In the spring/summer “green” issue of Directions, the magazine found in rooms affiliated to the Berlin-based consortium Design Hotels, Claus Sendlinger, its chief executive and president, has written an introduction entitled “Beyond Green”. “Design Hotels would like to stress that its approach to this issue has always run deeper than just a PR hook,” he writes. “Living, travelling and working in a truly eco-conscious way requires concepts with staying power and earthbound innovations, not short-lived trends or quick fixes.”

All true enough, though it's an irony that some of the most energy-hungry hotels I've ever stayed in are members of this group. There may be arguments in favour of arctic air-conditioning in countries as hot as Oman, but The Chedi in Muscat chills its swimming pools to an optimum 28°C and lights its exquisite water gardens with flaming gas jets. The Setai in Miami has no truck with low-energy light bulbs or gadgetry and ferries its guests around in Range Rovers. It's not clear, therefore, how this new-found eco-consciousness is more “than just a PR hook”.

At a time when travel is being demonised as an enemy of the planet, one shouldn't knock hoteliers' efforts to clean up their acts and minimise their carbon footprints. But it's as well to be wary of the way some of their claims are greenwash. Starwood, Marriott and Hilton are among the big hotel chains to have instigated eco-initiatives that go beyond little notes asking you to hang up your towels if you don't want them laundered.

Such details can make a difference. The installation of low-energy light bulbs and key-card energy control systems that automatically cut off the electricity when a guest removes the card and leaves the room has enabled Rezidor, the owner of Radisson SAS and Park Inn, to cut consumption by 6 per cent. Kimpton's Hotel Triton in San Francisco has gone one better by installing motion sensors to reduce energy use. It has also reduced its water consumption by 25 per cent through filtration and other devices and it recycles 60 per cent of its waste.

Greener still are the hotels that power themselves. Francis Ford Coppola's Blancaneaux Lodge in Belize generates its own electricity from a dam in the Privassion river and, to keep demand down, there are no TVs, telephones or air con in its casitas. Yet nowhere does Blancaneaux trumpet its eco-credentials (perhaps it knows it would be setting itself up since, despite its practically carbon-neutral self-reliance, there is an air strip permitting Coppola to arrive via private jet). In Mexico, Hotelito Desconocido, a self-styled “ecoluxury resort” on the Pacific coast, has no electricity except the intermittent power generated by solar panels.

Anything that reduces energy use is to be applauded, though not all initiatives live up to their promise. Starwood's proposed “aloft” brand, Marriott's Renaissance Hotels and some Fairmont Hotels are introducing designated complimentary parking for hybrid cars. But a Lexus RX 400h has emissions of 192g/km – low for an SUV but a great deal higher than those of, say, a built-for-performance diesel-fuelled Mini Cooper D, which emits just 104g/km, the same incidentally as a hybrid Toyota Prius and fractionally more than a diesel VW Polo Bluemotion (102g/km) – so it's little more than a gesture.

Fairmont, “a firm advocate of sustainable energy”, does buy “Eco-Logo certified wind power” in order to offset emissions from 837 of its front-desk computers, among a raft of creditable eco-initiatives, mostly relating to power from renewables. But it is also one of the hotels behind Mayakoba, on Mexico's fragile Riviera Maya, which calls itself a place “where the perfect ecological balance between man and nature has been struck”, indeed “an eco-benchmark against which future developments will be judged” – despite having more than 400 air-conditioned rooms, five swimming pools and a golf course.

Even some genuinely noble green initiatives are there to distract from an occasionally greyer reality. “Sustainable is a key word for us,” says Sonu Shivdasani, owner of the Six Senses Spa, Evason Hideaway and Soneva brands as well as the impressively green Soneva Fushi in the Maldives (see interview on the following page), but whose next resort, Soneva Kiri, which opens on the Thai-Cambodian border next year, can paradoxically be reached most conveniently by private plane, to which end he has purchased a Cessna Grand Caravan. That said, emissions from all guests' flights are offset by the resort.

Which is just as well given that flying provokes more hostility than anything. Aircraft manufacturers are consequently trying to do their bit. Boeing's new 747-8 Intercontinental aircraft produces less than 75g of carbon dioxide per passenger km, equivalent to those of a new mid-range Ford Fiesta Duratec carrying two people. Airbus is claiming in its press campaign that its A380 “will use less fuel and produce less carbon dioxide per passenger than the largest passenger aircraft flying into Heathrow today”.

Airlines, too, are moving towards a greener way of thinking. Cathay Pacific has stripped the paint from its freighter aircraft to reduce weight and save fuel, while Virgin Atlantic is researching the introduction of “starting grids” from which planes can be towed to the runway in order to minimise the time the engines run prior to take off. Sir Richard Branson has pledged to invest $3bn over the next 10 years in renewable-energy initiatives.

All well and good, except that Virgin's proposed business-class-only service to New York from Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Milan, Paris and Zurich runs counter to this idealism. Branson has been quoted as saying that he may use Boeing 787 Dreamliners for this, an aircraft designed to accommodate up to 330 seats (and use 20 per cent less fuel than other aircraft of that size). Yet he would need to carry fewer than half this amount if the Virgin service is to compete with, say, Silverjet, whose 767s have been adapted to accommodate 100 (compared with 252 on a regular aircraft of that type). Perhaps those flatbeds aren't so comfortable after all.

But then Virgin is in the business of making money, not touchy-feely gestures. And, as Tourism Concern points out, 220m people rely on the travel industry for their livelihoods. I read Claus Sendlinger's editorial in Choupana Hills, a Design Hotel in Madeira that makes no special claim to greenness, though its light bulbs are low-energy, its toiletries come in recycled packaging and its decor involves products from the island: basalt and wickerwork from the nearby village of Camacha, one of the many local industries tangentially dependent on tourism.

On an island such as Madeira, tourism is, to quote the European Union's European Employment Service, “the regional economy's principal motor and greatest source of revenue”, even beyond its hotels. Without the tourists, Madeira's wine and embroidery industries would suffer, as would the island's 2,000 wicker weavers (it is tourists who mostly buy their work). This in turn would affect the landscape – another of the island's attractions – for there would be no industry left to steward the willows and eucalyptus, neither of which are indigenous and which would begin to encroach and in time destroy the Laurissilva forest that has been there more than 10,000 years.

Madeira's ancient landscape, together with its 550 species of beetle, merits mention by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species (1859). He not only noted that its flowers “resemble extinct tertiary flora” that had died out elsewhere in Europe but identified climate change as “the most effective of all checks ... in determining the average numbers of a species”, for “many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive”. At that time, the global population was less than one-quarter of the 6.6bn it is today, and less than one-sixth of the 9.2bn the United Nations estimates it will be by 2050. According to Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the global population is “increasing by around 78m people a year”. And this is surely – even if discomfiting politically – the real threat to the planet, not responsible tourism, which can benefit the environment by encouraging and supporting its protection.

So can staying home really save the world? It should go without saying that it's important to travel conscientiously, not profligately, and to hang up your towel, out of courtesy to the staff as much as anything. But the notion that we can reverse climate change by giving up holiday flights is as daft as the joke circulating around the time of the Heiligendamm G8 summit that, as President Bush understood it, an escalation in the cold war might help in the fight against global warming.

在隶属德国柏林Design Hotels酒店集团的房间里，我发现了《指南》（Directions）杂志的春夏合刊。该刊首席执行官兼董事长克劳斯?森德林格（Claus Sendlinger）写了一篇名为《超越绿色》（Beyond Green）的导言。文中他这样写道：“Design Hotels酒店想强调，酒店的一贯做法超越了公关宣传层面。”“真正用生态观念指导我们的日常生活、旅行和工作，也必定提倡持续和实事求是的创新观念，而不是心血来潮或者临时应景。”

事实确实如此。我曾住过的几个宾馆能源严重缺乏，而它们恰恰是这个集团的成员。这简直是一个莫大的讽刺！也许有人会说，阿曼这样炎热的国家使用寒如北极的空调，但阿曼首都马斯喀特的切蒂（Chedi）酒店却将游泳池降温到怡人的摄氏28度，用天然气喷枪为豪华的水上花园照明。迈阿密的Setai酒店没有低能耗照明灯或者其它小玩意的卡车，接送客人都用Range Rovers汽车。因此，这个新发现的生态意识究竟是怎样超越“公关手段”的，目前还不清楚。

酒店减耗，标榜绿色

眼下，旅行被妖魔化为地球的敌人，人们就不应批评酒店业者改过自新、将碳排放降至最少的措施了。但还是得小心，谨防他们的部分主张不过是在粉饰自己环保。在大型旅馆连锁集团中，喜达屋（Starwood）、万豪（Marriott）和希尔顿（Hilton）提出保护生态环境的倡议，倡议不再仅仅是“如毛巾无须洗涤，请挂起来”这样的简短提示。

这类细节可带来质的飞跃。安装低能耗照明灯和识别卡能源管理系统，旅客拿卡离开房间时房间就会自动断电。这些措施为Radisson SAS和Park Inn的所有者Rezidor节省了6%的能耗。Kimpton位于旧金山的Hotel Triton安装了运动传感器后，能源消耗大大降低了。利用过滤装置及其它装置用水量也减少了25%，废物回收率达60%。

实现能量自给的宾馆更环保。弗朗西斯?福特?科波拉（Francis Ford Coppola）的Blancaneaux酒店位于伯利兹，利用Privassion河上的水坝自己发电。为了降低消耗，客房内没有安装电视、电话或者空调。但Blancaneaux酒店从不夸耀自己的生态措施（也许它知道自己自此会树立一个榜样，虽然几乎完全可以实现碳中和，但还是有一条机场跑道，导演科波拉私人飞机在此降落）。墨西哥的Hotelito Desconocido饭店自称是太平洋海岸“生态奢华度假胜地”，除了太阳能电池板断断续续供电外，没有任何电力供应。

与降低能源消耗有关的一切举动都受到人们的欢迎，尽管这些行动并没有完全实现自己的承诺。喜达屋推荐的Aloft品牌酒店、万豪的Renaissance Hotels和部分Fairmont Hotels提出混合动力汽车可以免费泊车。可是雷克萨斯RX 400h款车排放达到192克／公里，比运动型多功能车少，但远高于高性能的Mini Cooper D柴油车款，后者排放仅104克／公里，丰田混合动力车Prius的排放量与它相同，但大众的柴油车款Polo BlueMotion稍高些（102克／公里）。因此可以说，这只不过是一种姿态而已。

Fairmont酒店是“可持续能源的坚定倡导者”，的确购买了“Eco-Logo认证风能”，以抵消837台前台电脑产生的排放，此外还有一系列可信的生态措施，基本上与可再生能源有关。但它只是Mayakoba后的酒店之一。Mayakoba位于脆弱的Riviera Maya，自称是“人和自然生态已达到最完美的平衡”之地，是“评价未来开发项目的生态标杆”——尽管拥有400多间带空调的客房、五个游泳池和一个高尔夫球场。

客机减排，支持环保

甚至一些真正高贵的绿色行动，也在使人分心，无视偶尔更加灰暗的现实。“可持续性是我们的关键词，”Sonu Shivdasani说，他拥有Six Senses Spa、Evason Hideaway和Soneva等几个品牌。他的另一个度假胜地Soneva Kiri，将于明年在泰国柬埔寨边境地区正式开放。他还专为该胜地购买了Cessna Grand Caravan型客机，游客可以乘专机极为方便地度假。真是自相矛盾。尽管如此，所有乘客班机的废气排放已被度假胜地所抵销。

鉴于空中飞行招致更多的敌意，这样还算不错。飞机制造公司因此在尽其所能。波音（Boeing）制造的新型747-8洲际飞机每位乘客每公里的排放减少了75克，相当于福特Fiesta Duratec中型汽车搭载两人的排放量。空中客车（Airbus）在其媒体宣传广告中宣称，其A380“比迄今飞抵希思罗机场体积最大的大型客机更省燃料，每位乘客二氧化碳排放量更小”。

航空公司也在逐渐接受绿色环保意识。国泰航空（Cathay Pacific）的货机也刮掉油漆，以便减轻重量，降低油耗。与此同时，维珍航空(Virgin Atlantic)正研究采取“起步排位”措施，在飞机起飞前被牵引至跑道，这样可减少发动机运转的时间。为提倡使用可再生能源，理查?布兰信爵士(Richard Branson)承诺，以后10年将向可再生能源投资30亿美元。

好倒是好，只可惜维珍航空提议的从纽约到阿姆斯特丹、法兰克福、伦敦、米兰、巴黎和苏黎士的商务舱专用服务，与其理想完全背道而驰。布兰信曾说可能为此使用波音787梦幻客机，该机设计载客量为330座（与其大小相当的其它飞机相比，燃料消耗可节省20%）。如果维珍航空服务与Silverjet竞争，他就需搭载不到一半的乘客。Silverjet的767客机已经过改装，容纳100人（同型普通飞机可容纳252人）。大概平板车确实不太舒服吧！

但维珍航空从事的是赚钱的营生，不是煽情的姿态。并且，正如Tourism Concern所指出的那样，全球有2.2亿人的生活离不开旅游业。我曾在Choupana Hills读过克劳斯?森德林格的一篇社评。Choupana Hills酒店是Design Hotels酒店在马德拉群岛的成员酒店，并没有刻意标榜绿色环保，尽管安装有低能耗照明灯，卫生用品使用的是再循环包装，装饰材料产品也都来自岛上：玄武岩制品和柳条制品来自附近的Camacha村。当地许多行业都多少要依赖旅游业。

按照欧盟欧洲雇用服务机构的说法，像马德拉群岛这样一些岛屿，旅游业是“地区经济的主要动力，最大的收入来源”，并不仅仅包括宾馆业。没有观光客，马德拉岛生产的葡萄酒和绣花行业必遭打击，该岛的2000名柳条制品编织人员也将受到严重影响（这是因为大部分游客都购买他们的产品）。反过来，这又会影响该岛景观——该岛的另一个旅游资源，因为这将会导致没有任何行业管理岛上的柳树和桉树，而这些柳树和桉树都不是土生土长的，将会蚕食该岛并随后会毁坏具有一万多年历史的Laurissilva森林。

人口激增是真正威胁

查尔斯?达尔文(Charles Darwin)的《物种的起源》(1859)一书曾提到马德拉岛的原始景观和550种甲虫。他不仅指出，它的花“类似已经灭绝的第三纪植物群”，欧洲其它地方再也难觅其踪了；还明确指出，气候变化“是决定物种平均数量的……最有效手段”，因为“繁衍的物种个体远多于幸存的物种个体”。那时全球人口不到今天全球66亿人口的四分之一，也不到联合国估计2050年全球92亿人口的六分之一。哥伦比亚大学地球研究院主任杰弗里?萨克斯(Jeffrey Sachs)称，全球人口正以“每年约7800万的速度增长”。这确实是地球面临的真正威胁，而不是负责任的旅游业，虽然这在政治上令人不安。旅游业可以通过鼓励和支持环境保护，从而推动环境保护的发展。

不出家门真的可以拯救世界吗？不言而喻，重要的是旅行时要有责任心，而不是挥霍浪费，挂起你的毛巾，无论是处于对员工的礼貌还是其他。但改变地球气候变化就要放弃假日航班的想法，就像在德国海利根丹姆举行的八国峰会期间流传的一个笑话一样可笑：在布什总统看来，冷战的逐步升级可能有利于对抗全球变暖的斗争。