Take a good look at the picture. That's New Orleans in Katrina's aftermath. Pretty soon, this could be a permanent state of affairs in the Big Easy, and you'll find people paddling to work in canoes and gondolas, like Venice.

That's because New Orleans is one of the 5 places which are most threatened by global warming. The other four doomed places being the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, Rocky Mountain National Park at Estes Park in Colorado, Alpine Glaciers in Switzerland, and Amazon rain forest in Brazil.

I think now you realize how dangerously close we are to becoming a ruined era. One tsunami killed 240,000 people in 11 countries in a single day, in a matter of hours, on 26th Dec 2004.

What do you think would happen if the sea level rose, and there was to be another tsunami after that? Think of an earthquake in the Pacific triggering a giant wave which swamps the whole of Southern California. Everybody still remaining in Los Angeles and San Diego would be dead within an hour. Entire countries could get wiped out. The above ground inhabitable portion on the earth would shrink dramatically.

Right. Now that I have your attention, let me add that it doesn't have to be this way. The hub request was for 'green choices for travel'. So listed below you'll find these choices. If you take the choices, we can all enjoy Mardi Gras in New Orleans and walking your dogs on the warm sandy beaches in San Diego and Los Angeles for a much longer period. If you don't, well... find a place to live high up on a mountain, and buy a boat so you can commute to work.

Eco-friendly travel (or sustainable tourism or green travel or whatever you want to call it...) has a few basic components - destination, the mode of travel (air, road, rail, water), lodging, food and activities. Tick off each item, and when you're sure each of them is green enough for you, you got yourself a green vacation. Let's consider each of them, one by one.

Destination - What's a green destination? It's a place where the local government (city, state, country) take great pains to make sure everything is as green as can be, and your arrival as a tourist does not in any way harm the environment. Here's a good article on how to choose an environmentally friendly destination.

Mode of travel - This is actually the most important part which will decide whether or not your travel is green. Taking a roadtrip? Use a hybrid vehicle to reduce energy usage and carbon pollution.

Going by rail is probably the most effective way to ensure a green trip, but the downside is that long distance trips by rail are not really feasible within a short timeframe, like for weekend getaways.

If you're planning to fly or take a cruise, first thing you need to do is work out how much carbon will be consumed on your behalf. You'll find plenty of carbon consumption calculators on the internet to help you do the math. Then you buy the equivalent carbon credits, which effectively reduces your travel carbon footprint to zero.

Some airlines are offering tickets with the price of the carbon credits factored in, and you can also buy the credits at some airports like SFO in San Francisco. When you book an airline ticket, call up the airline and ask them about it, and you'll find an easy way to reduce your flight carbon consumption to squat.

Lodging - Finding a green hotel to stay in at a destination of your choice is probably the most difficult part of the whole treehugging tourist routine. Plenty of hotels will claim to be environment friendly, but mostly, it's all just a marketing gimmick. The only true measure of a green hotel is LEED certification. And there's precious few hotels which have one - Around 14 (maybe a couple more have been added in the last few months), and about 450 odd who are in the process of getting the certiication. Photo by swanksalot via flickr (creative commons).

Lacking LEED certification, least you can do is find a lodging provider who has been certified by the local state or county as a 'green business'. Barring either of these, it's really very, very difficult to tell if the hotel is saying the truth when it claims to be eco-friendly. Installing a solar water heater and recycling garbage doesn't make you eco-friendly. Everything from the construction down to water usage, toileteries, furnishings and even keycards has to be (or can be) eco-friendly.

For example, the newly opened Bardessono Resort is a perfect example. The resort claims to be the greenest hotel in the United States, and has geothermal wells heating and cooling the place, among other things. The construction was a text-book example of how to build an eco-friendly hotel from scratch, and they're well on their way to dominating all the Napa hotels as the best new place to enjoy a truly green Wine Country getaway.

And that brings us to the last two aspects - Food and activities. This actually has more to with self-control and discipline, rather than any difficulty in finding the appropriate green tourism service providers.

If you really, really want to ensure that the food you eat is environment friendly (as in organic, local produce, etc.), then make preparations in advance. Book into a hotel suite or hostel which offers use of a kitchenette, if you can't find an organic restaurant.

As for the activities, well, it's not rocket science. You can enjoy the beach and any outdoors activities, like nature tours, hiking, biking and so on - so long as it doesn't require burning fuel and you don't go around throwing trash and beer cans around.

Most city and state CVB websites nowadays have listings of all the above mentioned things - green hotels, organic restaurants, eco-friendly activities, etc. So you might to check out the official tourism website of your destination and check out the offerings before you plan out your trip.

Being green - really green - is not as easy as it sounds or looks. but then, neither is watching a tsunami blow into your living room... Your choice.