When you get your scuba certification -- or at least when I got mine -- you had to learn to calculate your dive profile (how long you could stay underwater, at what depth and how long you had to stay on the surface before your next dive). Now, with the broad recognition of global warming, the first small strokes have been made to mitigate the impact of travel itself to dive destinations.
Sustainable Travel International (STI), a US-based non-profit, has introduced what is thought to be the world’s first custom carbon dive calculator that determines the carbon emission costs incurred from air travel and diving activities on a diving vacation. Beautiful Oceans, which runs what it calls "eco-dive trips," compensates on behalf of each guest by funding carbon offset projects. Like melting glaciers and fracturing ice shelves, coral reefs are bellwethers of climate change. Recreational divers and dive operators have observed, and coral reef scientists have confirmed, reef damage from rising ocean temperatures.
Scientists predict that a 2-degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature will cause 8 percemt of the reefs globally to bleach. Ironically, divers who travel to see these reefs contribute significant carbon dioxide to the problem, due to air travel, dive boats, desalinated water and even air-conditioned hotels. In addition to being a progressive dive-tour operator, Beautiful Oceans is a coral reef education organization. Now, it is attempting to neutralize the impact of its eco-dive vacations through carbon offsetting. This is a first in the dive travel industry -- and Beautiful Oceans is using the carbon calculator developed by STI and adapted by Ocean Frontiers.
It's been several years since I have been underwater, but I am thrilled that someone is doing something to keep those reefs colorful for the next time I take the plunge.
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