I don't know why so many people are responding negatively to this article.

I think it is very important to point out green hypocrisies, because they undermine real issues, and make environmentalism look like a silly fad, promoted by puffed up posers, who think that small things like recycling will absolve them of every other environmental crime they commit. Make no mistake I’m no evangelical when it comes to rescuing the environment. I am just a rationalist, and I believe that we should be honest and level-headed about what we need to do to make real change. Buying eco-friendly dish liquid is not going to make up for the fact that you fly across the country regularly to see your lover, or to go to a green business meeting, or to make an impassioned speech on a different coast about how we need to save the environment. That is just common sense. I think the best approach for green-minded people who insist on having long distance relationships would be for them to drop the whole bleeding-heart environmentalist act entirely, because then at very least, you are not a hypocrite. In reality, very few people are willing to do what really needs to be done to live a low carbon lifestyle because it requires sacrifices, and Americans are not good at sacrificing things. I would also argue that a healthy relationship requires a fare amount of sacrifices too. People are living for their careers. They put their loved ones second in life, and consequentially, they are putting themselves second. If you have no one in your city or town or state to feed you soup when you’re sick, or take you to the mechanic when your car breaks down, or to share the highs and lows of life, you are living a half-life. I know so many “professionals” who date other “professionals” in far away cities because they won’t compromise their careers for their loved ones. I think this is a symptom of a sick modern lifestyle and I hope it goes away when oil reserves are depleted, and people actually have to consort with the people who live close to them.

I don't think that you can just thrust all long distance relationships into one category and just say "they are all wrong". I'm in a long distance relationship with someone I love, who I hope to spend the rest of my life with. Not because it's easy or because I don't care about the environment or because I have money to throw away on plane tickets; because I LOVE him, and I want to be with him, whether he's here or a thousand miles away. We can't change the fact that we go to different colleges; we just have to accept it and wait until we have an opportunity to live closer together.

There are a LOT of hypocrites out there; I don't consider myself one of them. I live my life the best I can, at a level I can afford. I'm paying my own way through college, so I can't always afford the organic produce and the fair-trade coffee. But I try! And how is traveling to see my boyfriend once a semester worse than so many little things that people do on a daily basis? Like leaving your computer on while you're away, or leaving a light on for when your kid gets home after dark, or driving your car to work and back again every day? I don't even own a car - can I then justify my travels by saying that since I don't use gasoline in my vehicle, I'm allowed to make up for it by flying 1200 miles every semester?

Obviously you've never experienced a relationship that was worth a distance. Mine is, and I beg you to respect that and refrain from calling me a hypocrite just because I refuse to sacrifice the thing in my life that is most important to me.

Of course travelling to visit those you care about completely negates every eco-friendly action you have ever commited! But... I have a few questions. Would you find a problem with flying to visit family? For example, if your parents lived across the country surely you would visit them when possible. But why make distinctions between those we love? In a long distance relationship, the whole POINT is that there is no one around you whom you love as dearly as that person. I find it interesting that you want people in long distance relationships to sacrifice their loving relationships for the environment, but then just a paragraph later you bemoan the trend of putting loved ones second in life. Well - which is it? Are loved ones a priority, and therefore you spend time with them, or should we sacrifice those relationships to avoid harming the environment?

Perhaps it takes a shining example like you, who has never travelled to spend time with friends, family, a spouse, or for business to show us the true path of evironmentalism. I hope others can learn from the sacrifices YOU'VE made - because, well wait a second... I don't recall you mentioning any of those. But I can tell from the tone of your post that you must make many of them!

Although... if I might venture one tiny criticism of your way of thinking? I am unsure as to how having a long-distance relationship means that you have no friends or family around you to help when you're sick or your car breaks down. Just curious. Don't get me wrong - of course your idea of how family life and relationships should look is correct! But maybe you might admit that what is right for you in that sense is not right for others? And that perhaps those "professionals" you are so disdaining of are HAPPY in their long distance relationships and career-driven lives?

Oh - wait. Of course there is no other way of looking at this. How silly of me to suggest that this issue is not as black and white as you make it.

The interesting thing about this article stems from what's becoming a fairly bothersome pattern in our country. The article asks the question about whether or not we should engage in long distance relationships due to their environmental impact. My question is much simpler...Who's business is that really? If I decide to purchase an airplane ticket for a trip, isn't that pretty much my business ALONE? Truth is, I already know the answer to the question. My life, my purchase, and my environmental impact are completely my business. And that domain will never belong to anyone, especially not a journalist who pretty much gets paid by the word.

Too true. It's easy for people to take issues they care deeply about - environmentalism, in this case, but it's also seen in more others than I can count - and forget that some things are simply not anyone else's business. Most of the time there are good intentions: wanting to help protect our environment. But the way to do it is absolutely not to dictate romantic relationships and interfere in people's personal choices. I would never enter my neighbor's house and tell them to recycle, even though I believe it is right to recycle. So why does this writer think he can enter his readers' hearts and bedrooms and tell them who is an acceptable partner?

I'm not asking you to give up your loved one. I'm asking you to give up your feigned interest in saving the environment. What I'm saying is, if you have a long distance relationship it doesn't make sense to call your self an environmentalist or to call your self "green". It's hypocritical, as the author of the article points out. I'm not presenting myself as a shining example here, not at all. I just think people need to be a little more up front about what they do. It's like we're all environmental catholics or something. We're in total denial about the real environmental sins that we commit, yet we're really interested in making up for the small ones.

As for the acceptable partner thing, I'm not in any way telling you to break up with your long distance lover. I'm telling you to make having your long distance lover become a close distance lover a top priority. Life is to short to let some crummy job or graduate program come between you and your partner. I think modern life encourages people to think that their own personal advancement should take precedent over everything else. I'm saying forget about that promotion if it means splitting up your relationship. Just like I don't think you should have to work a job with an hour commute, I don't think you should have to commute to see your partner. But don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about the short-term long distance relationship. That's not what the author was talking about either. I'm reffering to the long-distance relationships that stay long distance for years and years. After awhile, I think you should ask yourself why you haven't taken that step to move close together.

As for traveling to see your parents. Of course people do this. Is it environmentally friendly? Of course it's not. Do we do it? Yes. But maybe we shouldn't. That's all I'm saying.

...Once again, I have to ask: which is it? Do we make our loved ones a priority, or not? Do we travel to see them, or not? Because you're saying that yes, they should be a priority but no we shouldn't go see them. So how do you reconcile this?

And I think really what the problem is, that you're judging others without sufficient knowledge of their circumstances. Sure - life is too short to let a crummy job or graduate program come between two lovers. But often it's not a crummy job - it's an ideal one. It's a job that someone loves. You seem to see a job or school as a "modern push toward personal advancement" - I see my job and my school as essential and wonderful parts of my life. What I'm trying to point out is that a lot of people are not driven by such base motives as you assign them. It's condenscending to urge long-distance relationships to ask themselves why they haven't moved closer together. You think they haven't asked themselves that? Of course they have, and often there are very valid reasons for it.

As for the argument that people who regularly fly to visit their partner are hypocrites, once again I have to point out that you don't know the lives of these people. Those airplanes are going to fly whether or not one long-distance lover is on them. The entire carbon footprint of one flight is not carried by a single passenger - therefore, I fail to see how flying once a month, ( and usually it's not possible to visit that often, depending on the distance ) makes an environmentalist a hypocrite. In fact, I'd like to see facts on just how much damage to the environment one person on an airplane that would fly with out without them actually does. I find it hard to believe that it's enough to entirely erase every other eco-friendly action that person has done. Perhaps our hypothetical flier doesn't own a car, and walks to work. Perhaps our hypothetical flier has their house powered through solar power. You just don't know.

Stop judging people you know nothing about, and stop labeling people as hypocrites. Not only is it rude and misguided, but instead of trying to insult the people working, in whatever ways they can, to help our environment, it's much more productive to encourage people to do what they can, when they can, no matter the size of the contribution. Little steps are all we're going to get out of some people, and frankly it's better for the environment to get that little than alientating people by calling them hypocrites.

I think you are being willfully daft, because I addressed most of your objections, and you still don't get it. I thought I made it clear that I think people should make their relationships a priority BY moving closer to their partner. Duh.

I don't think any job, no matter how great it is, should be more important than your partner. That's my opinion. Obviously, it is not a popularly held belief. I have what I think is a great job, but I wouldn't put it before my parter. If I wanted to move for a job, there would have to be a compromise between us. Either, I would look for a similarly great job in town, or if he was willing, we would move together. I think that if you're with someone for a long time, like five years +, you should be at a point where making a few compromises about where you work is on the table.

I'm not saying that being in a long distance relationship is inherently hypocritical, and neither was the author for that matter. I'm saying that if you are a self-proclaimed environmentalist who works a green job, or heckles your office mates about recycling AND you fly regularly to see your S.O., YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE. That's common sense. And NO I don't think small changes do a lot of good. That's what people have been saying for years and years and years. Small changes don't do shit. They eliminate 90% of people's guilt and represent about 1% of the positive change that needs to happen in the world.

Oh, and YES every additional flier on a plane DOES increase the carbon use on that vehicle. So your wrong about that. I have an uncle who is a pilot, and he has confirmed that fact for me.

I don't think that I'm going out on a limb here by calling these people hypocrites. Most people are hypocritical about environmentalism, I just think we should be honest about. Your Prius doesn't make up for your world travel. That sucks, but it's true! I like travel, but I'm going to be honest with myself about what it does to the environment. Pull your head out of your ass.

A Boeing 747-400 weighs about 393,000 pounds, so the additional rider probably doesn't add too much carbon. However, more riders puts pressure on the airlines to fly more planes.

I agree that there is a lot of confusing around "long distance relationship". Many college friends stayed with their high school sweeties despite the distance that came between them. They were miserable and they eventually broke up. My situation is that I have been in a relationship for three years and my company was purchased by a company in California. Should I break up? Should I become unemployed (it's a great time for unemployment)? Some of my coworkers have wives who are stuck in Washington (State, the other one is really called D.C.) for the foreseeable future. What should they do?

I agree that locality is important, but most people in long-distance relationships believe the long-distance part to be temporary. I'm certainly not going to be living two states away for more than a year, but for right now I have a job and my girlfriend is in school in Seattle. I have to decide between breaking up and hanging my head in shame?

I admit that my carbon footprint should not be just my personal business as it affects everyone, but politically it is. And that's why we are being relocated down to the bay in the first place. Maybe in some cases the problem is more with the system than an individual's choices?

aliemck:

We can't change the fact that we go to different colleges; we just have to accept it and wait until we have an opportunity to live closer together.

Um, yes you can. You choose not to, for whatever reasons.

BTW I don't care if you fly once a year or once a week. But if you complain about anyone else's carbon footprint, and fly at all, you're a hypocrite.

So it's green for a New York governor (Albany) to pay for prostitutes in NYC which is around 150 miles away? Yes, I'm sure he used mass transit to make those visits.

anotion:

So it's green for a New York governor (Albany) to pay for prostitutes in NYC which is around 150 miles away? Yes, I'm sure he used mass transit to make those visits.

Yes, that's exactly what I said. Very good.

but by saying anyone in a long distance relationship has no right to consider themselves an enviromentalist, you're also saying that LDR participants should give up any efforts they do make to help the environment. It all seems rather counter-productive to me. And that attitude also makes environmentalism seem like a trivial fad, something you only do to be special. Its like someone who supports a local band, but gets offended when that band gains popularity, and calls all other fans of said band "posers". If you really supported that band, wouldn't you be happy that they were becoming successful, and not just concerned that you are no longer "special"?