Cancun, carbon emissions for our trip from Toronto to Cancun

After much soul searching, Adriana decided that we should travel as far as possible by land. We originally intended to travel the whole way by land but the Canadian government issued a travel advisory to avoid crossing the US-Mexico border by land due to problems with Mexican drug cartels.

We decided to take the bus to Miami, fly from there to Cancun and back, and then the bus home. Subsequently we decided to return by train.

I didn't do the full calculations at the time but have done so now using calculators.

According to ICAO's calculator (http://www2.icao.int/en/carbonoffset/Pages/default.aspx)

2 passengers, flying round trip from TORONTO (YYZ) to CANCUN (CUN) ( 5,192 Km ), in Economy Class, generate about 863.97 Kg of CO2

and

2 passengers, flying round trip from MIAMI, FL (MIA) to CANCUN (CUN) ( 1,686 Km ), in Economy Class, generates about 406.45 Kg of CO2

For bus and train travel of 2000 km (we travelled about 3500 km) I used this calculator:

http://www.transportdirect.info/Web2/JourneyPlanning/JourneyEmissionsCom...

Train only 106.8 kg of CO2 per passenger (214 Kg for 2)
Coach only 60.0 kg of CO2 per passenger (120 Kg for 2)

Taking the bus to Miami and flight to Cancun would have generated 406.45 Kg for the flight and for about 3500 km by bus, an additional 210 Kg for a total of 620 Kg (rounding up)

Returning by train (as we have decided to do will add another 41 Kg to that ... assuming my calculations are correct. That makes it 660 Kg (approx).

Overall we saved 200 Kg of CO2 emissions ... was it worth it?

Addendum, 200 Kg is 23% of the emissions of a direct flight ... better than nothing.

I should add that the Mexican government has promoted the fact that this conference is carbon neutral because they calculated the total emissions generated by travel and by the conference itself and planted trees in a large area of Oaxaca state.