SMEA Professor and Director Nives Dolšak and UW Director of the Center for Environmental Politics Aseem Prakash were recently in a Seattle Times article that featured “bright ideas for climate conscious travel.” Dolšak and Prakash discussed their work on sustainable travel practices, which include encouraging travelers to travel less, using alternatives to air travel, or when traveling by air, supporting fuel efficient airlines and aircraft, and purchasing carbon offsets – credits travelers can buy that are applied to programs the reduce carbon emissions. They would like to see travelers better informed about their trip’s carbon footprint and environmental impact, and hope for a future where transportation can run on renewable energy. Both acknowledge that while they encourage less travel, they don’t think people should completely stop traveling. As Prakash states in the article “It’s important that people travel. In a globalized world, international exchanges, cultural exchanges are absolutely important to make the world a better place, to create more compassion, to create a sense of global citizenship.”