A lot of good comes from travel. It gives us a chance to disconnect and recharge. It exposes us to new things and helps us connect with nature and other people. Plus, we contribute to the local economies in the places we visit.
But travel is not always good for planet. And the climate-conscious among us often feel guilty about the emissions we create when we get on a plane or fill up at the pump for a road trip.
So, what can we do to make travel more environmentally friendly?
Christina Beckmann is the cocreator of Tomorrow’s Air, a collective for travelers and travel businesses to support the scale up of carbon removal technologies.
On this bonus episode of Reversing Climate Change, Christina joins Ross, Siobhan, and Asa to discuss the layers of responsibility for climate change and who should be held accountable among travel operators, airlines, governments, and individual travelers.
Christina explains what differentiates the adventure travel community from more “consumptive” travelers and how Tomorrow’s Air is educating both groups about carbon removal technologies.
Listen in for insight on reducing your emissions when you travel and learn how to help Tomorrow’s Air build a community of carbon-removing travelers.
More from the show
Ad-free episodes and other benefits come with a paid subscription.
Carbon Removal Newsroom, the news show that ran alongside this one, is over. Its episodes are still up, on the feed Climate Workers Anonymous now uses.
Carbon Removal Memes is still going.
Resources
The Adventure Travel Trade Association
Outside & ATTA Survey on Climate
McKinsey Skift Report on Net-Zero Travel
Carbon Offsets on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Jack Andreasen on RCC S3EP22 Bonus
Full Transcript
Alexsandra Guerra: You’re listening to the Reversing Climate Change podcast by the team at Nori, the carbon removal marketplace. This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs developing solutions to climate change.
Ross Kenyon: I hit the button 10 seconds too late because we were talking about dirty dancing and why there’s not a carbon removal dirty dancing meme. So Asa, Siobhan.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Mission assigned.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I like how you just exclude yourself from that. Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: We’re going to walk away from today’s show, I think, with a good junior college try. We’re going to do it. Okay. Rough wind up. Okay. So you’re, as always, Siobhan Montoya Lavender of Thanks a ton and also working with Nori. Asa Kamer, producer of Carbon Removal Newsroom, also a frequent memer and co-host here. And Siobhan, would you like the pleasure of introducing our guest?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I would very much. Thank you, Ross. Yes, we have Christina Beckmann with us, who is the co-creator of Tomorrow’s Air, which is incubated by the Adventure Travel Association. Welcome. Hi, thank you.
Christina Beckmann: I’m happy to be here. We are very happy to have you. I noted that today is World Tourism Day. And I was like, these Nori people are so on it. It was totally intentional. The tourism person because it’s World Tourism Day.
Ross Kenyon: I listened to some like Planet Money or 99% Invisible or something about how those days get chosen. I’m pretty sure there’s just like fleets of lobbyists who just insist on creating these Do you want to...
Christina Beckmann: I have a brief superficial exposure to this because when we started Tomorrow’s Air, it was like 2020. And I decided that we should have... Why do we not have Carbon Removal Day? What is wrong? What is wrong with you people? Amen. And so I... Got into this a little bit like, how do you propose a day? And I went to my friends at the UNWTO who make World Tourism Day and was like, we need Carbon Removal Day. And actually coming from the tourism industry, this would be the best possible thing because we would be out in front of carbon removal.
And I spazzed all over them and they were like, we don’t know what you’re talking about. But I did learn that it’s a lengthy process and a lot of paperwork goes into it. And you probably do need to hire somebody who makes it their job.
Ross Kenyon: How much? We’ll start the Kickstarter campaign.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah. How much would it cost? Do you think? Yeah. I guess you employ someone. I wonder if there’s like fees and other, other stuff.
Christina Beckmann: I listened to your most recent podcast with the gal about how to know when to quit the poker podcast. And the line she had in there about like, if you’re working in climate, you’re probably somebody with creativity and grit. And you should think about where your time is best used and not pursue dead ends. And so maybe getting Carbon Removal Day is not the highest and best use, but it would be cool.
Asa Kamer: My proposal for Carbon Removal Day is that the first one is April 22nd, 422, because we have, aren’t we like 422 parts per million? Oh, that’s C. And then as it goes up, the date goes back. But then if we bring it back down, the date can go earlier in the year. Wisdom. Oh my God, Asa.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I told you this is what happens. He brings in these gems. Yeah. Yeah.
Asa Kamer: Have any dates moved before or any special days? You know, that could be a first, so...
Christina Beckmann: Look at the big brain on Brad. I don’t know. We’d have to look it up.
Ross Kenyon: Doing Pulp Fiction on us. You got like Jewish holidays. What? And I guess Ramadan moves too. So it’s religious holidays that are important, right?
Asa Kamer: Yes.
Ross Kenyon: I can imagine the paperwork that would go into that and then figuring out like which point, like you do it during the winter or during the summer when the carbon removal, the carbon in the atmosphere is different. Oh, that’s true. Or you have to stamp it like in the shoulder.
Christina Beckmann: There are annual fluctuations, so you’d have to like take an average. And there’d be an agency eventually fully staffed with a lot of people who work on it.
Ross Kenyon: You just created the office from Brazil, basically, is what we would say. I only see that Terry Gilliam movie. That’s what it would take to execute this vision. Anyways, I’ll put a link to it in the show notes if you need to see. All right. So long as we’re referencing 30-year-old cinema, starting with Christina, why can’t all else do Brazil?
Asa Kamer: And the dirty dancing discussion that happened.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, and dirty dancing. Well, should we do that now or do we want to let it...
Asa Kamer: That’ll be... Well, I think we should just release it on our Patreon and people can... This is my running joke for one, that we have a Patreon for all our dumb conversation. But maybe one day it’ll be real.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Maybe. Maybe. Maybe that and the carbon removal day will be real.
Ross Kenyon: Yes. I’m not sure that I’ve ever liked any podcast enough to want more of it that I’d have to pay for in like a weird platform. Yeah, I agree. You ever liked anything nearly that much?
Christina Beckmann: Sam Harris, making sense.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, so you liked it enough to do that?
Christina Beckmann: Yeah, but I don’t, but I think it’s not through Patreon. I don’t. But I did. And then it was a weird thing like access to the pay only content. And then I actually don’t use the pay only content all that much. But I keep funding because I think Sam Harris is so cool.
Ross Kenyon: That’s cool. So you’re just you’re just in it just to be supportive.
Christina Beckmann: I guess now, yeah. Like I don’t listen to the paid stuff as much because his shows are really long and the live free stuff is great. And it’s aspirational because the paid stuff is very, the mindfulness practice and the meditation, all these things that I aspire and desperately need, but don’t, I do them in fits and starts when I’m at a low ebb. And then when things perk up again, I forget that meditation stuff.
Ross Kenyon: I don’t think there’s anyone that I feel that strongly about. I guess if we’re talking about podcasters, I could listen to Dan Carlin, just go. And if you’ve listened to Heartcore History, I could just...
Christina Beckmann: I don’t know who that is.
Ross Kenyon: He could just read the newspaper and talk about it. How much is 14 hours of this a day? And it’s $1,000 a month. All right. Sign me up, huh? Let’s do it. Do we want to do Dirty Dancing now or should we talk about Tomorrow’s Air first?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Let’s talk about Tomorrow’s Air first. Okay.
Ross Kenyon: Very responsible choice.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Well, I thought we’d actually just start off talking about before we even get into CBR and Tomorrow’s Air, just talking about travel in general and like how you got into travel and why you were called to this profession if you were indeed called to it. Because on the podcast I was listening to, you talk about how Travel and the travel industry is very complex and has many layers and has a lot of positives and also has dark underbelly of what it is to be participating in the travel industry. And so what calls you to travel and where does your interest stem from?
Christina Beckmann: That’s a very nice question. Well, so my background is in management consulting, actually. And I was grinding away in my cubicle for many years. I’ve had two grand epiphanies in nature. And the first one was a river rafting trip on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. And I was a consultant at that time. And when I got off the river, I was like, my life needs to change. I need to become a river guy. And I fully acted on that impulse. I took a leave from my job and I moved to Idaho and I lived in like a cabin with rafting guide interns.
And that experience is actually what called me to travel because while I was there, I observed all these nature travel companies in this little town doing good for the environment. Like they were all conservationist activists. They were making money. They were living nice lives. They didn’t seem... From my perspective, right? Commuting, Washington, D. C. , suits, billable hours. They seemed unfettered and glorious. And I was like... I clearly have to do this. I have to go find a way to work in tourism. So that’s what got me started in tourism.
I could not be a river guide. I was a terrible... I rode the gearboat twice and basically was Worthless. I was cheerful and I cleaned dishes. But I was able to see the consulting... There was an opportunity for consulting in this sector. And so that got me going. Then I started a little consulting program. So that was kind of the genesis was this extreme experience in nature, actually. And tourism... So I’m in tourism, but I was never... I sort of backed into it. I was always like, I don’t like tourism.
I don’t want to go on a tour. I like to go experience things and have authentic experiences. And I don’t want to be led So I am in tourism and I have been now for like 20 years in the sort of sustainable tourism outdoor sector. But as I get to the climate sort of focus of my evolution, now it’s like, okay, we have to engage all of tourism. So the past few years, I have also been learning a lot more about sort of what I call capital T tourism, corporate tourism.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Okay. Well, I feel like that’s kind of answering my next question almost because on your website for Tomorrow’s Air, you talk about, there’s a quote that travelers are explorers at heart. We are curious, early adopters and influential among our peers. And I thought that was really beautiful and resonated, but I was like, wow, she’s talking about a really specific type of traveler. I talk about my people. Yeah. I mean, I live in central Mexico and I’m not in a tourist area at all. But I have been to the tourist areas.
I have been to Cancun. I have been to Tulum. And you’re like, those aren’t the people I’m seeing.
Christina Beckmann: Those are not the curious travelers. Right. Yeah. So that’s really also has been eye-opener for me. So Zola Consulting eventually sold those assets, started working for the Adventure Travel Trade Association. Which is the largest global network of adventure travel, businesses, tourism boards, travel media, 33,000 some individual members. These are all the sort of what I’m describing, this no mountain too high level. We can do it. We passion driven businesses founded with this sort of the triple bottom line is embedded in our community. That’s like where I started. But I’ve been slowly like learning also, right?
The global tourism industry that’s 10. 4% of GDP and billions of jobs, that industry is powered by a lot of mass travel, which is... This sort of extractive cruise like you heard about in the conversation with Christina Leala-Gale. I also see there though, that even these sort of less experienced travelers or more consumptive travelers or however you want to frame that, more consumptive travelers, those people still come home and talk about What they did. They are vectors of inspiration. They can be. So I know that the adventure travel community that I’m starting from is very much like they are great carriers of a climate action message.
Now, the package cruise tourist who is buying a four-day tour the lowest possible price So they can unwind for a few days is maybe not our early adopter traveler. I do get you there. We’ll get to that. We might not ever get to them. By the time we’ve got them, carbon removal will be embedded in the things they buy without them having to awaken to it. But we will get to that point. But we won’t get to that point if we don’t get the ball rolling now. So my argument to the travelers I’m talking to is we should be the ones to get the ball rolling.
We’re out there. We’re transformed by the places we visit. There’s lots of us, actually. Let’s start fighting for things that we know are necessary. But not everybody knows that carbon removal is necessary. We just did a big survey with outside, outdoor travelers. These passion-driven people I’m talking about, 4,000-some people responded. It was a great survey. A lot of those people do not know that the scale of carbon to be removed, the terms gigaton and 10 billion tonnes, this stuff is like... They just are like, whatever. They know that trees and forests and regenerative agriculture is important.
They don’t know about tech. They don’t know more than half of the respondents in our survey were just learning about carbon removal technologies in the survey.
Ross Kenyon: And these are like hip, adventurous travel.
Christina Beckmann: These are outside audience. So the readers of ski and backcountry and what I would consider to be the close community of mine that I have sprung up from within. Although they all tick the box for, I want my travel spending to support climate solutions. They’re passionate. We did another study with the UNWTO we surveyed, and it’ll be published soon. All the stakeholders from tourism boards and tour operators and hoteliers and transport, and those folks are also passionate. Most of them, however, say they’re not measuring emissions. If they’re doing something related to climate, they’re not doing it with a plan.
There’s a lot of passion in travel. There’s not a lot of knowledge or structure.
Ross Kenyon: I wonder how many people responded to that are... Is magazine subscribership an older person’s game too? Like how many magazines... I subscribe to literally zero, except for I get wired at work.
Christina Beckmann: Well, this was outside interactive. So it was online.
Ross Kenyon: Okay.
Christina Beckmann: I can look at... I could look up the demos. It was like we had respondents that we... And we analyzed over 45 and under 45.
Ross Kenyon: Okay.
Christina Beckmann: And I could find the... Actually, I don’t know exactly what the proportion was.
Ross Kenyon: I just wanted to sound smart and pedantic real quick.
Christina Beckmann: No, but that’s true. That’s a terrific point because, yeah, I should look it up while we’re talking. The assumption in the tourism circles, which this is when I sort of previewed these results in a conversation earlier with the tourism guy, longtime tour operator. He was like, people over 45, I bet don’t care about this and won’t pay more for it. And I was like, no, no, no, Garrett, they’re equal. It’s not just the younger generation who sees like older travelers also will spend money. They say they will spend money on sustainable options.
That’s the other big conversation going on in travel is the behavioral science aspect. My colleague, Milena Nikolova, studies this a lot and talks about this. Putting the sustainable option first, like carbon labeling on experiences or on whatever it is you’re selling, and then putting the most sustainable option at the top. And how can you dress up the sustainable options?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: That’s kind of like the opt-out option that they’re doing in Oakland, right? Where you can like, I think there was like a rule where you now have to like, or you have to opt in rather you have to opt in to plastic cutlery. Oh, that’s interesting. At takeout and just a little switch where you have to opt in has like dramatically slashed the amount of people that are using plastic cutlery in their takeout. Yeah. So I think, yeah, that’s really interesting what you’re saying about behavioral Kind of forcing almost? Is that behavioral forcing?
What would we call that?
Ross Kenyon: Defaults or nudges. Those are pretty minor ones too. That’s like not a huge behavioral... There are some that might strike you as unethical, but those strike me as pretty minor interventions, I think.
Christina Beckmann: In travel, the flights get all the attention because for somebody who travels a lot, the flights might be the biggest part. There’s a... Since we’re in like a data... In a data string right now, there’s a new McKinsey Skift report that I noticed last week that did the emissions of all aspects of a trip like Boston to Chicago. And so it had like your taxi to the airport, your shopping, your hotels, your food and your flight. And the flight was like 355 kgs. All the other things added up together were 505 kgs.
So you can, if you want to put a carbon sustainability lens on travel and you feel stymied by flights because all the means of decarbonizing flights aren’t necessarily there yet. You can go agro bananas on all those incremental pieces and probably reduce a lot of the emissions of your overall travel by focusing on things like that. Are you eating locally? Are you taking electric vehicles? Are you working, trying to find accommodations that have renewable energy? And there’s a lot of ways that travel can still be fine from an emissions perspective.
Ross Kenyon: I saw something similar for the debates over locavorism too, which is that in some cases, even if you are buying something shipped from the Southern Hemisphere, your trip to the grocery store in your private vehicle is probably worse than the bunker fuel expended, shipping it across the ocean, divided by all the cargo. You probably don’t need to feel as guilty about global trade in some ways as about the things that are really close to home.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, totally. Do we need to feel guilty about it? Well, like, is that a question? Like, and I’m asking Ross and Asa that too. Like, I recently moderated a discussion for the Exponential View community. And it was on the theme of like layers of responsibility within climate change. And kind of, you know, where do you sit on the spectrum of like personal responsibility versus systemic problem? And actually, we talked about flights and... As somebody who lives outside of my native country, I fly a lot. So I was using myself kind of as an example.
And then we kind of got into the whole like, you know, BP is the company that came up with the concept of carbon footprints. And what is this personal responsibility level versus the systemic issues that exist within, we exist within a carbonized world. And I think I said something like, Is the problem that I fly and that I choose to live internationally? Or is the problem that we haven’t figured out sustainable jet fuel yet? And that we haven’t built trains between the US and Mexico? What’s the kind of... I don’t know.
I feel like whenever we talk about travel and these things, we kind of come at it through this personal responsibility guilt lens. And I just want to get some feedback from other people on the call about this. Do you guys feel guilty when you travel?
Christina Beckmann: Can I go first? Yes. Go ahead. So much wrestling over this exact thing, especially in my organization, which is we are the sustainable travel people. We see all the good that travel does on the ground. It funds conservation efforts. We’ve seen dramatic problems with COVID, people not traveling. You don’t get the tourism revenues in places where people need that to conserve ecosystems. And yet at the same time, the emissions are undercutting the good we’re doing on the ground. We have started and also with, I have to kind of credit this guy Mikey at Intrepid Travel, but he’s like, we call it ROI of travel, Christina.
What’s the ROI of your travel? So think about What you’re doing when you travel, where’s your money going when you get there? I think we have to have a more nuanced look at it all. And it’s much easier. I think these kind of binary arguments are easier to make, like the flight shaming arguments are easier to make. Why are all these guys getting on a plane to go to the climate talks, assholes? But you have to be in person in some situations to understand, to form relationships, to advance the dialogue.
I think there will be flights and we should think, yeah, a lot of people are rethinking business travel, rethinking their leisure trips. But you can also rethink it in terms of what are you doing when you’re there? What are the benefits of your being there and to whom? And I would also say that I think in some cases, we just belabor the whole thing and you take all the joy out of travel. And joy, we need some joy. You should also be able to like take a trip and not turn it into a science project.
So there’s probably, I think there’s like a base level of knowledge that we build with people and gradually it becomes sort of a little bit intuitive or, you know, less like you have to sit at your computer for hours and figure out what you’re doing so you don’t feel guilty about your flight.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think that’s a pretty nice nuanced answer there. I have thoughts too, Asa, but I’ll just start sucking all the air out of the room unless you go. Do you have some thoughts on this?
Asa Kamer: I think for me, it reminds me of what Christina was saying a little earlier about where you have limited time, so where are you going to put your effort? I think we’ve all seen people in the US, for instance, who are relatively well off, who spend a lot of time and effort trying to reduce their CO2. Emissions trying to reduce their consumption like in other ways. And I think that’s really admirable and like probably has its own like value in terms of how it makes people feel like I think it’s probably satisfying or whatever.
But I also think the hours that you spend on that, what if you spent it like actually trying to address the policies, the government policy that actually I think to me is where the rubber hits the road in terms of determining how many emissions there are. And like you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, which is like Projected to reduce US emissions by 50% in the next few decades. That’s truly massive. That will literally change the climate. So yeah, put your effort into that. Don’t worry too much about this or that.
I mean, I don’t know, but I guess it’s a balance. It’s like Christina was saying, it’s not one or the other. And I also recognize that I’m someone living in the Western world who emits a lot and that is probably almost too biased to really even have a stake. And people who are getting hit by extreme climate are probably like, yeah, that’s a cute argument. I’m glad you still fly on planes. Yeah. I don’t know. I guess I come down in between. But I do think there can be an indulgence in going too far the other way and just worrying about your own consumption when at the end of the day, it doesn’t really do anything.
And I think that way of life and the ideology behind that is not transferable and it’s not going to convert a lot of people. And there’s billions of people in this world who can’t go on a plane but would like to one day. And you’re not going to convince them that actually they should be homesteaders and... Walk everywhere, whatever. Like you should, I think, invent sustainable aviation fuel so they can travel and have the like privilege that we do to do that and do it without like emitting CO2.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Are you saying we should all quit our jobs and go work for 12?
Asa Kamer: I love what 12 does. I like wish them all the best. They’re coming out, right?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: They’re doing the sustainable aviation fuel with Alaska Airlines and Microsoft. Am I correct on that one?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. I think Ace is saying that we should try to get refugee caravans to buy offsets. I think is what I heard him say.
Asa Kamer: Well, I think like what you’re saying, like the kernel of truth in your joke is that like, there’s like, I think a pretty narrow group of people on this planet that are going to like spend the time to like address climate change in that particular way. And I don’t know if that’s going to have like the viral effect. So like, I like what Christina was saying about how can it be embedded in things we do? And like, where does that kind of have to start? So like these early adopters she was talking about, for instance, the personal accountability that sorry, I overran.
Christina Beckmann: No, no, please, please, please. The personal accountability aspect, I think is a really, that’s one that gets rolled around a whole lot too. Like in this, I mentioned that UNWTO survey and there was also another like, oh, we worked on this little roundup of secondary research, an aviation paper. And as I was looking through these things, it’s like the tour operators will say, well, people have to fly here. That we do a lot of good. Our travel does a lot of good locally. And it does a lot of good for travelers and we’re good.
We’re reducing plastic and we’re good. It’s the airlines that are the problem. And the airlines say, yeah, but we need the government. The government is the one who should help us. We need the right kind of policies. This is a massive undertaking. And then the travelers are like, well... I’m just the traveler. It’s not up to me. It’s up to tour operator, government, airline. Everybody’s pointing a finger in a different direction. And it may be that the individual shouldn’t be responsible. I mean, maybe we could like talk about it for years and get to the right answer, like who actually owns this problem.
But I feel like we’re out of time, right? And so everybody should just pile on in whatever way they can. And the benefit of that also is taking action, incremental action, Is fun and exciting and empowering and mind opening. And when you do it, you’ll be happier. So do some little thing. You know, it’s like the fitness gurus who are always like, just do two pushups. You’ll get stronger. And then you’ll be like me. 80. I can do 100 pushups. That’s really how I think of how I’ve started talking about the personal accountability aspect.
In my community, I’m going to a conference next week. I’m going to moderate a panel on transport. And this is definitely going to be a thing. Like whose responsibility is it? Is it the government’s responsibility? Is it the traveler’s responsibility? Who should be paying for this? Well, I don’t know. I think we all got to pay at this point.
Ross Kenyon: In my superficial understanding of happiness research, no matter how little agency you actually have, you could be the least privileged person on earth. If you don’t believe you have agency or any control at all, you’re basically guaranteeing unhappiness. So even if it doesn’t make a difference, having some amount of accountability and holding yourself to a standard and feeling like you have some impact is at least beneficial to your personal well-being. As far as I know from what the research says.
Christina Beckmann: There was a study on job satisfaction that was kind of like, I remember something about that. Assistants who have zero control over their day and can only do exactly what they’re told and not feel creative in any way.
Asa Kamer: Another angle to this conversation is that Like these findings that the people with the top 1% of wealth are responsible for like a huge percentage of the world’s emissions. So maybe just talking about like, should all people feel responsible in a certain way or should all people be accountable in a certain way isn’t really the right angle. It’s like who exactly we’re talking about because if even those 1% like took a different view on accountability, that would change things. So yeah, probably something to keep in mind.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I agree with that. I totally... I do agree. And how does Tomorrow’s Air fit into people taking action and stuff? Because we haven’t actually... Have you explained Tomorrow’s Air yet? For our listeners, let’s explain what Tomorrow’s Air is. And when I go on the site, I can see that I as an individual can take action or a business can take action. Tell us a little bit more about that. Thank you for that softball, Siobhan.
Christina Beckmann: Yeah. Tomorrow’s Air is a collective for travelers and travel businesses to support the scale-up of Carbon removal technologies. Right now, Direct Air Capture, we’re partnered with Climeworks. We are building a portfolio of other tech and hybrid tech solutions. So the idea here is take some incremental action. We have bundled education along with carbon removal. So it’s not like just buying an offset because we are doing an ongoing... We’re building a community, So we participate in conferences, we do research, we have the ongoing social, we’re embedding climate action, inspiration, awareness, and so on.
Alongside a tangible action, which is a contribution to carbon removal. That’s kind of, I would say, the novelty in it also. People are accustomed, like our business partners are accustomed to purchasing an offset and then receiving a fact sheet about the project that they funded and sort of calling it done. And Kim Kim is a great partner for us. They’re an online travel agency and They’ve transacted thousands of bookings. They add $20 to every booking to Tomorrow’s Air. They are actively understanding that part of what they’re doing is bringing a carbon removal subject to all of their travelers.
That’s the stakeholder engagement. The crux of this is like community building and socializing and mainstreaming the fringe. And we have to do that with persistent... Exciting, interesting communications, which you will find on the Tomorrow’s Air Instagram, which is gorgeous and run by my colleague, Esther.
Ross Kenyon: I never thought about how much of what you do is very much an educational and communications effort more so than straightforward travel agency kind of work. It’s quite similar to what I do, actually. Is that why we’re pals? Maybe.
Christina Beckmann: But I don’t know if you remember this, Ross, years ago. I remember so well. Oh my God.
Ross Kenyon: I remember when I was in the kitchen talking to you about it. Yeah, it was very exciting.
Christina Beckmann: I slacked Ross on Air Miners and was like, hey, they called me back. I about died. My husband, I used to make John listen to this carbon removal podcast on our drives to go skiing. I’d be like, do you mind if we listen to this again? And John’s like, okay.
Ross Kenyon: It’s either this or Sam Harris and you decide.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: There you go. Well, Sam Harris, yeah. Anyway. Are you the only kind of travel related entity that’s providing removals? Because I feel like a big issue that we can talk about or not, because it’s pretty broadly discussed already, but it’s like the whole kind of John Oliver controversy, the whole idea of avoidance credits, the whole idea of bad BS offsets. And I know that when I go... And I look at an offsetting option on an airline I’m flying with, and they charge me 250. And I know that I’m flying between Mexico and SFO, and that’s about 0.
2 tonnes. I know that 250 is not really an offset. I mean, it’s not an offset in the sense that it’s not then taking those molecules of carbon dioxide that are being generated and storing them away. And so carbon removal actually is removing molecules out of the air. And so who else is doing carbon removal within the travel industry?
Christina Beckmann: I think like South Pole, for example, if you go and individuals can purchase offsets from South Pole, South Pole is selling removals. So you can probably go there. Tomorrow’s Air is the only gang talking to travelers. We’re the only ones saying, hey, travel, let’s all get together. We are billions of international travelers. We are 10% of global GDP. We have influence and muscle. Why don’t we all get together and be the leading edge of transforming travel? So tomorrow’s air is we’re the ones... We’re the ones doing that. I’m sure there will be others.
I mean, tour operators and businesses do have their own sustainability projects and offsetting projects. And there’s lots and lots of that. But we’re the only guys like... In travel, banging the drum for carbon removal and sort of that, you know, on the spectrum of ways that we can remove carbon from natural solutions to technological solutions, we’re kind of out there on that furthest edge because I felt like that’s where we should be. We should be helping scale up the innovations that we need. We should be investing in these We should absolutely be part of that.
We’re the best people to be part of that because we’re the explorers. But yeah, I think we might be the only ones for right now.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: You have a cool initiative that I felt like I could have made some memes out of, which is you have this thing called sustainable travel questions and answers. Oh, like in the blog? Yeah, where you have people do little video messages about their questions and then you respond to them. Yes. I was thinking we should do some live- You’ve done some serious research, Siobhan. Thank you. I was thinking we could do some live travel questions and maybe it would turn into meme fodder since I felt like some of the ones I looked at, I was like, I could make a meme about this question.
Ross Kenyon: Okay, like what? Like, can you share your screen and show us what you’re talking about?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Let me pull it up, yeah.
Christina Beckmann: This is the- I’m remembering one, like Gabby talking about food. There was a little kid, my friend, Natasha’s nephew- Yes.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Adorable. Okay. Again, this comes back to talking about like, that you’re using education as one of your tools. It’s not just CDR, it’s CDR and education. And so people can call in with these questions. And so it’s like, you know, this week, Nico from Canada asks, can travel ever be good for the planet? Or this week, you know, Ruby from Australia asks, I try to eat consciously at home, but so yeah, I just thought this was like a fun initiative where you’re having people Ask these questions live. And some of them are hard questions that can travel ever be good for the planet.
That’s a hard question.
Christina Beckmann: Yes. Yes, Nico. I think I said something about love. Yeah. So when people buy carbon removal through tomorrow’s air or invest in carbon removal through tomorrow’s air, they’re also helping build this movement of climate conscious travelers. They’re supporting. So 75% of our Money we take in goes directly to the carbon removal partner. And 22% is like education and 3% is admin. We have a staff of three that needs to build, obviously, but that’s our value add is like, we’re trying to put this kind of stuff out and build awareness for what does it mean to be a climate conscious traveler?
So some folks, and this has happened, they’re like, oh, I was so psyched to hear about Climeworks from you. They just went to their website and bought it from them. I’m like, cool. But, you know, eventually, as we have more carbon removal suppliers in our portfolio, I think that’ll be less of an issue because we’ll be able to sort of work curating things. And if I kind of step back from all that, I’m like, am I contributing to the common good? Yes, I am. People who wouldn’t be following climate stuff are following travel and finding out about carbon removal through tomorrow’s air, which is like, for me, that’s like a big high five.
And I would love, you know, sign up to the newsletter, follow on social, follow We’re working on, you know, like those videos, but sort of incremental insights that you can use, you know, talk climate clever. How can you, what kind of little fragments of information can we share with you a semi-regular basis that doesn’t piss you off, that gets you sharing in your sphere of influence?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I like that sentiment. Well, we’re running out of time here. And I know that we talked at the beginning of this podcast before we started recording about the wonders of dirty dancing. And so we don’t want to miss out.
Ross Kenyon: And then leave people hanging on it. This podcast has been the time of my life. Yeah. Okay. Take all the easy ones, Asa. Leave nothing to request of us. Did you carry a watermelon? You put baby in the corner? Okay. Cool. Thanks.
Asa Kamer: That’s not really a yes and, Ross.
Ross Kenyon: I have just like GIFs pulled up right now.
Christina Beckmann: I love it.
Ross Kenyon: And this is the one that caught my eye as the most of like, who, I always forget her, is Jennifer what? What is her? Jennifer Gray. Jennifer Gray and Patrick Swayze, him without a shirt on. Blame them. They’re just doing like a nice eye contact dance. I was trying to think, who in carbon removal would be looking at each other?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Oh my God. Oh, that’s so good. Maybe they’re the covalent bonds.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: If we have to break them apart.
Ross Kenyon: Christina, we love the, so you’re the parents, right? Or you’re the kid who likes Ayn Rand, which is, or the, I’m trying to remember all the like various personal relationships in play here.
Christina Beckmann: In Dirty Dancing or Between Us?
Ross Kenyon: Let’s just keep it to Dirty Dancing. I’m not sure. I feel like that one’s too smart. So you have to know too much context. Like, I feel like we should just treat them in love and you’re not trying to break them apart. Hmm.
Christina Beckmann: Okay, we’ll keep scrolling. What’s another one? Now I’m hypnotically like staring at the eye contact happening there.
Ross Kenyon: That is a very hypnotic gif. So here’s one thing. This is great. Like what does this signify? It’s like his sort of... Oh, that’s not good. Before he jumped off the stage. Yeah.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I watched like a behind the scenes thing of that. And apparently he like jumped off the stage like 30 times and he was jumping on like to a bad knee or whatever. And he’s like, I have one left in me. And that was like the one they used. Anything for his art.
Ross Kenyon: Okay, here’s like the raucous, like camp workers party, him strutting.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, it’s like, come join us in carbon removal.
Ross Kenyon: It’s like, yeah, it’s frankly lewd, but borderline lascivious, but kind of fun.
Christina Beckmann: The last conversation you had with the Andreessen guy who was talking about memes and he was saying like, 5% of people will get it, but the people who do get it will really get it and love it. I thought that was really probably quite true. But I feel like carbon removal, maybe it’s just because, I don’t know, because now I have some carbon removal friends. I don’t feel like it’s that arcane. And I feel like it’s blowing up, you know, like it feels like it’s mainstreaming quite quickly, right?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Oh, I hope that’s the case. I mean, I kind of feel the opposite sometimes where like in my bubble of friends, I’m like, oh my God, everybody knows about this. We’re all just talking in circles. And then the second I step outside that bubble, I’m like, oh man, nobody’s ever heard of carbon removal.
Ross Kenyon: We have this part of the final dance sequence when everyone comes strutting in together. And that’s like me when the carbon removers show up. Those are the air miners. Yeah, the air miners.
Christina Beckmann: But that’s Tito.
Ross Kenyon: Tito’s having fun.
Christina Beckmann: Tito Swayze. Tito and Jason.
Asa Kamer: That’s a great idea.
Ross Kenyon: Tito going to like this. That’s an open question that I have. Being compared to Patrick Swayze is pretty good. I often get like Woody Harrelson, which I mean, character actor, talented guy. Would you describe him as the most handsome actor out there? No, but that’s the most common one that I get. I’d take Patrick Swayze. I noticed no one is building up my ego after I said that. Yeah. I’m going to have to edit that.
Christina Beckmann: Oh, Ross, you are so Patrick Swayze. When you were talking about Woody Harrelson, I was thinking of just like his erratic, like isn’t he sort of like wild? And then I was like, I don’t see Ross as being very erratic and prone to rants.
Ross Kenyon: Was he a crazy guy in his younger days or something?
Christina Beckmann: I think he is now too. He has a dark underbelly.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, hmm.
Christina Beckmann: Maybe you’re more of a Matthew McConaughey. Just a straight up good guy.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. All right. All right. Jason Hockman did a good Dazed and Confused meme. He did, yeah. I really liked that one.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, it was, you want to remove some carbon dioxide? It’d be a lot cooler if you did.
Ross Kenyon: Great wordplay in there.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Double entendre, yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Some of these ones are like, we haven’t done any that have this sort of like downright sexy to them. And for the most part, that’s good. I try to know that our memes have to be like a lot of these, a lot of the intimacy between them as they’re looking. Do they actually like each other, by the way? I feel like I read something that they kind of like hated each other by the end, but I’ve heard. Really? I don’t know. I might just be making it up. I feel like I’ve read stories of like love story movies.
Oh, I think it was The Notebook. Of Ryan Gosling and whoever by the end of it were really angry at each other. Anyways, now I’m just, I have no idea what I’m talking about.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: You’re just exposing your fandom.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Anyways, though, so right now I like this like Air Miners Rolling Deep one.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, I like that one too.
Ross Kenyon: I also like that dance one from the top. I think that was my favorite gif of all.
Christina Beckmann: Well, you just have to figure out who the characters are.
Ross Kenyon: I think so. Or who’s...
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Should we do one with the lift? Is there any like technology that requires lifting? Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: I’m thinking like maybe this is a policy thing of like what is being elevated at this moment in time by policy.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Wow, that’s a good take.
Ross Kenyon: This is about baby dancing ideas so we could make all of them.
Asa Kamer: This is a really dumb idea, but we could reverse it. So he’s pushing her like down and then it’s like kelp getting like...
Ross Kenyon: This is like the epicycle we go in, Christina, where they get the joke is no longer a superficial thing that you could get on one look. You’re like, oh, they reversed the direction of it. Oh, it’s just like, this is a little too clever for our own good. And those ones all... That’s the fun of it, right?
Christina Beckmann: Is following things around. The best ideas kind of end up coming after a lot of that.
Ross Kenyon: They’re either like the first idea, best idea, or... We sweat over it for a month and then we release it. And those ones are often not the ones that perform the best in the house. You’re like, why do we spend so much time fine tuning this?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: A lot of effort for those five likes.
Ross Kenyon: I want to look at, are there some good roadhouse scenes of like fight scenes? Let’s see if there’s some, oh yeah, I guess some roundhouse kicks. All right, now we’re just into Swayze.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: No, we’re into Swayze.
Ross Kenyon: I think this is probably a good time to go.
Asa Kamer: We did a point break one, didn’t we? Or we were talking about it.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I made a point break one, but it was before I was with Nori.
Asa Kamer: Maybe that’s what I’m thinking of.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: That might be the one.
Asa Kamer: Yeah.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I’m glad it stuck in your memory. It was a good one.
Asa Kamer: It did. It did.
Christina Beckmann: So now I’m going to have to have you guys on Arrows On Air. And then I can ask you, I have lots of questions, actually. I want to ask you how your artist NFT stuff is going. I want to ask you about tokens. I got lots of, maybe we can replicate this to our travel audience, which doesn’t know about. What you all do.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, sure. That’d be great. Let’s talk some more about that.
Christina Beckmann: Okay.
Ross Kenyon: Is there anything that you want to link to that we didn’t talk about that can find its way to the show notes?
Christina Beckmann: Link to the website, which includes the podcast, which includes, I mean, I would love it if people are interested in climate conscious travel and carbon removal. If they sign up for our newsletter, follow on Instagram. Tomorrow’s Air underscore. Yeah, you really sold that Instagram account. I’m going to go check it out now. Yeah, basically that. I think the website is good. That has everything. Our social.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. I’m going to subscribe to it literally right now. Somehow I was not already.
Christina Beckmann: And I’d also, you know, I haven’t done this in a super intentional way, but I welcome... Yeah, I think.
Ross Kenyon: What even happened? Pandemic? You were trying to figure stuff out when we first spoke. I would have gladly had you on a couple of years ago.
Christina Beckmann: You asked me when we first spoke. And when I hung up, I was like, he’s never going to talk to me again. Because you asked me if I knew who Klaus Lochner was. And I was like, no, should I? And then I hung up the phone and I was like, oh my God. How could I not know? Anyway, I come to this from a non-expert I don’t come to carbon removal from a science background. So I had a lot of learning to do.
Ross Kenyon: Wow. This is in your memory. It’s such a high stakes conversation in mind. I know. He’s so nice.
Christina Beckmann: Yeah. He’s like, I don’t even know.
Ross Kenyon: I was not. Yeah.
Christina Beckmann: This is great. Thank you guys very much. Two years later. Here we are. Finally.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: All right. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. If you enjoyed the show, please give us a great review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And that’s super helpful.
Ross Kenyon: Thanks for listening. That was fun. Follow us on social media. We will catch you next time.
