Guest Post: Van from Speed River Journal
It’s time for another guest post! I believe we should hear from a range of different voices in the sustainability conversation: we have different perspectives, expertise and experiences and should learn from each other, working together to build a shared vision of the future. Fracturing into camps (locavores, vegans, off-the-gridders and the rest of us just trying to step a little more lightly and make sense of it all…) does us no favours at all. I want to build a community where all our voices are heard, and I could use a step down from my soap-box here and there. So if you’re interested in having your say, please drop me a line and come join the conversation.
Today’s post is from my friend Van, a keen naturalist with a background in environmental sciences. These days Van is a freelance journalist, poet and weaver based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Van writes beautifully about nature and the pursuit of sustainable living, drawing inspiration from his local environment and his personal sense of connection to place. He regards a river as metaphor for life and shares his words through his blog: Speed River Journal. I recommend heading over for a read.
I hope Van’s vision of the shape of things to come gives you food for thought and that the conversation keeps on growing.
***
We live in such a dynamic time I want to live long enough to see what happens to our civilization, but things probably will not play out that quickly.
We can address the shape of things to come from three different perspectives:
- We can deny global environments are being degraded and civilization is at risk of collapse.
- We can acknowledge the problem and try to fix what is broken,
- or try predicting what is likely to happen and prepare for it.
Most environmentalists fall into the second category. Environmental thinkers have likened people’s attitudes about climate change to the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, despair and acceptance. They assume when enough people reach acceptance, we can all buckle down and fix this dilemma. Unfortunately, in terms of grief, acceptance seldom involves saving what was lost. It means letting go, which scares most people. They do not want to talk about giving up the fight.
My mother died of breast cancer in February 2008 at the age of 74. She was able to enjoy most of the last six years after her diagnosis because she accepted her mortality. She undertook some treatment and was in remission for a brief period, but in the end she was less concerned with fighting the disease than with treating each day as a gift. Acceptance means being realistic about limited opportunities and making the most of them.
Faith in a cure for climate change is another form of denial, especially when it supports continued consumption of non-renewable resources. The system is limited and if we cannot control our urge to take more than we put back, it will enforce its own limits. Our biosphere has already changed irrevocably. We must face the mortality of our convenient, petroleum-based way of life. Technology cannot facilitate endless consumption, it can only give us useful tools for sustainable living.
We must believe the testimony of history. Civilizations collapsed, over and over again, whenever:
- too much power was held by the elite,
- food production could not support expanding population,
- environmental degradation threatened food security, and
- wars erupted over scarce resources.
History also offers a prognosis: civilization will fail but people will survive. We probably will not see and apocalyptic disaster, but a gradual dwindling of population and prosperity. We should focus our ingenuity on this likelihood of survival.
I can hardly begin to understand or address what our strategy should be. Here are some principles I believe we must follow:
- Communities are the best social units for solving people’s problems, so we must strengthen them.
- Establish and protect local food security and include everyone in its production.
- Restrict the power of corporations.
- Rely on sustainable energy sources.
- Make nature—both nurturing and brutal—more accessible to people.
- Build rich, biodiverse ecosystems everywhere.
- Look for ways to ease the transition to a simpler way of life.
- Seek satisfaction more in experiences than things.
- Let us all find work that contributes to the community and makes us happy.
- Enjoy every day.
Let us begin the conversation.
On fish and uncertainty: more musings on the Margiris
The lovely Pauline Mak recently requested that I discuss the science behind my opposition to the FV Margiris “super-trawler” in a little more detail. Specifically, she quite rightly asked me to explain why I felt the quota was unsustainable given that respected fisheries scientists like Professor Colin Buxton and Dr Bob Kearney have spoken out in defence of the quota. If I’m going to cite my science degree to claim an informed perspective on the super-trawler issue I really ought to be backing it up with facts!
> You can read my original entry here.
First off, let me clarify that I am not a fisheries scientist. I’m an aquatic ecologist who specialised in freshwater systems and integrative ecology. Once upon a dim, dark undergraduate past I studied fisheries science before deciding that messing about in rivers was much more my thing. Fish ecology and aquatic ecosystems are, however, things I’m passionate about and I’d like to think I’m reasonably well-informed. Plus being a systems/integrative ecologist I’m trained to think in terms ecological interactions and broader ecosystem changes, which I think is relevant to the Margiris case.
So let’s get into it, shall we?
The quota currently set for the Margiris is 18 000 tonnes, or 7.5 % of the total estimated population of jack mackerel and redbait. Is this sustainable? My honest answer is: possibly.
7.5 % is a very conservative quota. For many fisheries a quota around 10 to 15 % is considered sustainable, and for some quickly reproducing species in productive waters, takes of up to 30 % may be managed. The species to be targeted – jack mackerel and redbait – are fairly short-lived species that do breed quickly and have bounced back from previous fishery activity, suggesting the populations are fairly resilient. On the face of things, 7.5 % seems ok, but when I think about it a little more, concerns start to surface.
The first big worry is where the stock estimates come from. Some of the data used to set the fishery quota dates back to studies done in 2002-2004. Normally, the age of the data would not be a concern since there has been no commercial fishing activity in that time, thus no reason for fish numbers to have decreased. Normally: we’ve never really had to think about the impacts of climate change on fish populations before.
Recent CSIRO studies have revealed that fish populations in southern Australian waters are changing in response to climate change, and changing faster than predicted. The ranges of temperate species like jack mackerel and redbait are shrinking. On top of this, tropical species are shifting further south and no one knows yet how the changing species interactions are impacting on predator-prey relationships and marine food webs. Given this environment of rapid, unpredictable change, 8-year old data doesn’t really seem good enough.
Is 7.5 % of an estimated fish population sustainable, in light of the impacts of climate change on ocean ecosystems? Uncertain! We simply don’t have the data or ecological knowledge to say for certain, one way or another. Throw in the uncertainties around local fish depletion, the amount and species of by-catch and potential issues regulating the vessel and you start to understand why some scientists are concerned. Sure, the Margiris is unlikely to cause a catastrophic fishery crash but there’s enough uncertainty there to be questioning if the quota poses an acceptable risk.
So what is an acceptable risk? It all comes down to error: Type I or Type II.
We have 2 potential outcomes: the null hypothesis, that the quota is sustainable, and the alternative hypothesis, that the quota is not sustainable. The fisheries science to date suggests that the null hypothesis is correct, but there is a concerning level of uncertainty around that data. What are the consequences if we’re wrong?
| Null hypothesis is true:
Margiris quota is sustainable |
Null hypothesis is false:
Margiris quota is unsustainable |
|
| Reject null hypothesis:
Stop the trawler |
Type 1 error:
Fishery could have sustained quota but remains unfished |
True positive:
Fishery unsustainable and trawler stopped |
| Accept null hypothesis:
Allow the trawler |
True negative:
Fishery sustainable and successfully fished |
Type II error:
Fishery exploited beyond sustainable yields |
So, if my concerns are false but the trawler is stopped or the quota reduced, a Type I error has occurred, but the consequences of that error are pretty minor. SeaFish Tasmania loses some money, AFMA (www.afma.gov.au ) loses a contract and the Margiris’s European owners lose a potential market selling the catch to Africa. Forty theoretical Tasmanian jobs disappear.
If my concerns are true and the trawler fishery goes ahead as planned, a Type II error has occurred. The consequences here are a little uncertain but potentially much more serious. We could see local fish stock depletion, changes in marine food webs, loss of local predatory fish species, changes in fish communities and impacts on local fisheries. We could see jack mackerel and redbait numbers crash, with unknown ecosystem consequences. It’s not certain to happen. It may not even be likely to happen, but the uncertainty is high enough that I believe it’s a significant risk.
I don’t believe we’ll see an orange roughy scale disaster with the Margiris, but I do believe there are serious risks related to her operations and quota and think we should apply a precautionary approach. Personally, I’d like to see the quota lowered to 5 % with monitoring of fish populations over next 3 years to:
- Confirm stock estimates, including identifying any evidence of shifts in response to climate change;
- Confirm no evidence of localised depletion or loss of genetic diversity; and
- Confirm no resultant shifts in predator populations.
When I take into consideration my other concerns about the Margiris – that she and ships like her have been implicated in fishery collapse in European and African waters, that she is a vector for the spread of marine diseases and invasive species, and that the industrial nature of her operations means she’ll only provide employment for 40 locals – I believe the risks outweigh any potential benefits. Add to that the environmental impact of sending a ship from Europe to operate in Australia for fish to sell in Africa and it doesn’t look sustainable at all; environmentally, socially, financially or ethically.
This is why I still say no. Pauline, I hope this answers your questions!
Fishy business – untangling the super-trawler debate
In theory I’m still on sabbatical and this blog should be dormant, but I just can’t help myself. I have to climb on my soap-box and open my big aquatic scientist mouth.
So what’s got me worked up enough to break my self-imposed silence? The imminent arrival of the FV Margiris, the world’s second-largest trawler, currently on its way to Tasmania to take up a licence for fishing jack mackerel (Trachurus declivis & Trachurus symmetricus) & and redbait (Emmelichthys nitidus).
There’s been a lot of noise in the media about this “super-trawler”, reflecting a lot of unhappiness in the community at large. Despite the promise of much-needed jobs in northern Tasmania, the local community is strongly opposed to the Margiris’s arrival, fearing devastating impacts on local fish stocks and the long-term sustainability of the local fishery. It’s not often you see environmentalists and fisher-folk standing arm-in-arm in Australia (just look at the debate over marine reserves), but right now common concerns are bridging the historical divide.
The 142 m long ship can process over 250 tonnes of fish per day, towing a 300 m net through the water. It’s a pelagic trawler, which means the net doesn’t scrape the bottom, but rather scoops through open waters, funnelling fish and other marine animals through its 2 800 m2 mouth. The operators, Seafish Tasmania, claim the trawl net is fitted with proven marine mammal exclusion devices and that by-catch is minimised. I can only hope they’re right.
The Margiris holds a licence for an 18 000 tonne* quota of jack mackerel and redbait to be fished over the Australian Small Pelagic Fishery Area. How many fish is this? Given rough estimate of 1 kg per fish (based on size to weight ratios), that’s 18 000 000 fish per year!
Opponents are worried about both whole-of-fishery and local-scale stock depletion: that the Margiris will take more fish than the ocean can sustain. The quota has been set by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, in theory based on sound science, but there’s no great surprise that the community is sceptical. AFMA doesn’t have the best track record in accurately estimating sustainable yields and no-one in Tasmania has forgotten the near-extinction of the orange roughy, so let’s take a look at the science behind the Margiris’s quota: AFMA admits that the data used to calculate sustainable catch levels is 8 years old. Given the age of the data and the fact that it wasn’t collected for quota-determination purposes, it’s fair to question the reliability of the data. AFMA claims to have taken this uncertainty into account by setting the quota at the most conservative level of for sustainability derived from the data set. But is this good enough?
The truth is we can’t honestly model the impacts of fishing at this scale on the ecosystem. Modern science simply doesn’t have enough information or understanding of the complex factors and interactions involved in moderating marine ecosystems. There are incredibly complex food webs involved, a lack of information on fish movements, genetic exchange and breeding patterns, and huge gaps of our understanding of the impacts of weather and climate on breeding and survival rates. Fish stocks vary in response to many factors including climate cycles (El Niño versus La Niña years), water quality and chemistry, terrestrial run-off, predator pressure, habitat quantity, quality and connectivity and a multitude of other factors. The inter-relationships and feedback loops between these factors are complex and poorly understood. To add to the uncertainty, eight years is a long time in fishery population terms and we have no information on recruitment rates since the data was collected. Much could have changed in that period of time.
Add to that the impacts of a changing climate. Ocean temperatures and currents are changing and no research has been done on the impact of these changes on redbait & jack mackerel stocks. The climate will continue to change and we have no way of accurately predicting the future impacts of these changes on our fisheries. Given the high level of uncertainty, taking the lower yield estimate from eight-year-old data can hardly be called the conservative approach! To truly apply the precautionary principle I think it would be fair to initially harvest half the current quota, and to put in place a monitoring program to verify the impacts on the fishery over several generations and recruitment events.
Word is, however, that reducing the Margiris’s quota would make the venture financially unviable. So we have a fishery that’s only marginally profitable – given a pretty liberal estimate of fish stocks and a large quota – in an area with strong community opposition and significant concerns over local environmental, social and economic impacts. That really doesn’t sound like a sustainable business to me!
I don’t think the Margiris belongs in Australian waters under its planned operational regime, and I’d question the viability of super-trawler fishery operations anywhere on this watery planet. We already have a sad legacy of collapsed fisheries around the world; please don’t risk plundering our waters for short-term profits and a lack of rigorous science.
For balanced, fact-based information about the super-trawler debate, check out the following references and make up your own mind:
- ABC 7:30 Report investigation
- ABC Background Briefing coverage
- Seafish Tasmania FAQ page
- Australian Fisheries Management Authority Margiris FAQ page
- Department of Environment & Heritage: Australian small pelagic fishery report
- Australian Small Pelagic Fishery Management Plan (2009)
If, like me, you still think the Margiris is a bad idea, add your voice to the protest over at stopthetrawler.net
The biodiverse gardener
Over the weekend I spent a bit of time in the garden, weeding, composting and mulching. I’m preparing beds for the month ahead, keeping myself motivated through the hard graft (the gardens here are seriously neglected) by daydreaming about the harvests to come. As well as thinking about what will do well in my garden and what I like to eat I’ve been giving a bit of thought to biological and genetic diversity and wondering how my plantings might help to keep rare species and varieties alive.
So what’s the problem with food crop diversity? The limited types of plants we grow, and the few varieties (genetic strains) of those plants we do sow.
Modern agriculture promotes the growing of only a small sub-sample of possible food plants. The plants grown have been selected over the years for various reasons, including high yields, easy harvesting, long shelf-life, market familiarity and easy processing. As western industrial systems of agriculture have expanded across the world, western crops have moved with them, replacing traditional food plants. We’ve lost awareness of many alternative food plants along with the knowledge of how best to grow them, and along the way we’ve lost access to many of the food plants best suited to growing conditions in many parts of the world, and to the conditions predicted in a climate-change impacted future.
As farming has industrialised we’ve also become reliant on a small handful of the known varieties of the plants that have become our dominant crops. Where a century ago there were 400 known varieties of peas in cultivation, now there’s only 25 that are commonly grown and most of the original 400 have gone extinct. Although it might not seem important – after all we still have peas – this loss of genetic diversity is really quite worrying: genetic diversity is the thing that lets us adapt crops to changing conditions, environments and diseases.[1, 2] If we lose the genes, we lose the means to adapt our food plants to new growing conditions. This is a huge concern for food security[1], putting our agricultural systems at risk of collapse due to drought, climate change, plant diseases and even global politics[2] – agribusiness is big business.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that 75% of crop biodiversity has been lost from the world’s fields[3] – that’s how big the problem is. Some governments and science organisations are so concerned that they’ve established a secure seed bank to preserve rare seeds as best as possible, behind steel doors in a vault built into a mountain beneath the permafrost in the Arctic circle.[1, 3, 4]
Although it’s not only the lost biodiversity that’s the problem – there’s related issues about fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide use [5], as well as lost potential medicinal and biotechnological properties[6], farming knowledge and cultural traditions – it’s the part that I can do a little something about in my own back yard*. I can plant unusual crops and rare varieties of veggies in my little patch, preserving diversity when I collect seed for the next year and expanding my culinary world at the same time. I’ve taken my day-dreams of fresh greens and home-grown spuds and checked them against growing guides and seed catalogues, getting an idea of what plants and varieties will do well on my fine, claggy soil (I could spend hours looking through seed catalogues, dreaming of gardens that will never be…). I’m choosing for suitability, flavour and biodiversity, tracking down suppliers of unusual, heirloom and organic seeds. There’s a world of weird veg out there that I can’t wait to explore!
Backyard-friendly unusual veggies that I’m contemplating growing include salsify, skirret, salad burnet, oca, mizuna and elephant garlic. I’m also planning to plant unusual varieties of more familiar crops:
- blue sapphire potatoes - seriously, purple spuds that are tasty too – What’s not to love?
- Chioggia beetroot - it’s stripey!
- purple sprouting broccoli - I grew this last year and am hooked
- “Caspar” white eggplants – early harvesting, so hopefully I’ll have better luck than I did last summer.
…and whatever else I come across that’s just a little different.
I’ll find out what works, save seed from the successes and grow them again next season, slowly selecting the genes that do best right here, creating a garden with a genetic profile that’s all it’s own.
What usual food plants or rare varieties are your favourites? What’s the weirdest edible you’ve ever grown? Know any good sources for heirloom seeds or kooky seedlings? Let us know what makes your garden a little more biodiverse!
Sources for seeds or unusual seedlings (Australia):
- www.greenharvest.com.au
- www.southernharvest.com.au
- www.thelostseed.com.au
- www.edenseeds.com.au
- provenancegrowers.blogspot.com.au
In Tasmania and interested in food security? Public lecture: Food Security and Nutrition – The GM Question
- Who? former Chief Scientist of Australia and CSIRO Fellow, Dr Jim Peacock AC
- Where? Stanley Burbury Theatre, University Centre, Sandy Bay campus
- When? 10th July 2012, 6.00 – 7.30 pm
- How? RSVP by email to UTAS.Events@utas.edu.au
References:
[1] http://www.croptrust.org.
[2] Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (2010) Crop biodiversity: use it or lose it.
[3] Longyearbyen (2012) Banking against Doomsday; The Economist, March 10th, 2012.
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault.
[5] Altieri MA (1999) The ecological role of biodiversity in agroecosystems; Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 74, Pp 19–31; Elsevier.
[6] Altieri MA & Merrick LC (1986) Agroecology and in situ conservation of native crop diversity in the third world; Chapter 41 in Wilson EO (1986) Biodiversity, Part 3; National Academy of Sciences, Smithsonian Institution, USA.
* I can also do something about it through my grocery shopping, steering clear of the supermarkets for my produce, buying meat from rare-breed livestock and selecting unusual veg from the farmer’s market and local grocer.
Shivering my timbers
Wood heaters, eh?
In the month I’ve been living here in the Cottage I’ve developed a complicated relationship with mine.
I’ve learnt, now, how to get a decent blaze going with minimal fuss and there’s little nicer than curling up in front of a toasty fire on a cold night, glass of red in hand. The heat it produces is lovely, and when it’s working properly I can set it before bed and the house will stay toasty warm all night. Poking and prodding the fire into cooperation is fun and it’s immensely satisfying to get a good burn going on a cold night.
It’s less fun, however, on nights like tonight when the weather’s foul and I work late, and at 9 pm it’s still a little chilly even with the fire going. It’s been raining all day so the firewood is damp and the baffle plate on the flue has bent (yet again), jamming the flue wide open and significantly reducing the efficiency of my burn and heat transfer.
Heh, a month ago I had no idea what a baffle plate was, let alone what it did. I’d not spared much thought to wood moisture content or burn efficiency, and I’d never considered the price of firewood by the tonne (between $150 and $200, for the curious).
I still feel a little guilty about lighting the fire. In a State where my power is hydro-electric (not exactly environmentally benevolent, but a darn sight better than coal), lighting the fire is both less efficient (in terms of energy cost by yield) and generates a lot more emissions (CO2 and particulate emissions) than using electric heating.
On top of that, the wood I’m burning has to come from somewhere. The current fuel for my fire comes from a beautiful old eucalypt tree that had to be felled over at the House of the Gumtrees (mmm, free firewood!), however my ex-landlord only let me take what I could fit in my Corolla (a surprisingly large amount when you’re determined…) and I’m about to run out. Firewood sales in Tasmania are unregulated, with many sellers setting up trucks on the roadside with cheap loads for sale. Problem is you don’t know where that wood has come from or what condition it’s in:
- Is is green, wet or rotten?
- Was it illegally taken from State Forests, National Parks or trespassing on private land?
- Were old hollowed trees felled that provide important habitat for wildlife (including several endangered species)?
And that’s without considering if it’s actually the tonnage they’re saying it is!
I know exactly where my last load of firewood came from (and how sad I was that such a beautiful old tree had to go)
There’s no hiding from the truth: the wood heater is not an environmentally friendly way to heat my home! It’s what I’ve got, however, so it’s up to me to make the best of it.
I’ve been researching wood heaters and firewood recently and I’ve learnt that:
- The moisture content of your timber needs to be below 25% for an efficient burn.
- Burning green or wet timber increases particulate emissions (as well as being much less efficient).
- Even stored under cover, firewood has an amazing capacity to absorb moisture on rainy days.
- Burning pine needles is fun.
- Baffle plates significantly improve the heat exchange from your wood heater (and having it bend and jam open – again – is a bad thing. *sigh*).
- Burning old painted fence posts is an environmental no-no, no matter how much free timber it is or how much your lovely new neighbours assure you it’ll be ok.
- Accidentally throwing in an envelope with a plastic window results in noxious fumes: don’t do it.
- You can’t add the ash and charcoal to your compost, but a small amount mixed with other things is ok in mulch.
- There’s no regulation of the firewood industry in Australia, and there are a lot of dodgy vendors in Hobart (if the internet is to be believed)
- There is a voluntary industry code of practice that sets out standards that wood will be sustainably harvested, in accordance with all laws and protective orders, stored correctly and sold with moisture contents below 25%, with weighbridge tickets provided.
- There is one supplier in the whole of Tasmania who is signatory to the voluntary code, and they’ll deliver to my suburb.
- The cold metal of my bed frame is very nice to rest my blistered skin on when I inevitably burn myself on the wood heater door/frame/handle
- So. Many. Splinters.
So, after a little research and environmental guilt I’ve come to the following positions:
- The wood heater only gets lit if (1) the temperature is below 10oC and (2) I’m going to be home all night (no fire on taiko training nights!)
- Use discarded newspaper from work and household waste (loo rolls, paperwork from the last lease, letters from politicians) to get the fire started
- Pay the extra to buy firewood from the lone code signatory supplier; it’s not that much more than other suppliers and I know it’s as ethically sound as I’m going to get.
- Keep my garden prunings to burn next winter: at least the damn invasive vine I cut down will be useful!
- When the fire’s lit, actively enjoy it.
Hence I’m writing this sitting on my couch, watching the flames over the top of my monitor instead of working with the lap-top docked in the study. If I’m going to commit environmental crimes in the name of keeping warm I may as well keep the most of it, and once Winter properly arrives and the fire is going during the day on weekends I intend to try my hand at cooking on the coals. I’m thinking coal-roasted foil-wrapped eggplant (that’s aubergine for the northern-hemispherians) is going to be a beautiful thing. Baba ganoush for all!
This weekend I’m going to buy my first load of firewood and spend far too much time hauling and stacking the stuff in the little space under the house, and I’ll be talking to my landlord about getting that warped baffle plate replaced this time instead of another attempt at repair. Right now though I’m going to finish this post then put another piece of tree on the fire, sit back and watch the flames while I finish the glass of red that’s mysteriously appeared in front of me. 
I really want to be sure my future heating doesn’t come at the cost of protected forest or threatened wildlife.
Have you ever lived with a wood heater or fireplace? Got any firey tips for this recovered teenage pyromaniac?
Come sit with me and tell me all about it. There’s enough red wine to share and though my couch may be fat and bulky it’s pretty comfy.
xoxo
Thinking about travel
I’ve just returned from a short trip up to the southern Gold Coast to spend the Easter break with my family. It’s a trip I make about once a year to hug my parents, play with my niece and spend some quality time with the kind of old friends who have become family.
I missed out on a window seat this trip, so instead of spending the flight more-or-less glued to the window, watching the landscape unfolding below, I got to thinking about my travels in the context of sustainability
Easter sunset on the southern Gold Coast
Travel: it broadens the mind, feeds the soul and strengthens the bonds of family and friendship. What’s not to love about it? Well, environmentally-speaking not a lot!
Air travel is the single biggest contributor to my carbon footprint. This trip alone generated roughly 306 kg of CO2 (source: International Civil Aviation Organisation carbon offset calculator). I also make one or two trips to Melbourne each year to catch up with friends and to dip my toe back into the rushing current of modern life: a much-needed perspective check when you live in a beautiful but isolated backwater like Tasmania. That’s around 172 kg CO2 per trip.
This year I’m also heading off overseas for the first time in 6 years. I’m heading off to South America for a few weeks to experience new cultures and explore remarkable environments like Machu Picchu and the Atacama Desert. Getting there and back again? A whopping 1 994 kg of CO2!
For flights booked so far this year I’m clocking up a total of 2 563 kg of CO2 (and that’s without any business travel).
Losing myself in Melbourne’s marvellous alleyways
My annual carbon footprint without flights comes in at around 5 tonnes (source: CarbonFootprint.com), so my flights add another 50% to my impact, bumping it up to 7.6 tonnes CO2 p.a. – that’s not a good number. So flying is definitely bad from the carbon emissions perspective, putting a big black mark in the environmental component of my sustainability score. Does that mean I shouldn’t fly? What about all the benefits of my travels?
Living a sustainable life means making choices that also look after my mental and physical health, build strong social networks and interpersonal relationships and live a life that inspires, challenges and enriches me. Travel provides an excellent way to meet many of my personal objectives. My social and personal benefits of travel include:
- Maintaining family relationships
- Building and strengthening my friendships and support networks
- Growing my awareness and understanding of other cultures and ways of doing things
- Inspiring personal change and global thinking
- Learning from others and from the experiences travel provides
- Developing a greater appreciation of the world, its environments and cultures
These are all good things, for sure, but are they enough to balance out the environmental costs? Are there other ways I could gain the benefits of travel without the CO2 emissions? I really don’t know.
What I do know is that I enjoy travel and everything it brings, and that means I’m probably going to find ways to justify keeping on flying, but perhaps I can travel a little smarter…
Better ways to travel:
- Flying less often (and making more use of Skype)
- Choosing closer destinations and non-stop flights
- Travelling by bus or train where possible and reasonably practical
- Paying extra for airline carbon offsets – does this accomplish anything? Perhaps a blog topic for another day!
- Tying overseas trips to environmental or social volunteer work
How do you reconcile your ideals with your impacts? What are your ideas for managing the impacts of travel?
