Leaving on a Jet Plane

SSF's Style Ambassador on getting to see and be seen.

by Sean Schmidt

Leaving on a jet plane.
y name is Sean Schmidt, and I have something to confess: I jetset. There. I said it. I've seen all of the stats; I know it's the least environmentally-friendly way to travel. I know it takes about 10 gallons of crude oil to produce one gallon of jet fuel. I know it takes about 30 gallons of jet fuel to get me (not to mention the rest of the passengers) from Seattle, where I live, to Los Angeles, where I wanted to go. I know all of these things, and yet, I confess, I still jumped at the opportunity to climb aboard an airplane just four days after I bought a ticket with an invitation to the Collage Foundation's party in Los Angeles. So the fact that it was a pool party, to be held at a private home in the swanky Pacific Palisades, sponsored by Tanqueray Gin, and hosted by supermodel Angela Lindvall had a bit to do with it, but I'm still SSF's Style Ambassador, and I had to be there. Didn't I?

Well, maybe I didn't have to be there, but I really wanted to. After all, I was going to be boarding just one of the 30,000 flights completed in the United States that day; one flight wouldn't make much difference, would it? I wouldn't be the one spitting out over 200 volatile chemicals that have been found in the air around major airports, after all, and I didn't even have to confess to a real person to buy the tickets; just a few clicks and a credit card number later, I was on my way to L.A.

So I went, and I had a great time. Along with the requisite pretty faces and people they were paying to swim in the pool, (and believe me, they earned every dollar. Wow!) there were some established and new personal heroes of mine: Julia Butterfly Hill, Tai Robinson (of Hydrogen Hummer fame), Josh Tickell (biodiesel wonder boy), Mike Kortchinsky (founder of Wildlife Works) and

Jerry Cantrell, plugged into the power of the sun.
model/budding entomologist Summer Rayne Oakes. Amber Valetta, Bijou Phillips, Carmen Kass and Gisele Bundchen showed off their svelte summer bodies on the dance floor while Rick Rubin and Roman Coppola lounged poolside. Jared Leto, Michelle Hicks, Stephen Dorff and Jeremy Piven all hung out and listened to Jerry Cantrell (formerly of Alice in Chains) play a great acoustic set on a solar-powered amp. The green crowd was out, and I was there to help spread the word about SSF, but the real damage of my trip was only half-done.

As I boarded the plane home, I began to ask myself, "How can I justify my jetsetting ways while being a champion of sustainability and pro-Earth initiatives everywhere? And wasn't that guy with the beard on the flight down here? Is it really feasible to live in this world and be the SSF Style Ambassador and avoid airplanes all together? Isn't it just an indictment of our way of life and our society as a whole? Is there a dollar value or an environmental value that can be placed on being places and being able to be places in short amounts of time? Is there a reason everyone sitting around me is staring at me like I'm crazy? Oh right, I'm talking out loud..." But seriously, though it may be an indictment of our society and general way of life, and though it was an important trip for me to make, no one put a gun to my head and made me come to L.A. (though the pool party, Tanqueray and supermodels sure didn't hurt...). It's not realistic to not use air-travel to get where you need to go, especially when where you need to go is on the other end of the country. More than anything, it's just how things work, and until airplanes can fly on garbage instead of jet fuel, I will continue to be a slave of how things work. So what's next on my list? A two-week trip to Cuba to study sandhill cranes with Earthwatch, and I won't be taking a boat to get there...oh well. This has been a confession of a sustainable mind.

Sean Schmidt is Co-Founder and Style Ambassador for SSF, and the Founding Editor of SASS Magazine.

the archives:



Visit the archives, including the premiere edition of
SASS Magazine, featuring Loyalty Clothing, Venture Snowboards, San Francisco's Greenfestival, and so much more. Read about Hummer's "Big Race" commercial, and the shame of loving a despicable product, in the premiere edition's "Confessions of a Sustainable Mind."






travel tips:



If you're going to be leaving on a jet plane, check out Sustainable Travel International before you take off, for tips to help protect the environment that you visit.