After the recent volcano chaos some hard-core environmentalists were wallowing in a lake of schadenfreude about our empty skies; they said that the world is a better place without all the noise and green house pollution caused by the wretched air planes. While they do have a point from an ecological perspective the fact remains that for the majority of us the whole thing was a huge inconvenience, not to mention extremely expensive.
What Swampy and his mates fail to see is that people still have to travel. That is simply the nature of the global economy we have created, this situation is unlikely to change quickly,in fact changing the way the world works isn’t going to happen over-night and people will not be persuaded out of their comfortable life-styles and into a Gee Whizz and caravan without a fight.
Some recent studies are tending to show that travelling over-land requires just as much energy as travelling above it. The idea that getting a train and a ferry is greener than flying may well be a fallacy. This was borne out only a few weeks ago by the BBC’s Tim Harford (AKA, The undercover Economist). Harford was stranded (by the ash cloud) in Stockholm, so he travelled back to the UK overland - predominantly by train. Harford calculated that the carbon footprint of his ferry/train/ taxi journey back to Calais was no less than it would have been had he flown direct into Heathrow.
Whichever way you skin it, and however badly spun the maths may have been, travelling long distances requires a lot of energy. If travelling over land is not always greener and is rarely more convenient than flying we have a real problem. The convenience of flying is a problem in itself as any attack on such hard won convenience always feels like an affront to personal freedom and a retrograde step. No one wants to give up flying, and there is some evidence that there may be little point; If you have to travel far you might as well fly.
But we still have a problem. The evidence for man-made climate change is incredibly strong. Too strong to be ignored. Doing nothing is simply not an option. There are many that argue the science is weak and too new to be conclusive. They may well be right. It is at least possible the climate change is not being caused by man, however it doesn't matter. What matters is that it might be us and it looks as though it probably is us. That is good news, seriously, it is good news that we are probably the cause of climate change. If we are causing it then we have a chance to reverse it, stop it, slow it or control it in some way. If we aren't causing it then we really are in trouble, lowlanders like me will have to grow webbed feet and start eating more fish, highlanders will need to stockpile the factor 50 and get used to living on a much smaller island.
So what can we do? Should we all change the world completely and all give up our freedom to travel? I think if the media and government continue to point the finger only at air travel and cars they are missing the elephant in the room. The fact remains that the very large majority of carbon emission caused in this country comes from our domestic dwellings and commercial buildings.
I think most of us would agree that we need to tackle domestic properties as a priority and look to greener power generation, Building Services engineers need to be making more of a song and dance about intelligent controls in buildings and people need to "get real" at home. The government seems to think that the market will drive this, but so far it hasn't, at least if it has the effect is small and slow.
There needs to be legislation forcing people to reduce their carbon footprint at home! The idea that we can have our cake and eat it is a delusion beyond any form of reason. Either that or we all need to see sense soon!
If you want to be able to fly to Corfu in the summer and you want to keep your car and the freedom it affords put a bloody jumper on when it’s a bit chilly and turn the fucking lights off in empty rooms! And here’s the thing; we will be forced to do this before long anyway. By getting in first we can lessen the argument for less air travel and perhaps hold off the need to all drive round like pricks in a Toyota Pious for a bit longer. Of course security of supply is the biggest issue where oil is concerned, but for the time being, let’s at least tackle the real cause of climate change and give us all a break from this anti travel bull shit. Just for now, please. A Jumper and some warm slippers. That’s all you need!
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