswered questions about travel and the environment. For example, is there one single mode of transport that is the best for the environment or does it depend on the journey? Is it extremely inconvenient and time consuming to travel in an environmentally friendly way? And is the financial cost of a journey similar to the environmental cost, or is the financially cheapest way the most expensive for the environment?
Take an interactive journey, a holiday trip from Milton Keynes in England to Nice in France. What is the most environmentally sensitive way to get there, and is it really a realistic option? How do you balance cost against convenience, time against environmental damage?
There is also a simple HTML version.
Content last updated: 14/02/2006
