Reduce Your Environmental Impact When Flying

"Fly me to the moon and let me play (swing) among the stars
Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars..." ~Bart Howard

Frank Sinatra brought the lyrics of "Fly me to the Moon" to life. It's one of those famous melodies in which mere mention instantly brings this air-bound tune to life.

You know how it goes...if you dream about it you'll recall the way the "Chairman of the Board" slurred words into personalized, memorable configurations masterfully paired with the sounds of saxophones, flutes, and drums in support of his elongated and punctuated crooning.

Much like Ol' Blue Eyes, you might not only sing about flying you might dream about flying as well...I do. While I'm dreaming, I imagine that I'm soaring through the night air lost somewhere between the moon and the stars, flying over my personal "Neverland" like Wendy, John and Michael from "Peter Pan."

When using Peter Pan's combination of "happy thoughts" and "fairy dust," apparently anyone can fly to Jupiter and Mars...even the unlikely duo of Amelia Earhart and Gene Simmons. Good thing, too. It seems that almost everyone, at some time or another, had wished they could fly.

Just look around — our popular cultural landscape is littered with references to flying. There are those who swear to have seen flying saucers, super-spiritual flying nuns, the super-brave who wind-sail, hang glide, bungee jump and skydive, super-limber fingers that fly across a piano's keyboard, the super-paranoid who fear flying altogether (and for those who have no apparent fear of anything — flying or otherwise — we have "the mile high club"), and the Super Heroes of Marvel and DC Comics that can also fly.

The paintings of Marc Chagall are also filled with images of folks flying, feeling lighter than air, soaring...literally...imagining human flight vividly like an uncertain swimmer doing the backstroke in mid-air or as a kite-tail waltzing in the wind — much like the vanished pilot Amelia Earhart and famed washed-up head-banger and lead rock-and-roller of the infamous band KISS, Gene Simmons.

Amelia and Gene share more than a coincidental date, August 25th. (They ironically also share music too...songwriter Jim Vallance wrote "Rock 'n Roll Hell" for Gene Simmons and "Amelia Earhart" for BTO — that's Bachman Turner Overdrive). What they also share is a passion for flying.

As "Queen of the Air" Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic (not once but twice!), was the number one female to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross and the first lady to fly nonstop from numerous destinations, breaking records all along the way. Feminist icon Amelia Earhart was a widely known international celebrity during her lifetime. Her bashful yet magnetic charm, courage, self-determined doggedness, composure and guts along with her disappearance have offered her lasting fame.

Bass guitarist and birthday-boy Gene Simmons led his rock band KISS to mega-stardom in the '70s and '80s with pyrotechnics, demonstrations of his overgenerously proportioned tongue, his audacious self-delusions, profusions of fake blood, wacky costumes, all that goofy makeup and of course — his never-ending inability to disappear. But it's his soaring aerial choreography and stage flying that firmly connects him to Amelia Earhart. With his license to be outrageous the charismatically repellent, persistently agitated and turbulently excitable (I'm imagining him "literally" breaking all of his own records) Simmons is — in my opinion — the Yin to Earhart's Yang. They're total opposites with a passion for flight.

We all live in the modern world and from time to time it's necessary to fly. It's an exciting and convenient way to travel, though not the eco-friendliest. Either "flying to the moon" or to some other destination, we can all reduce the amount of waste produced in-air by passing on anything served in disposable packaging. Instead, pack your own reusable container filled with a beverage of your choice (which you'll probably have to buy after you pass through security), some healthy snacks from home stashed away in even more reusable containers and then deposit and recycle your own trash once you've landed.

And to clean your reusable plastic storage containers, depending on the type of stain, scrub them using combinations of lemon juice, baking soda and white vinegar.

It's the little things, like avoiding overpackaged stuff, reusing and safely cleaning containers, considering travel alternatives, that will make a difference in the long run. It might not completely fix the problem, but if the 1,000,000 or so folks who visit this site monthly act on this eco-advice, there'd be less pollution and nonbiodegradable garbage to deal with.

Life is what we each do, bravely, every single day. Gene Simmons once said, "All I ever thought about was sex." (What? You were expecting some nugget of wisdom?) But it was Amelia Earhart who said, "You can act to change...the process is its own reward."